University News Last updated 29 April 2010
A Birmingham Law Academic is heading to the United States this summer to work with American colleagues on evaluating alleged wrongful convictions.
Sarah Cooper , a lecturer in Law from Birmingham City University, has been appointed a Visiting Fellow to the Arizona Justice Project and will spend three months working with three law schools in Arizona managing the evaluation of a variety of cases.
Established in 1998, The Arizona Justice Project – one of the founding members of the National Innocence Network - examines claims of wrongful convictions, innocence and manifest injustice, and provides legal representation for inmates believed to have been failed by the criminal justice system. The Project has been successful in bringing about a number of exonerations including those involving inmates on death row. See: azjusticeproject.org/
Sarah Cooper said: “The Fellowship will provide an excellent opportunity to develop my knowledge and scholarship in the field of U.S. criminal law and procedure through active cases, which can then be injected into my teaching to give my students a taste of reality in the classroom.”
Sarah’s work with the Arizona Justice Project further strengthens Birmingham City University’s relationship with the United States. The University has a number of ongoing academic projects with American criminal justice agencies. For example, the Law School’s U.S. Internship has now been operating successfully for over 12 years and continues to provide law students with the unique opportunity to gain practical experience in law offices, projects and organisations across the United States.
For further information on law courses at Birmingham City University, please log on to www.bcu.ac.uk/elss
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