Georgetown welcomed the recently exonerated Valentino Dixon of Buffalo, New York, to share his story on a panel yesterday with three students who successfully challenged his wrongful murder conviction.

Dixon, who was imprisoned for 27 years and released this past September, was joined on stage last night in the university’s Gaston Hall with those students, Julie Fragonas, Isobella Goonetillake (C’18) and Naoya Johnson, along with Marty Tankleff, Georgetown adjunct professor and exoneree, and Max Adler, the editorial director of Golf Digest who publicized Dixon’s plight.

The panel, moderated by Prisons and Justice Initiative director Marc Howard, also showcased the art Dixon created in prison and included phone conversations with men still incarcerated and whose cases students will continue to work on.

LEADING THE WAY

“When [Tankleff] explained to me that the Georgetown students were on board,” Dixon said, “it just changed our lives immediately. We just said, ‘This is going to happen now.’ ”

The students were in a Prison Reform Project course taught by Howard and Tankleff, Howard’s childhood friend who was wrongfully imprisoned for almost 18 years and whom Howard helped free.

Howard named a number of other Georgetown initiatives that work with currently or previously incarcerated individuals and their families, including a mentoring program for children of incarcerated parents.

“I think it’s safe to say there’s not a single university in the world that is as actively involved in the effort to reduce mass incarceration and to humanize and support people while they’re incarcerated,” Howard said at the event. “ … we’re really leading the way nationally.”

‘ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE’

In prison, Dixon worked 10 to 12 hours every day, creating numerous elaborate and colorful drawings mostly of golf courses and their surrounding landscapes. He now intends to help other wrongfully convicted prisoners and pursue life as an artist. His website, valentinodixon.com, now offers his artwork for sale.

Dixon was exonerated Sept. 19 in the early 1990s murder of Torriano Jackson and released after serving more than 26 of his 38.5 years-to-life sentence, mostly at the maximum-security Attica Correctional Facility.

“The Georgetown students made me a believer that anything is possible – and that justice can be done,” Dixon said after learning about his release.

A group of 16 undergraduates in Howard and Tankleff’s course last semester conducted investigations into four murder cases, including Dixon’s, that were thought to be wrongful convictions.

SAVING A LIFE

Fragonas, Goonetillake and Johnson worked on Dixon’s case, interviewing witnesses and experts as well as Dixon’s original prosecutor and public defender.

Following their investigations, the then-undergraduates created a website, a social media campaign and a documentary detailing the case.

“I am so proud of our students,” said Howard, also a Georgetown professor of government, in September. “They understood that this wasn’t just a class activity or school project, but a real attempt to save a wrongfully convicted man’s life. As someone who has been through it before with my friend Marty, I know that there is no greater joy or satisfaction than to walk someone from prison into freedom.”