Professor Rob Currie (LLB’98) has combined his two passions to realize his latest project: a song about a tragic wrongful conviction.

As an expert in Canadian and international criminal law, Prof. Currie was drawn to the story of Romeo Phillion after watching an episode about the Canadian man several years ago. Phillion spent 31 years in prison after being wrongly convicted of a 1967 murder, and was not released until being exonerated at age 71.

Prof. Currie has always felt strongly about the power of folk music to convey social commentary, and believed that Phillion’s story deserved to be heard. So, for the last several years, Currie combined his intellectual and artistic talents to create “Romeo,” a track on his newest album, Take Me Back. Released in June, the song tells the unjust story of Phillion’s wrongful conviction.

Professor Currie has been a professor at the Schulich School of Law for 15 years, and is also the director of Dalhousie’s Law and Technology Institute. He hopes that his song can help people realize that the courts do not always get decisions right, and that the consequences of a wrongful conviction can be devastating.

Professor Rob Currie kicked off 13 weeks of awesome #knowyourdal pop-up lectures with some of the… https://t.co/pgJL1pUX8s

— SchulichSchoolofLaw (@SchulichLaw) September 8, 2015

We’re at the @DalArchPlan bldg. Come get to #knowyourdal at our pop-up lecture w. @SchulichLaw‘s Rob Currie pic.twitter.com/a9wQFey6oM

— Dalhousie News (@Dalnews) September 8, 2015

Read more in “Law prof pens song about wrongly convicted” on dal.ca.

Photo credit: Erin McGuire.