Peter A Allard School of Law

Wrongfully Convicted: Guilty Pleas, Imagined Crimes, and What Canada Must do to Safeguard Justice

Description of Event

University of Toronto Faculty of Law Professor Kent Roach is Canada’s leading scholar in the area of wrongful convictions in Canada. He has spent decades studying the problem and raising awareness through his published works, teaching, lectures, and advocacy for changes to our criminal justice system.

His latest book, Wrongfully Convicted: Guilty Pleas, Imagined Crimes, and What Canada must do to Safeguard Justice focuses on the dangers of people pleading guilty to crimes they did not commit and on wrongful convictions for crimes that never occurred – “imagined crimes”. This book is a must-read for every law student, scholar, lawyer, forensic scientist, police officer, and judge working in Canada’s criminal legal system and for any member of the public wanting to better understand how innocent people are convicted. It sheds critical light on the increasing number of wrongful convictions we have identified in Canada in the last three decades and offers sound suggestions for how the system might do more to protect against these tragic miscarriages of justice.

Please join us for an insightful talk from Professor Roach followed by a short reception. Professor Roach will be introduced by Tamara Levy, KC, Director of the UBC Innocence Project at Allard Law. Should you not be able to attend in person, you may register to receive a zoom link to attend virtually.

This event is co-hosted by the UBC Innocence Project at Allard Hall Law School and SFU’s Department of Criminology. The event has been supported financially, in part, by the Peter A. Allard School of Law’s Research Engagement Fund.


  • UBC Innocence Project
  • General Public
  • All Students
  • Alumni
  • Faculty
  • Staff
  • Alumni Events
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