The innumeracy of wrongful convictions and exonerations
08 May 2025, 6:00 pm–7:00 pm

An event organised by the UCL Centre for Criminal Law
Event Information
Open to
- All
Organiser
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UCL Laws Events
Location
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Gideon Schreier Lecture Theatre, UCL LawsBentham House, Endsleigh GardensLondonWC1H 0EG
The innumeracy of wrongful convictions and exonerations:
How probabilistic concepts and epidemiologic data and methods are misused in the prosecution and defense of criminal matters
A talk by Professor Michael Freeman, Royal College of Physicians
Chaired by Professor David Ormerod, UCL Laws
About the speaker:
Prof. Michael D Freeman
Michael Freeman is the Editor in Chief of the Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, and the David Jenkins Professor and Chair of forensic and legal medicine with the Royal College of Physicians (London), in the Faculty of Forensic and Legal Medicine (FFLM) of the Royal College of Physicians (London), as well as a tenured associate professor of forensic medicine and epidemiology at Maastricht University Medical Center (NL), and an affiliate professor of forensic psychiatry at Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine (US). He is a consultant in forensic medicine, specializing in the application of epidemiologic data and methods to legal issues (forensic epidemiology). Prof. Freeman is a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists, the FFLM, and the American College of Epidemiology, and is a fellow in forensic pathology with the Academy of Forensic Medical Sciences (UK), among others. He has provided expert testimony more than 1,600 times in a wide variety of civil and criminal cases, including injury and death litigation, automotive and other product liability, toxic tort litigation, life expectancy, and medical negligence cases, as well as in homicide, assault, and other criminal matters. He has served as an expert to multiple attorneys general in the US for death in police custody cases, including for the prosecution of the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota. Prof. Freeman has published more than 230 scientific papers, books, and book chapters, primarily focusing on issues relating to forensic applications of epidemiology and general and specific causation, and is the co-editor and co-author of the authoritative text on forensic applications of epidemiology; Forensic Epidemiology: Principles and Practice (Elsevier).