Look Who it Was Random video

We are all witnesses | Anne Driscoll | TEDxJacksonville

1,119 views · Published 29 November 2018 · 11:09 · Indexed 22 September 2026

Channel: TEDx Talks · 2018 · Nonprofits & Activism

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For more than a decade, Anne Driscoll has been investigating wrongful convictions in two countries on two continents on both sides of the Atlantic. She knows firsthand how a wrongful conviction can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere in any jurisdiction, most often due to bad eyewitness identification, police misconduct or prosecutorial misconduct. She has helped free an innocent man serving a life sentence without parole for murder who was misidentified by an eyewitness, and she also has been the victim of a crime where she nearly misidentified her own attacker. As both a social worker and a journalist, she learned that the power of bearing witness is both profound and impactful in the pursuit of justice. If we want a truly just society, then all of us need to be witnesses. Only by being an informed witness can we understand the limitations of eyewitness testimony and memory as well as the human fault lines and fallibility in police investigations and prosecutions. Only when we are all witnesses can we achieve justice for all. Anne Driscoll is an award-winning journalist who has investigated wrongful convictions as senior reporter at the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University and as a 2013-2014 US Fulbright scholar. She is a former project manager for the Irish Innocence Project at Griffith College Dublin. Awarded a second Fulbright scholarship in 2018, she is now teaching law and journalism students at the National University of Ireland, Galway about wrongful convictions and investigative techniques, while also conducting research to establish a National Registry of Exonerations in Ireland. Originally trained as a social worker, she remains a licensed certified social worker and is the author of a self-help series of guidebooks for girls called Girl to Girl. As a journalist, she has devoted her career to covering issues of human rights, social justice, and human development and has sought to make a difference in the world, one story at a time. She received the 2016 Salem Award for Human Rights and Social Justice, and she is a Moth storyteller and the author of Irish You Were Here. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

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