Nancy Smith Speaker Series

We are excited to announce that we will be hosting speaker Nancy Smith on October 23rd at 7 p.m. Smith was wrongfully convicted in 1994 of sexual abuse related to her job as a Head Start school bus driver and sentenced to 30 to 94 years in prison.

Nancy Smith’s case arose during a time of national hysteria surrounding sexual abuse allegations in day care settings. After spending nearly 15 years in prison, she was released by a judge who ruled there was no credible evidence to support her conviction. However, about 18 months later, the Ohio Supreme Court determined that this judge did not have the authority to free her and ordered a new trial.

The prosecution pressured Smith into accepting a plea deal, forcing her to plead guilty to a lesser charge in order to avoid the risk of returning to prison. Having already endured the trauma of being separated from her children and parents, Smith chose the plea deal rather than facing the possibility of incarceration again. She was fully exonerated in 2022. Her case highlights the troubling issue of prosecutors coercing innocent people into guilty pleas.

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