The Northern California Innocence Project at Santa Clara University will be featured on a one hour special Dateline presentation of John Stoll’s case on Friday, October 22, 2004 on NBC. Keith Morrison interviewed several staff members in the Strong Commons on September 9 in preparation for the show.
For two years, students and staff at the Innocence Project, in collaboration with students and staff at the California Western School of Law, worked to exonerate John Stoll.
Mr. Stoll was convicted in 1985 of having molested six young boys in Bakersfield CA. Four of the six former child witnesses, now young men, came forward and said that they had never been molested, had always known that they had not been molested, and only testified that they had been because they felt forced to do so by law enforcement. One other said that he had no recollection of having been molested and the sixth said that he had no recollection of it, but believed that it happened.
The Innocence Project showed how the questioning techniques used by law enforcement had led to false testimony of the witnesses and resulted in a conviction based on unreliable testimony. After a lengthy hearing in Bakersfield, the court reversed Mr. Stoll’s convictions.
