The phenomenon of false confessions was the focus of a symposium at Temple's Beasley School of Law that was sponsored by the Temple Law Review and the Temple-based Pennsylvania Innocence Project. In the mid-1970s, Robert Wilkinson was beaten by police before signing what was later found to be a false confession. He spent 15 months in prison before The Inquirer and a federal probe unraveled the injustice. Temple law professor Louis Natali was a public defender at the time. He said times have changed in Philadelphia. "They are much more sophisticated now," he said.