Ireland has a long memory of innocent people being thrown in jail, including the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four. While these names may not mean much to the Irish youth of today, their stories crippled a nation and left people with a discomforting sense of injustice. We like to believe the same thing can’t happen again. However, David Langwallner and The Irish Innocence Project at Griffith College Dublin continue to expose the wrongful convictions of innocent people. There is something deeply unsettling about someone’s life being ripped from them for a crime they did not commit. Perhaps the most terrifying part is that anyone, anywhere, could find himself or herself in this position, and would have to seek the aid of an appeals attorney in order to have their convictions overturned. However, we trust the authorities in what we believe to be their pursuit of justice. Unfortunately, as Langwallner tells me, there is ample reason to doubt them.
We’re a nation obsessed with crime. The bloodier the better. It colours our discourse and frames our existence. We obsess over murders, rapes and disappearances. It composes almost the entirety of our media – everything from the Netflix smash hit Making a Murderer to RTÉ’s Prime Time. It disgusts us, yet we can’t look away. What is it that fuels our fascination with these gruesome crimes? I recall chatting to my friend’s mother last summer about the tragic events of Elaine O’Hara’s death in the same way one discusses the weather. Amongst all the chatter, we somehow forget that behind these stories are real lives.
However David Langwallner doesn’t forget. Langwallner is the founder and director of The Irish Innocence Project at Griffith College Dublin, a non-profit organisation that investigates the possible wrongful convictions of those who claim factual innocence. This means that the defendant claims they did not commit the crime, despite having been found guilty at trial. The Irish Innocence Project works with both law and journalism students from Griffith College and Trinity College Dublin. It is part of the global Innocence Network, which started in 1992 and has already freed 300 innocent people in the US.
There is an intensive vetting system and only a few cases get chosen. “We don’t believe born yesterday stories”, Langwallner assures me, adding, “We get all sorts. We don’t take manslaughter cases or stories saying ‘the cops had it in for me but I did it'”.
RTÉ producers sit him down before going on air to ensure he doesn’t say anything too controversial. He says this with a cheeky grin and a sparkle in his eye. We both know that Langwallner does not hold back
Langwallner is just the person to run The Irish Innocence Project. He holds a delicate balance between someone who is deeply thoughtful and someone who could easily command a room. Likewise, Langwallner is experienced yet fresh. Unlike others, this experience has not corrupted his sense of justice. He quips, “experience is an overvalued commodity”. Langwallner is a law graduate of Trinity College Dublin, Harvard Law School and the London School of Economics. He is also the Dean of Griffith College Law School and lecturer in Constitutional Law and Jurisprudence at The King’s Inns. He is a frequent commentator on television and radio, speaking about miscarriages of justice. When I stopped recording, he tells me an anecdotal tale of how RTÉ producers sit him down before going on air to ensure he doesn’t say anything too controversial. He says this with a cheeky grin and a sparkle in his eye. He doesn’t need to say any more. We both know that Langwallner does not hold back.
As to why he became involved in the project, Langwallner says, “I’m a human rights lawyer and a constitutional lawyer. I’ve done constitutional cases at the highest level. It’s not as if I was coming from nowhere on it.” Langwallner cites Alan Dershowitz as a core influence in his role in founding The Irish Innocence Project. Dershowitz is a highly prominent and controversial figure in American law. Langwallner expanded: “One of the most influential experiences of my life was studying in the Harvard Law School, not so much studying there but being under Alan Dershowitz…not everyone thinks he is a nice man, but he’s a brilliant man. He taught me an enormous amount of things and that’s where the Innocence Project first came to my attention. Barry Scheck, the head of the organisation, was effectively appointed by Dershowitz to be the lawyer in the O.J Simpson case and so on. That must have been deep in my consciousness somewhere.”
Langwallner was appointed the Griffith College Dean of Law in 2009. He was soon asked to bring in a clinical legal education skill. He recalls how he said, “by the way, you could set up an Innocence Project”. He explained the concept and was asked to write a proposal. Although this happened somewhat accidentally, his life has changed as a result, “I put on David Bowie’s Hunky Dory album which lasted 45 minutes and I wrote out this proposal”.
What started as a mere notion has now become a vibrant organisation making a real difference to society, the legal system and, most importantly, people’s lives
What started as a mere notion has now become a vibrant organisation making a real difference to society, the legal system and, most importantly, people’s lives. The Irish Innocence Project recently made history with the Harry Gleeson case. Gleeson was wrongly convicted of murdering Mary “Moll” McCarthy in 1941 and was hanged. Langwallner was initially skeptical about taking on the case, believing The Innocence Project to be about live, not dead, cases. However, he soon found this to be a misapprehension on his behalf, “I said ‘it’s 70 years ago, what can we possibly do?’ and then [the Justice for Harry Gleeson group] walked in with these boxes [of evidence]. I went back to the board and they all laughed at me at every meeting for a year, calling it ‘the dead case’ like it would amount to nothing.” In January 2016, 74 years later, Gleeson became the first person to receive a posthumous pardon from the State.
There is a 1958 film made about the life of Mary “Moll” McCarthy entitled She Didn’t Say No. It was soon banned by the Irish Film Censor for “immorality” as it follows McCarthy, an unmarried Tipperary mother of seven, who had children with separate men. Even the mere notion of this would have sent shockwaves through the deeply conservative 1950s Ireland. According to Langwallner, She Didn’t Say No portrays something of a happily ever after. It ignores the murder of McCarthy and seems to forget that “it is conjectured some of the men killed McCarthy and some of the children ended up in reform school and one killed his father”.
“I don’t like the image we present of a kind of touristic nation to the rest of the world, without rectifying problems that are going on”
“I think there’s a classic self-delusion in this country between appearance and reality”, he continues, adding, “I don’t like friendly, phoney guards talking to me. I don’t like friendly, phoney barristers talking to me… I don’t like the image we present of a kind of touristic nation to the rest of the world, without rectifying problems that are going on. We do a disservice to young people in particular by peddling this nonsense smoke screen, and the Gleeson case shows that.”
Langwallner quickly remarks that what happened to Harry Gleeson could still happen in 2016. Perhaps our self-delusion has just become more complex. Langwallner believes that there is a fundamental problem with the State and the police – “If you’re outside of the inner circle in Ireland, well then you’re for export purposes”, he claims. He also believes that the state targets the most vulnerable in society, “If the state regards you as someone who is marginalised or excluded, then we go after you. That is the classic indicia of an unsophisticated country that hasn’t developed proper structures” he says. He continues, stating that, “There’s a fundamental problem between the State and the police force. Within the toxic relationship between politics, the guards and the power brooking elite, the justice system often targets people for political purposes and Gleeson is an example. McCarthy had children by different men, some of those men became prominent in the local community. Some of them may have enlisted the police to frame Gleeson”.
Langwallner believes corruption is most evident amongst An Garda Síochána. This echoes recent scandals such as the Morris Tribunal and the Garda whistleblowers. These incidents documented and exposed corruption, abuse and negligence. However, what is the extent of this corruption? Could it be the case that Garda misconduct has led to innocent people being put behind bars? “Yes, absolutely,” he replies, “There are several things gone wrong in this country. The guards go for the weak and vulnerable, particularly the traveller community and/or any ethnic minority.” Langwallner is deeply troubled by this culture of corruption. It appears he simply can’t understand how people can succumb to such evil. “People engage in financial corruption while thinking it’s the norm. Our banks, our regulatory structures, our top lawyers, NAMA, Anglo and anyone who set them up, should be brought to account” he states resolutely. Unlike many of the power elite, Langwallner is not afraid to call people out.
“There’s a fundamental problem between the State and the police force. Within the toxic relationship between politics, the guards and the power brooking elite, the justice system often targets people for political purposes”
He stands for himself and no one else. This is an admirable characteristic for someone in a profession that is known for networking and cosying up to the big wigs. Langwallner’s sense of justice and equality runs deep. He dismisses those who moralise trivial things like who people sleep with, “who gives a crap anyway?”. He says this in a light-hearted manner, but quickly the conversation becomes serious again: “Irish people are sexually fucked up. We’ve had Catholicism ingrained in us and then clerical abuse. These led to patterns of behaviour between men and women that are not normal in world terms”.
Langwallner’s compassion for others permeates the conversation. He knows he is in a position of power and uses it to help others. The vast majority of us will never have the opportunity to save someone’s life. This is Langwallner’s day job. The Irish Innocence Project is currently undertaking a death row case in Kenya. When Langwallner taught Liz Harpur in Griffith College, he had no idea that he would later represent her nephew, Ben-Hadad Kimani, who has been convicted of murder.
In 2001, Ben-Hadad Kimani was charged with the killing of two people and sentenced to death in Nairobi. He was 17 years old at the time. He has always maintained his innocence and The Irish Innocence Project has deep concerns about Kimani’s conviction. After a great deal of communication, they were invited to make a plea before the Power of Mercy Advisory Committee in Kenya – a Kenyan government appointed body that advises the president on pardons and sentence commutations.
“Irish people are sexually fucked up. We’ve had Catholicism ingrained in us and then clerical abuse. These led to patterns of behaviour between men and women that are not normal in world terms”
The Irish delegation had planned to go in January. However, this did not come to light. “We’ve got all the groundwork – the money, the services, the team”, says Langwallner. “We have sent several emails asking for a date. However, they are not yet responding. Once we get a date, we’ll be on the plane there.” Although Kimani is not Irish, Langwallner believes it is important that the Innocence Network extends internationally: “It’s very important that the project extends to Africa, though very tricky. People are instinctively knee-jerk racist about Africa. I think Ireland, in the way it’s run, is effectively third world. However, life and death in Africa is kind of random. At least we don’t have the death penalty here, though we kill people in other ways.” This is the first of many times that Langwallner alludes to his deep sense of dissatisfaction with the Irish Criminal Justice System. While he is cynical, he isn’t overwhelmingly so. You get the impression that he is coming at it from a deeper sense. It isn’t age nor is it personality that has left him this way, but rather his knowledge and insight into how the system really works – something beyond the ken of the layman.
The cost of this miscarriage of justice is far-reaching. Not only does a wrongful conviction mean an innocent person has their life taken away from them, it also means that the guilty person is free to roam around committing other crimes. This paints a troubling picture, one in which justice comes last. Unfortunately, cases like Ben-Hadad Kimani’s are not isolated. Research has revealed about 2.3 per cent to 5 per cent of all convictions are incorrect. Eyewitnesses’ misidentifications, faulty science, police or prosecutorial misconduct and false confessions are among some of the explanations offered by researchers, experts and scholars alike. If you have reason to suspect that a loved one’s death was caused by the negligence or wrongdoing of another, you might want to file a lawsuit for a wrongful death claim. Not sure where to begin? Start by doing some research into the damages you can pursue with a lawsuit over at wnwlaw.com.
Not only does a wrongful conviction mean an innocent person has their life taken away from them, it also means that the guilty person is free to roam around committing other crimes.
“It’s also important to understand lawyers are being driven by commercialism and the obsession with money. We all need a place to live and a decent lifestyle but money for the pursuit of money is not something that has ever been warped into my DNA, and so I thought it was very important to try to educate young future lawyers to develop a human rights’ conscience.” Mary McAleese echoed something similar whilst speaking at the project’s first international innocence conference held in Griffith College. However, she deemed this to be a thing of the past. “It’s a far cry from my own law student days, when a culture of what I can only call unhealthy obsequious deference prevailed in society and in the law, in the judiciary and, indeed, other institutions like the church,” she said. “We know now how such cultures of unquestioning deference can silence victims and can render them relatively powerless.”
Despite the ongoing evolution of global society, the plight of the powerless continues. People like Ben-Hadad Kimani wait on death row in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, the Innocence Project can save them. With the rise in DNA evidence and increased technological advances, we are quick to forget about the possibility of a false conviction. We believe the newsreader telling us about a murder trial. We believe the journalist reporting on the event. We make assumptions, something that goes against the very essence of justice. However, cronyism, corruption and crooked cops are so deeply ingrained within the system, that it is increasingly difficult to separate one from the other These institutions, supposedly upholding justice, appear more focused on protecting the system than protecting society. Langwallner said many things that shocked me, but one thing stayed with me long after the interview ended: “Being found guilty for a crime you didn’t commit, could happen to anyone, anywhere”. We can sit here believing that such a violation of human rights could never happen here in the Emerald Isle, yet as Langwallner reminds us, it is in fact happening right now.
