OXFORD,
Miss. – Author John Grisham joins others reenacting a 1963 trial as
part of a continuing legal education program benefiting the Mississippi
Innocence Project.
The program, which begins at 8 a.m. Friday
(Jan. 16), is set for the Oxford Conference Center, at the intersection
of Highway 7 and Sisk Avenue. Registration fees are $220. Although the
program is intended for attorneys needing CLE credits, others
interested in the program can register if space is available. The
daylong event is sponsored by the Litigation Section of The Mississippi
Bar.
Cal Mayo, an Oxford attorney and chair of the state bar
section, said the program condenses the three-week trial of the
Commonwealth v. Roy Smith into a day of testimony, with four volunteers
portraying witnesses associated with the trial.
The program follows the case against Smith, of Oxford, who was convicted of the murder of Bessie Goldberg in Middlesex County, Mass., in 1963. Smith’s sentence was commuted in 1976, in part due to the confessions of Albert DeSalvo, the Boston Strangler, who was a suspect in the Goldberg murder, Mayo said. Despite having his sentence commuted, Smith never regained his freedom because he died of tuberculosis before he was freed.
During the mock trial, Grisham will portray the role of DeSalvo. Other participants will play the roles of Israel Goldberg, Bessie’s widower; of Dr. David Dow, the medical examiner who testified at the first trial; and of Roy Smith. DeSalvo never confessed to Goldberg’s murder but did confess to 12 or 13 other murders during that period. An interesting side note is that the judge over Smith’s case interrupted the closing arguments on Nov. 22, 1963, to inform the jury that President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated, Mayo said.
Some of Smith’s relatives still live in the Oxford area and a few of them are expected to attend.
The program is based on the book “A Death in Belmont,” written by Sebastian Junger, who also authored the best-selling novel “A Perfect Storm.”
Junger said he became interested in the Boston Strangler after learning that DeSalvo worked for his parents as a carpenter in Belmont during the same time he claims to have killed and sexually assaulted two women.
“My mother had one very frightening incident with him when she claims he tried to lure her into the basement of our house while she was there alone,” said Junger, who was 6 months old at the time. “She closed and locked the door and decided he would have to be fired, but the next day he was so friendly and solicitous that she doubted herself and let him stay on.”
Junger said he thinks it is fantastic that the Mississippi Innocence Project is staging the mock trial to benefit the Mississippi Innocence Project.
“The heart of the justice system – of democracy – is that people can ask questions about how decisions are arrived at by our government,” he said. “It doesn’t mean that those decisions are wrong, but if those questions are not asked, our society is increasingly at risk of making errors. I can’t wait to see how the case unfolds.”
Grisham said he expects the event to be “a delightful mix of law, literature and a little fundraising for the Mississippi Innocence Project.”
The Mississippi Innocence Project was established in 2007 and is led by Tucker Carrington, a former Washington public defender and law professor at Georgetown Law School. Carrington also serves as a clinical professor in the UM School of Law.
The project is committed to providing legal representation to its clients: state prisoners serving significant periods of incarceration who have cognizable claims of wrongful conviction. In addition, the project seeks to identify systemic problems in the state’s criminal justice system and develop initiatives to raise public and political awareness of the prevalence, causes and societal costs of wrongful convictions.
Grisham, who graduated from the UM law school in 1981, is the author of numerous novels and other books, including his most recent, “The Innocent Man,” profiling a man wrongfully convicted and freed years later with the help of several attorneys. He and Columbus attorney Wilbur Colom donated initial funding for the Mississippi Innocence Project.
For more information or to register, contact Rene Garner, section and division coordinator at The Mississippi Bar, at 601-355-9226 or rgarner@msbar.org. A reception follows the event at the Oxford-University Club. Tickets for the reception are $25 in advance and $35 at the door.
For times available to the media, contact communications specialist Jennifer Farish at 662-915-5079 or jpfarish@olemiss.edu. For more information on the UM School of Law, go to http://www.law.olemiss.edu/ .