Palisadian Anna Marguleas Hard at Work in Prison Reform

By MAGNOLIA LAFLEUR | Reporter

It was during her Georgetown University’s “Making an Exoneree” class that Palisadian and sophomore Anna Marguleas and her classmates Ty Greenberg and Symone Harmon—dubbed Team Faarooq—began working together to exonerate Faarooq Mu’min Mansour, who they believe was wrongfully imprisoned 20 years ago.

Described by Marguleas as a “groundbreaking class,” Making an Exoneree allows for the reinvestigation of potential wrongful convictions by undergraduates students, with the hope of unearthing the truth and working towards a full-exoneration of the accused.

“I love this class because it transforms the relationship between society and incarcerated individuals. It makes the corruption within the American criminal justice system tangible and enables students to see the importance of humanizing those who are incarcerated,” Marguleas shared with the Palisadian-Post.

In the five years that Georgetown has offered the class, students have successfully exonerated three people—Marguleas, Harmon and Greenberg hope Mansour will be the fourth.

The crime that Mansour was accused of occurred on March 25, 2002, when the owner of a videogame store, Shauna Sandercock, was murdered in a back room of the building. After the murder, her gun—which was stolen “during the commission of the crime”—was found in the possession of a “known criminal in Atlanta,” according to an article written by Marguleas in Georgetown’s student newspaper The Hoya.

After being arrested on March 29, 2002, Mansour was convicted in 2003 of robbery, kidnapping, rape and murder and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

“Faarooq was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to life without parole in 2003 for a crime he did not commit,” Marguleas said to the Post. “Having reviewed the case in its entirety and gotten to know Faarooq on a personal level, we support his innocence and know that significant exculpatory evidence does exist.

“The gun stolen during the commission of the crime was found in the possession of a career criminal in Atlanta, Georgia months after the murder. A friend of Faarooq’s has signed an affidavit stating that the two of them were together outside his house while the crime was committed. And most importantly, DNA profiles of two different men were found on the victim and never run through [the Combined DNA Index System] Faarooq was scientifically excluded as matching either of these profiles.”

CODIS is a national database containing DNA profiles of convicted offenders, as well as profiles developed from unsolved crimes and for the identification of missing people. “Team Faarooq” is working to have his DNA tested and ran through this system, with the hopes of proving his innocence.

The three items admitted into the evidence that convicted Faarooq include a fingerprint, a bracelet and eyewitness identification. An employee of the store who was designated to clean the doors, had confirmed that the door was cleaned solely on occasion and that the origin of one of 111 collected fingerprints might have been born weeks before the date of the crime.

The group has delegated the case in an even manner that plays upon the strengths of each person, with all three determined to see this case through to the end.

“I love working with Ty, Anna and Faarooq,” Harmon told the Post.  “Anna is amazing at the administrative aspect of moving the project along, Ty is great with understanding the legal procedures, and I work really well with interviewing witnesses—asking the right questions—and making sure that we catch all the small details, even if we later find them to be insignificant.

“Although we have such different personalities, our differences balance and support each other in a way that keeps our work propelling forward.”

With less than two months before graduating, Harmon said she plans to continue working on Mansour’s case with the team as she works to secure a job in prison reform.

Feeling confident that Mansour is innocent after having spent 20 years behind bars, Marguleas and the team have become personal with Mansour and know that there is a significant amount of exculpatory evidence that exists after having completely combed through the case.

After receiving positive feedback and ounces of curiosity from loved ones, Marguleas’ determination to right the wrongs of the criminal system also has her involved as a treasurer in Georgetown’s Prison Outreach Program and creative writing coordinator for a detention center in Virginia.

“I have been part of the program since my freshman year, and this was truly my first introduction to the criminal justice system,” Marguleas told the Post. “Ever since then, I have known that I wanted to dedicate myself to prison reform and learning how to combat the multifaceted injustices of the carceral system. I am hoping to continue expanding my knowledge of this topic in my future studies and career opportunities.”

Marguleas shared that as long as Mansour continues to serve time in prison, justice has not been served, stating that the priority of their group is to not just “achieve justice for Faarooq,” but also for the victim and her family.

“Faarooq’s story matters, not because he was a great athlete, intelligent student, or even because of his kind and gentle spirit,” Harmon explained. “Faarooq’s story matters because he is human and there is inherent value in the life we as humans live and how we individually experience this world, and our justice system has drastically and forever altered how Faarooq has experienced this world, and no institution should have that magnitude of power.”

For more information on the case, visit qrco.de/bcpLYg.