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Ezekiel Edwards

Beyond serving as a DMI Fellow, Ezekiel Edwards is a Staff Attorney/Mayer Brown Eyewitness Fellow at the Innocence Project, a non-profit legal clinic and criminal justice resource center that works to exonerate the wrongfully convicted through post-conviction DNA testing and develop and implement reforms to prevent wrongful convictions. In response to the fact that 75% of postconviction DNA exonerations have involved mistaken eyewitness identification, Ezekiel is spearheading an effort to reform eyewitness identification laws and procedures through a comprehensive strategy of litigation, education, and policy advocacy.

Before working at the Innocence Project, Ezekiel was a staff attorney for the Bronx Defenders, the nationally recognized organization of public defenders that has become a model of holistic, community based advocacy for clients that are charged with crimes and for the communities they live in. The Bronx Defenders' pioneering approach addresses the underlying problems and broader justice issues that bring clients into the criminal justice system. The Defenders also work with Bronx youth and local organizations to prevent crime and enhance public safety and continue to work with clients well after their court cases are closed.

Ezekiel received his J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 2002, where he was a Public Interest Scholar. While in law school, he assisted in the representation of clients at the Defender Association of Philadelphia, the Habeas Corpus Unit of the Federal Defenders, and the Greater Cambodian Association of Philadelphia. Ezekiel has worked in Phnom Penh at the Cambodian Defenders Project and with the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights in its Workers' Rights Program. Prior to law school, Ezekiel spent three years as an investigator for the Capital Defender Office in New York.

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