Civil rights lawyer Crump hosts television series on wrongful convictions
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Civil rights lawyer Benjamin Crump is hosting a TV series airing this month that chronicles the cases of four people exonerated after spending at least a decade in prison.
The series, Evidence of Innocence, airs Mondays in June on TV One, report the National Law Journal and the Tallahassee Democrat.
Crump interviews the wrongfully convicted defendants, while actors re-enact the cases. A former president of the National Bar Association, Crump founded a law firm with offices in Tallahassee, Florida, and Los Angeles.
Crump told the National Law Journal he hoped that the show will affect the hearts and minds of people who in the future may be sitting as jurors.
“The message is simple,” he said. “Don’t take what the police and prosecutors say, their narrative, as the gospel and disbelieve the poor people of color. You see in this show there are a lot of nefarious things being done by government officials who are convicting and incarcerating many people who are innocent—especially people of color.”
Crump represented the families of unarmed teens Trayvon Martin, killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer, and Michael Brown, killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri.
Crump will appear in a documentary about Martin produced by music mogul Jay-Z.
