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Kwame Ajamu, who spent 28 years in prison after being convicted of a murder he did not commit, was the speaker at an event at IU McKinney November 13. The law school’s Wrongful Conviction Clinic hosted the event with the Indiana Abolition Coalition. The talk was held in the Wynne Courtroom.

Ajamu was age 17 when he was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1975 stabbing and shooting murder of a money order salesman. Known as Ronnie Bridgeman at the time, no physical or forensic evidence linked Ajamu, his brother, or a friend of theirs to the crime in Cleveland. The case rested on the testimony of a boy who turned age 13 by the time he testified in court. Ajamu’s sentence was commuted to life in prison after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the death penalty in 1978, and he was paroled in 2003. The Ohio Innocence Project investigated the case after a magazine article published in 2011 brought to light inconsistences in the eyewitness testimony. The young teen who testified against Ajamu told the judge reviewing the case that police gave him the details. Ajamu was declared innocent in February 2015.

In the photo from left are Indiana Abolition Coalition president Doris Parlette, Wrongful Conviction Clinic Director Professor Fran Watson, Kwame Ajamu, LaShawn Ajamu, and Indiana Abolition Coalition president-elect Matthew Ellis.