Dan Medwed, a Professor of Law at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law, was on a class break recently when he got startling news on his Blackberry. Fernando Bermudez, who in 1992 was sentenced to 23-years-to-life for a 1991 murder, had been emancipated after serving 18 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit.
“I cried,” Medwed told the Brooklyn Eagle newspaper. “Five minutes later class started. It was hard talking to students about evidence law, so I started telling them about Fernando.”
Medwed, who along with Prof. William Hellerstein, had been instrumental in forming the now-defunct Second Look Clinic innocence project at Brooklyn Law School in 2001, and had long worked on winning Bermudez’ freedom, described the outcome as “happy but belated.” “This is long overdue. Hallelujah!,” he told the Eagle.
To read the article about Bermudez, click here.