The Innocents: Headshots

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The Innocents: Headshots
Photographs and Video by Taryn Simon
Case Profiles by Peter Neufeld, Barry Scheck, and Huy Dao

April 7–May 31, 2004
Juanita Kreps Gallery

Panel Discussion with Q & A
May 6, 7–9 p.m.
With Ronald Cotton, exonoree; Daryl Hunt, exonoree; Rich Rosen, law professor, UNC-Chapel Hill, and attorney for Ronald Cotton; Marshall Dayan, law professor, North Carolina Central University; Jim Coleman, law professor, Duke University; Theresa Newman, president, North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence; and Chris Mumma, executive director, North Carolina Chief Justice’s Commission on Actual Innocence

In The Innocents photographer Taryn Simon presents photographs of individuals who served time in prison for violent crimes they did not commit. The photographs are accompanied by the Innocence Project's case profiles and Simon's interviews, collected during her cross-country journey. While mugshots and photo arrays are used to condemn and imprison innocent people, Simon has turned the camera around to document the victims of misidentification and perverted justice. At issue is the question of photography's function as a credible eyewitness and arbiter of justice.

The primary cause of wrongful conviction in the United States is mistaken identification. A victim or eyewitness identifies a suspected perpetrator through law enforcements use of photographs and lineups. This procedure assumes that visual memory is precise. But, through exposure to composite sketches, mugshots, Polaroids, and lineups, eyewitness memory can change. Jennifer Thompson's account of the process by which she misidentified the man who raped her illustrates the malleability of memory:

"I was asked to come down and look at the photo array of different men. I picked Ron's photo because in my mind it most closely resembled the man who attacked me. But really what happened was that, because I had made a composite sketch, he actually most closely resembled my sketch as opposed to the actual attacker. By the time we went to do a physical lineup, they asked if I could physically identify the person. I picked out Ronald because, subconsciously, in my mind, he resembled the photo, which resembled the composite, which resembled the attacker. All the images became enmeshed to one image that became Ron, and Ron became my attacker."

A domino effect ensues in which victims do remember a face, but not necessarily the face they saw during the commission of the crime. For the men in these portraits (one woman is also included), photography was often instrumental in their misidentification and subsequent imprisonment.

In the case of Troy Webb, convicted of rape, kidnapping, and robbery, the victim was shown a photo array of potential rapists. She tentatively identified Webb's photo, but said that he looked too old. The police then presented another photo of Webb taken four years before the crime occurred. He was positively identified. Troy Webb served seven years of a forty-seven-year sentence.

The mugshot—the emblem of photography in the criminal justice system—signifies the transition from innocent citizen to potential criminal. Whether it is recorded on film or in digital format, the mugshot is seen as raw and cheap: a small image, traditionally in black and white, that shows minimal detail of the subject. Simon confronts the mugshot form in these larger than life, high resolution color portraits that reveal more than the human eye can see on its own.

This exhibition of headshots and the book, The Innocents (Umbrage, 2003), recognize the ten-year anniversary of the Innocence Project. Founded by leading civil rights attorneys Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck, the Innocence Project is responsible for most of the post-conviction DNA exonerations in the United States today. The project strives to transform criminal justice into a more equitable and reliable system, working in cooperation with district attorneys and police departments to design and test pilot programs to reform eyewitness identification and to implement other measures that will limit the number of wrongful arrests and convictions. The failings of the criminal justice system and the use of the death penalty in this country are currently under close scrutiny and an important topic of public debate. The images and voices of The Innocents mark this historic turning point in justice in America.

Photographs by Taryn Simon

Image credit: From The Innocents, Photographs and Interviews by Taryn Simon, Commentary by Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck © 2003 Taryn Simon and the Innocence Project; published by Umbrage Editions

An Umbrage Editions traveling exhibition and publication
www.Umbragebooks.com

Gallery Hours:
Monday–Thursday: 9 a.m.–7 p.m.
Friday: 9 a.m.–5 p.m.
Saturday: 11 a.m.–4 p.m.
Sunday: 1–5 p.m.

banner image:

Partial view of the Lyndhurst Gallery, one of four exhibition spaces at CDS. Photograph by Chris Sims.

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