At Long Last, Justice for the Englewood Four

On January 17, four men were exonerated by DNA evidence in the 1994 murder of a Chicago-area sex worker. The men, known as the “Englewood Four,” have received national attention for their case and the injustice of their imprisonment has spotlighted the problem of juvenile false confessions.

Michael Saunders (32), Harold Richardson (33), Terrill Swift (35) and Vincent Thames (34) were teenagers when they were coerced into signing false confessions. Despite DNA testing of semen recovered from the victim that excluded all of the teens, they were convicted on the strength of their false confessions. In early 2011, a DNA database search linked the semen to Johnny Douglas, whose long criminal record includes the strangulation murder of another prostitute. Douglas, who is now deceased, was present when Glover’s body was recovered and was questioned by police. Presented with this new evidence, a local judge overturned the men’s convictions in November, and in January the State’s Attorney finally dropped all charges.

Read more on the Englewood Four case.

Rickey Dale Wyatt Freed After Three Decades

Just days into 2012, a Texas judge released Rickey Dale Wyatt and recommended that his rape conviction be vacated after he had served nearly 31 years. Working closely with the Dallas District Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit, the Innocence Project secured Wyatt’s release through DNA and other evidence, including eyewitness misidentification evidence that the original prosecutors failed to turn over to Wyatt’s defense.

Police suspected a single perpetrator in three Dallas-area sexual assaults in 1980-81 and eventually arrested Wyatt for the crimes. The attacker was described as being much taller and heavier than Wyatt, and as having a gold tooth, which Wyatt did not have. Despite not matching the description, he was tried and convicted of one of the crimes and sentenced to 99 years. Although much of the DNA evidence had degraded over the years, DNA testing did reveal a partial male profile that excluded Wyatt. The joint investigation also uncovered evidence which had not been turned over during the original trial, supporting Wyatt’s innocence. He is expected to be cleared by the Texas Court of Appeals.

Read news coverage of his release.

Read background on the case.

U.S. Supreme Court Overturns New Orleans Murder Conviction

In yet another example of misconduct by the Orleans Parish District Attorneys’ Office, the U.S. Supreme Court recently overturned the conviction of Juan Smith, convicted of murder in 1995, because prosecutors withheld important evidence of his innocence from the defense. Prosecutors have announced that they intend to retry the Smith case.

Misconduct by New Orleans prosecutors has led to overturned convictions in at least four other cases, including the case of John Thompson who spent 14 years on death row. Thompson sued prosecutors and was awarded $14 million. In March 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court stripped Thompson of his compensation in a decision that granted prosecutors almost complete immunity for their misconduct. Thompson has now joined the Innocence Project and other criminal justice reform groups in calling for greater prosecutorial accountability. Catch Thompson on the first stop of his nationwide tour on February 6 in New York City.

Why I Give:

Jane Marcus
Attorney and Mom
New Jersey

I have been a public interest lawyer for a long time, providing free legal services to individuals and families who cannot afford to hire an attorney. In particular, I have fought to help people who were threatened with loss of basic human needs. My clients were often powerless to get what they were entitled to, and without the services of a legal services office, they would have been homeless or without food or appropriate schooling. The Innocence Project’s work resonates with me as they likewise provide legal representation to clients who would be powerless without their help.

I read the exonerees’ stories in the Innocence Project magazine with outrage. The actions of prosecutors and the courts are hard to fathom. One would think that the parties on both sides of the case would have the same goal – to see that the guilty party is found. Who is served by imprisoning, and possibly executing, the wrong person, especially if the perpetrator is still on the street?

I have heard many heartbreaking stories as a Legal Aid lawyer, but there’s something incomparable to the loss of years that the wrongfully convicted experience. While it’s wonderful to see that they have been exonerated, I wonder how they will be able to go on with their lives after years of unjust imprisonment. In reading the magazine, I also come away with tremendous respect for the attorneys, paralegals, social workers, students and others who work so hard. It is painfully obvious from the articles what an uphill battle they fight for each wrongfully imprisoned inmate, and how crucial their work is to seeing that justice is served. Clearly without their intervention, so many people would languish without hope.

Join Jane and make a New Year's gift today

Investigating Prosecutorial Misconduct in the Michael Morton Case

Yesterday, the Innocence Project asked a Texas Court to convene a court of inquiry to investigate possible misconduct by the prosecutor in the case of Michael Morton, who was wrongfully imprisoned for nearly 25 years for the murder of his wife. Former Williamson County District Attorney Ken Anderson, now a sitting judge, failed to turn over substantial evidence of Morton’s innocence to Morton’s attorneys at trial. This evidence included a statement from the victim’s mother that the couple’s three-year-old son, who witnessed the murder, told her that his father was not at home when the crime occurred, as well as other evidence pointing to a third party intruder.

Soon after Morton was freed in October, the Innocence Project and other partnering attorneys initiated an investigation into Morton’s wrongful conviction. Now, at the culmination of that investigation, the Innocence Project has submitted a report to the Texas Court calling for a Court of Inquiry to investigate allegations that Anderson committed intentional misconduct.

The Innocence Project fought prosecutors for six years to obtain post-conviction DNA testing for Morton. Finally, on October 4, Morton was cleared after DNA tests on a bloody bandana found near the crime scene didn’t match him and instead implicated Mark Allen Norwood who has also been linked to the subsequent murder of Debra Masters Baker.

Read more background on the Morton case.

Read more about the allegations of misconduct.

Read news coverage about the investigation.

Thomas Haynesworth is Exonerated after 27 Years

On December 6, Thomas Haynesworth was exonerated after 27 years in prison and over eight months on parole as a registered sex offender. The Innocence Project and partnering attorneys at the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project fought for years to prove that Haynesworth was innocent of all three sexual assaults for which he was convicted. Ultimately, several rounds of DNA testing, multiple polygraph tests and an extensive prosecutorial review of the evidence were required. But the massive injustice that Haynesworth and his family endured is now, finally, over. Haynesworth was wrongfully convicted at 18 years old with no criminal record when a witness misidentified him as her assailant. DNA and other evidence now links all three crimes to a serial rapist, known as the “black ninja,” who continued assaulting women after Haynesworth had been arrested.

Read more background on the case.

Read news coverage of Haynesworth’s exoneration.

Holiday Greetings from the Recently Exonerated

Jonathan Barr: For the holidays, my brother James and I are just winging it. We had a huge amount of food for Thanksgiving. We had so many family members trying to feed us that we had to give some to the homeless. We just moved into a new house, and we are so thankful and have a lot to be thankful for.

Thomas Haynesworth: We have a tree, and I decorated the tree. I’m getting gifts for my nephews and nieces and I’m looking forward to spending time with them and getting re-acquainted with family. It’s just a joy to be around family, just being back where you know you want to be. Exoneration is a plus, but spending time with family and friends is the greatest blessing.

Why I Give:

Beverly McCoy
Supervisor at a hedge fund
Trenton, NJ

I took criminal justice courses a few years ago and started to look into wrongful conviction cases. I’ve always been interested in criminal justice. I’m a big fan of lawyers like William Kunstler, who said, “An innocent man in prison is about as rare as a pigeon in a park.” A wrongful conviction could happen to any one of us. But I can’t tell you how many people I talk to, because I like to talk about the Innocence Project, who just don’t understand. People say—“oh, this really happens?” And they turn a blind eye to what they don’t understand.

What surprises me most is the silence, that these cases are not more highly publicized and that the whole public is not up in arms about this. As a whole, we just don’t know how many cases there are. We don’t know how many innocent people are in prison.

I give to the Innocence Project every year around the holidays because the holidays were always special to my family and I feel for other people who don’t have that experience. If someone doesn’t have family around or money for gifts or food around the holidays, I want to make the time easier for them. I think the Innocence Project is a life-saving organization, literally. I will continue to support the Innocence Project as long as you continue to stop injustice.

Join Beverly and make a year-end holiday gift today

After Almost Two Decades, Chicago Men Are Finally Free

Nine men, wrongfully convicted as teenagers in Chicago, have been waiting almost two decades for justice. Their day in court finally came this month.

The nine men were convicted in two separate but similar murder cases in the early 1990s, known as the Englewood Four and the Dixmoor Five. DNA proves them all innocent, but they have been fighting for months for complete exoneration. Three of the five Dixmoor men were finally exonerated on November 3, and the remaining two are expected to be cleared soon. A judge overturned the convictions of the Englewood Four on November 16, but Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez has refused to dismiss the charges against them.

Join us in calling on Alvarez to dismiss the charges against the Englewood Four.

In the Dixmoor cases, five teenagers were wrongfully convicted of killing a 14-year-old girl in 1991. The central evidence in the case was confessions from three of them, which they have since recanted. In March of this year, DNA tests linked evidence recovered from the victim to a local man with a lengthy record including sexual assault and armed robbery convictions.

In the Englewood cases, a 30-year-old sex worker was killed in 1994. After all leads in the case had dried up, police claim that a teen voluntarily came to the precinct to provide some information about the murder to help a friend who was incarcerated on a drug charge. The teen was interrogated for two days and was eventually coerced into confessing and implicating four others. Eventually all five teens were coerced into confessing, although the facts differed enormously in the five different accounts. Charges were dropped against the first teen to confess after the court ruled that his confession wasn’t admissible at trial.

Take action for the Englewood Four, and read more background on the cases.

Read news coverage and watch a video interview with exoneree Robert Taylor.

The Quest for DNA Access in Massachusetts

Massachusetts is one of just two states without a law granting DNA access in at least some cases where it can prove innocence. A bill pending before the state legislature could change that, and a new investigative report in the Boston Globe Magazine explores the question of why Massachusetts still has no DNA access law.

The Globe story reads, in part: "It’s difficult to reconcile Massachusetts’s progressive reputation with the reality that its lawmakers have steadfastly refused to enact a post-conviction DNA-access law. A bill pushing for timely testing and for preserving evidence for appeals has failed to pass in the Legislature every year since it was first proposed in 2003. Now Massachusetts has achieved a kind of dubious distinction: It’s one of only two states without such a law. (The other, Oklahoma, passed one that expired in 2005.)"

Read the full Globe story. .

And while Massachusetts and Oklahoma are the two states without DNA access laws on the books, the laws in many other states are extremely restrictive. View our interactive DNA Access map to learn the details of the law in your state. .

Why I Give: A Donor Profile

Alyse Laemmle
Life Insurance Agent
Hermosa Beach, CA

The Innocence Project recently asked me to share my reasons for supporting the cause.

I’m 95 years old, I have been blessed with a good life and personal freedoms, and my reason is so simple: there, but for the grace of God, go I.

None of us had any part in determining our race, our physical and mental capacity or our birth-family’s circumstances, and these are factors that unquestionably play a role in wrongful convictions. Many wrongfully convicted defendants, however, suffer from simple bad luck… they were at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Once a suspect is identified, the problem escalates due to incorrect identification, biased or false testimony, sloppy criminal procedures and lax officials. Too many routine investigations offer too few possibilities of getting to simple truths. I take it for granted that most judges, attorneys and officials try to do a good job and most accused get a fair trial. But this clearly isn’t always true.

One happy day, not too many years ago, our society became blessed by the scientific discovery of DNA. DNA established truth, and it limits chances for contradictions. But even the truth requires champions to carry it forward. Happily for all of us, the good people within the Cardozo School of Law established the Innocence Project. To date, 280 people have been exonerated through DNA tests in the United States -- 17 of them were on death row.

In addition to rescuing innocent people, the Innocence Project sheds light on shoddy investigations and faulty procedures. Quietly and effectively their work is improving our flawed criminal justice system. But we still have a long way to go.

We lucky ones owe a personal debt to our fellow humans who haven’t been so lucky. Let’s do what we can, through our Innocence Project, to give them their fair chance.

Join Alyse by setting up a monthly donation to the Innocence Project today.

A Tragedy in Georgia: Troy Davis Executed

Last Wednesday, September 21, 2011, was a tragic day for the American criminal justice system. On that day, at 11:08 p.m., the state of Georgia executed Troy Davis despite substantial evidence of his innocence.

Troy Davis lost his life, but his fight for justice goes on. In the wake of Davis’ execution, we’re calling on Georgia lawmakers to impose a moratorium on the death penalty in the state. Georgia’s criminal justice system is simply too broken to allow another lethal injection to go forward. Will you join us? Take 30 seconds to send a letter right now.

As you know, Davis served 20 years on Georgia’s death row before he was executed for shooting a Savannah police officer in 1989. His conviction bore many hallmarks of a wrongful conviction case. The Georgia Bureau of Investigations has conceded that the ballistics evidence used against Davis was unreliable, and one of the jurors who sat on the case said that if she had known about that she would not have voted to give Davis the death penalty.

Seven of the nine people who originally testified against Davis have recanted or contradicted their testimony. One of the remaining two witnesses who claim Davis was the shooter is considered by many to be the real perpetrator. The other — who had been up for twenty-four hours straight at the time he observed the shooting — reported on the night of the crime that he "wouldn’t recognize [the shooter] again." Yet two years later, this witness identified Troy Davis in an in-court identification that required him to simply identify the only African-American sitting at the defense table.

We’re honored and grateful for the outpouring of support we’ve received in the last few days. We want to work with you to help build a system where injustice like this doesn’t happen again.

Please take action today to call for an end to executions in Georgia and learn about reforms nationwide to prevent eyewitness misidentifications.

After 29 Years in Prison, Still Fighting for Exoneration

George Allen, Jr., (right) has served nearly three decades in Missouri prisons for a crime that evidence shows he didn’t commit. The Innocence Project and the Bryan Cave law firm filed a petition in court this week laying out the compelling evidence of Allen’s innocence and seeking his exoneration.

Allen’s case is an example of law-enforcement "tunnel vision" at its worst. Police picked him up for questioning in a 1982 St. Louis murder and rape case thinking he was someone else. Although they soon realized their mistake, they interrogated him anyway — despite the fact that he had struggled with mental illness and was intoxicated at the time. Allen eventually made a recorded confession, though on the recording it’s clear that officers are prompting him to give answers that fit the crime. The warning signs in this case don’t end there — police also withheld key forensic evidence pointing to Allen’s innocence and used highly suggestive hypnosis therapy to get a witness to corroborate a detail of Allen’s confession that she told police at the time she couldn’t recall.

New DNA testing and recently uncovered forensic evidence that was never disclosed to the defense prove Allen’s innocence. At trial, prosecutors relied on serology evidence of a semen stain found at the scene to connect Allen to the crime. This was the only physical evidence placing him in the crime scene. DNA tests now prove that the semen stain actually came from the victim’s boyfriend. Police withheld the fact that a second semen stain was recovered on the robe worn by the victim when she was attacked. Serology testing that was done before Allen was arrested excluded Allen as the source of this semen.

The papers filed this week call on a state judge to overturn Allen’s conviction and free him from prison immediately. Read more about Allen’s case and follow the Innocence Blog for updates on the case in the days and weeks ahead.

New Report: Improved ID Procedures Prevent Misidentifications

A groundbreaking field study of eyewitness identification procedures has found that lineup reforms supported by the Innocence Project are more accurate than methods used by most law enforcement agencies.

A preliminary report of a field study released on September 19th found that double-blind sequential lineups (where the administering officer doesn’t know which person is the suspect, and the witness views one person or photograph at a time) produce fewer mistaken identifications than lineup procedures that present all of the suspect photographs at once -- or simultaneously. Specifically, the report found that double-blind sequential lineups as administered by police departments across the country resulted in the same number of suspect picks but fewer "filler" (non suspect) picks than double-blind simultaneous lineups.

The study was conducted by the American Judicature Society, in collaboration with the Innocence Project, the Police Foundation and the Center for Problem-Oriented Policing. Innocence Project Co-Director Barry Scheck told the New York Times that the results show that "we have the tools to reduce eyewitness error, to protect the innocent and help law enforcement apprehend the guilty."

Download the full report here.

Read more about eyewitness misidentification on our site.

Why I Give: A Donor Profile

Ade Ademola
Retired Attorney
Brooklyn, NY

Being tough on crime should mean pursuing justice, not getting convictions at all costs.

I'm a retired attorney, and during my career, I worked in Nigeria, the United Kingdom and the U.S. Before coming here I had received legal training and practiced briefly in Nigeria. When I graduated law school in this country, I saw the extreme zealotry on both sides of cases and decided that I couldn’t pursue a career in litigation in such an environment.

My professional values have been shaped by the jurisprudence and professional ethics of the British system of a time and place that I don’t know still exists, in which our obligation as lawyers is the pursuit of justice irrespective of which side you’re on. This philosophy has long gone missing in the American system, which has become so adversarial that fairness and justice have been jettisoned in favor of personal expedience. The work of the Innocence Project is essential to mitigate this loss and gross imbalance.

As Martin Luther King, Jr., said, "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." The Innocence Project works to overturn terrible cases of injustice, but the impact of the work is much larger than DNA exoneration cases. By exposing the injustices of the system, the Innocence Project has shone light on the miscarriages of justice that are so rife in our system.

I support the Innocence Project because the organization’s work provides a critical counterbalance in an over-politicized state of affairs. To me, supporting the organization is not a choice; it's an imperative in a climate of out of control, railroading zealotry. That any innocent person has been executed and the threat persists obstinately to other innocent people is a nightmare I am unable to bear. It is incumbent upon all of us, custodians of the American dream and all the virtues this country stands for, to help stall and ultimately eradicate this travesty of justice. Who says you or I are beyond being its victim?

I donate monthly to the Innocence Project to demonstrate my ongoing commitment to the organization’s all too important work.

Join Ade by setting up a monthly donation today.

N.J. Supreme Court Orders Major Shift on Eyewitness Evidence

The New Jersey Supreme Court issued a landmark decision yesterday that will require courts to greatly expand the factors that courts and juries consider in assessing the risk of misidentification. The impact of the ruling will affect how courts nationwide deal with this critical issue.

The new changes are designed to reduce the likelihood of wrongful convictions by taking into account more than 30 years of scientific research on eyewitness identification and memory.

"The court has recognized the tremendous fallibility of eyewitness identifications, and based on the most thorough review of scientific research undertaken by a court, has set up comprehensive and practical guidelines for how judges and juries should handle this important evidence," Innocence Project Co-Director Barry Scheck said yesterday.

Read more about the ruling in today's New York Times and download the full decision from our site.

25 Years Later, Still Fighting for Exoneration

New DNA tests provide strong proof that Michael Morton has served 25 years in Texas prisons for a murder he didn’t commit.

The Innocence Project has fought for six years to get DNA testing on key evidence in Morton’s case. Williamson County prosecutor John Bradley has continually blocked Morton’s path to testing. The state’s highest criminal court overruled Bradley’s objections last year, ruling that Morton had a right to DNA tests under state law. The new results point to Morton’s innocence and implicate another man in the crime.

Bradley’s office is reinvestigating the case, and a Texas judge has called for a progress report on the investigation by September 27. The Innocence Project, meanwhile, has questioned Bradley’s impartiality in the case. He is the former chairman of the Texas Forensic Science Commission and has been widely criticized by media outlets for his impartial handling of that panel’s investigation of the Cameron Todd Willingham case. In a Houston Chronicle column on Monday, Rick Casey wrote that "there’s a good chance that (Bradley’s) obstinacy in the Morton case not only kept an innocent man in prison five years longer than necessary, but also may have enabled the real murderer to do more harm during that time."

Morton is pictured above on a 2010 prison visit with his parents. Read more about his case here.

Join 66,700 Advocates in Calling for Justice in Chicago

DNA proves that nine Chicago men were convicted in the 1990s of crimes they didn’t commit, but prosecutors still won’t agree to overturn their convictions. Five of the men are still behind bars today, and we need your voice to help obtain justice in their cases. Above are Innocence Project clients Jonathan Barr (left) and Michael Saunders (right).

We launched a petition this month in partnership with Color of Change, the Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth and University of Chicago’s Exoneration Project. Already more than 66,700 people have signed their names to urge Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez to do the right thing.

Please join us by signing the petition today — we’re planning to deliver the signatures in person next week and want to make sure your voice is heard.

The nine men were convicted of two separate murders three years and 12 miles apart, but their cases bear striking similarities. All nine were teenagers when they were arrested. Seven of them confessed under pressure, and all seven have since said the confessions were coerced during intense interrogations.

DNA test results from key evidence in both cases implicates other perpetrators who have committed similar crimes, but Cook County prosecutors have attempted to downplay the evidence, arguing to keep the convictions of these nine young men intact.

Sign the petition today to call for justice in Cook County.

New Multimedia Resource: Getting it Right

We launched a new multimedia resource on our website last week, featuring videos and interactive content on the central causes of wrongful convictions.

The new "Getting it Right" widget includes videos on eyewitness identification, false confessions, unvalidated forensics, law enforcement and defense representation. Also included are stories of exonerated individuals and background research to dig deeper into each issue. The project was made possible by a partnership with Brandon Garrett, the author of "Convicting the Innocent," a recent book on the causes of wrongful conviction, and support from the Foundation to Promote Open Society.

The widget and videos are available for bloggers and other organizations to embed on their site. Click here to get the code for your site.

Explore the new web feature and watch the videos here.

Why I Give: A Donor Profile

John Moran
Royersford, Pennsylvania

I first learned about the work of the Innocence Project several years ago, after a family member suffered unjust treatment at the hands of the criminal justice system. The experience opened my eyes to the fact that we aren’t all treated as "innocent until proven guilty." Money matters in the system, and poor defendants often have the cards stacked against them.

There are fatal flaws in our criminal justice system, and I know now that there are innocent people behind bars for crimes they didn’t commit. Inadequate defense representation creates an uneven playing field. Too many people are blindsided into taking plea deals for crimes they didn’t commit. People end up falling through the cracks.

I donate to the Innocence Project not only because of their noble work to overturn wrongful convictions, but also because they seek to provide a balance badly needed in a system that has veered far from the one that our founding fathers created.

I also frequently share news from the Innocence Project’s Facebook page with my friends because I feel that educating my generation will go a long way toward fixing the inequalities in the system. The Innocence Project is working to overturn injustice, and I’m proud to play a part in their successes.

Join John by donating online today.

Still Seeking Freedom After 27 Years

Send Thomas Haynesworth a Message of Support in Prison

DNA testing and other evidence prove that Thomas Haynesworth has served 27 years in prison for a series of crimes he didn’t commit, but he remains behind bars today, awaiting a decision from a Virginia appeals court.

Earlier this month, the Innocence Project joined with local and state prosecutors and other organizations in filing a motion for Haynesworth’s release with the Commonwealth Appeals Court. While Haynesworth awaits a decision from the court, he has been encouraged by an outpouring of support from the Innocence Project’s community of supporters around the world. Send Haynesworth a message of support in prison today.

Haynesworth was 18 and had no criminal record when he was charged with committing five rapes or attempted rapes in the Richmond area in 1984. Prosecutors dismissed one of the cases, but he was ultimately convicted of three of the crimes and acquitted of one. After his conviction, however, similar attacks continued in the area. Eventually, another man, who described himself to his attackers as the "Black Ninja," was convicted of committing several crimes bearing striking resemblance to the crimes for which Haynesworth was convicted. Haynesworth proclaimed his innocence from prison and asked for his case to be reopened, but his pleas went unheeded for more than two decades.

In 2005, a statewide evidence review led to DNA testing in one of Haynesworth’s cases. The results pointed to the "Black Ninja," clearing Haynesworth. The Innocence Project and Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project sought further testing, and DNA tests also cleared Haynesworth in the crime for which he was acquitted. Although there is no biological evidence available in Haynesworth’s other two convictions, two local prosecutors conducted a careful review of the evidence and now agree that Haynesworth is innocent of these as well.

In an op-ed on Sunday, the Washington Post called for Haynesworth to be freed, writing "Mr. Haynesworth can never get his years back, and as long as he remains in prison, justice is disserved."

Read more about Haynesworth’s case and send him a message of support in prison today.

Smart on Crime

Report Calls for Federal Reform

Last week, the Innocence Project joined other leading criminal justice reform organizations in releasing a new report entitled "Smart on Crime," which outlines problems and proposes reforms for our criminal justice system. The report serves as both an informative resource and a clear call for Congress and the Obama administration to act on these issues. Read the full report and watch a video with expert commentary.

Also last week, Virginia Senator Jim Webb reintroduced legislation to create a national criminal justice commission, which is one of the report’s most vital recommendations. The Commission would be tasked with performing a comprehensive review of federal, state, local, and tribal criminal justice systems and making reform recommendations to Congress and the administration. Innocence Project supporters have called on Congress for months to form the Commission.

Read more about Smart on Crime and Webb’s proposal to create a national criminal justice task force.

Prosecutors Raise Hurdles to Exoneration

DNA Tests Challenged in Illinois and Pennsylvania

In many Innocence Project cases, prosecutors join us in seeking post-conviction DNA tests that can prove guilt or innocence and in calling for exoneration when those tests prove a prisoner’s innocence. In other cases, however, prosecutors employ every legal avenue to block testing and exoneration. Two pending cases illustrate these hurdles sometimes faced by our clients.

Innocence Project client Robert Conway has spent more than two decades in Pennsylvania prisons for a murder he has always said he didn’t commit. He has long sought DNA testing on evidence collected from the crime scene that could prove the identity of the real killer. Finally last month, a Pennsylvania appeals court reversed a lower court’s decision and granted him access to the tests. Now, prosecutors are appealing the decision and are asking courts to deny tests again. They say the evidence could be contaminated and wouldn’t prove innocence or guilt.

"What’s the harm in testing? If he did it, this may confirm that he did it, and if he didn’t do it, let’s find out who did and let Robert Conway go. Who could argue with any of that?" Pennsylvania attorney Steven Fairlie, who is working with the Innocence Project, told MontgomeryNews.com recently.

Meanwhile, in Illinois, Innocence Project client Bennie Starks (above) has been free for five years after DNA testing on evidence clearly left by the perpetrator led to a 1986 sexual assault conviction being tossed out. But prosecutors are planning to retry him in May, claiming that the DNA evidence could have come from another source. The Innocence Project is working with a team of local attorneys on the case to have charges against Starks dismissed. Read more about his case.

While cases like these present unique challenges, they are somewhat rare. In more than 80% of Innocence Project cases, prosecutors agree to join with the Innocence Project in seeking DNA tests.

Why I Give: A Donor Profile

Catherine Eloranto
Assoc. Professor, Criminal Justice
Clinton Community College, Plattsburgh, NY

Over the course of my career, I’ve seen the criminal justice system from many perspectives. I have worked as a prosecutor in Arizona and New York and as a criminal court judge. Today I teach criminal procedure and other courses at Clinton Community College in Plattsburgh, New York.

I have known for a long time that our criminal justice system is flawed — it’s a human system and only as good as the people at the reins in a given courtroom on a given day. But even my knowledge of the system didn’t prepare me for Kirk Bloodsworth’s book, which I read several years ago. I was simply astounded at how bad the system can be; it was frightening to learn that an innocent man could be sentenced to death despite such strong evidence of his innocence.

After reading the book I followed the work of the Innocence Project closely, receiving email updates and watching as the number of exonerations steadily grew larger. When an email came last year asking for support, I clicked and made a donation. It’s a worthy cause and one in which I believe deeply.

The Innocence Project is an effective nonprofit because it lays out a clear plan for reform based on the lessons learned from wrongful convictions. We can always point to horrible things that happen, but unless there’s a plan to fix things, the criminal justice system will just go back to its old ways. I teach my students each semester about wrongful convictions and I see how it changes their view of the system and its flaws. Through these lessons, I aim to show them that the system isn’t always fair. It relies on each of us to make it fair. The Innocence Project’s work is going a long way across the country to make the system fair, but there’s more work to be done.

Help free the innocent. Make an online donation today.

2010: Freeing the Innocent, Fixing the System

It has been a big year at the Innocence Project, and we're gearing up for more exonerations and reforms in 2011.

Earlier this year, DNA testing led to the exoneration of our client Freddie Peacock (above) 34 years after he was convicted of a rape he didn't commit. He was the 250th person exonerated through DNA evidence in the United States, marking a milestone for the innocence movement.

In addition, our policy team helped to pass historic comprehensive criminal justice reform legislation in Ohio, Alaska became the 48th state to enact a law granting access to post-conviction DNA testing and we persuaded the New Jersey Supreme Court to review the state's eyewitness identification procedures to reflect new social science research.

On Monday, the Innocence Network published a report detailing the 29 people exonerated in 2010 through the work of member organizations. These 29 individuals served a combined 426 years in prison for crimes they didn't commit before they were set free. DNA testing proved innocence for 12 individuals. The remaining 17 were exonerated by other evidence. Unfortunately, their cases are only the tip of the iceberg, with countless innocent people spending the holidays behind bars. We'll be working in 2011 to free as many as possible.

The Innocence Project is a founding member of the Innocence Network, which includes more than 60 organizations around the world working to overturn wrongful convictions and reform policies to prevent injustice.

Read the 2010 Innocence Network report here.

Texas Appeals Court Delays Death Penalty Hearing

A Texas judge this month held an unprecedented hearing on whether capital cases in the state carry an unconstitutional risk of executing an innocent person. Attorneys for John Edward Green, who is charged with capital murder, argued that Texas' system is inherently unreliable and that Texas has executed innocent people.

Innocence Project Co-Director Barry Scheck was scheduled to present evidence in the case, but the hearing was suddenly halted by an appeals court after two days. Acting on an emergency motion from prosecutors, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals put the hearing on hold so both parties could file additional briefs. Those briefs are due Thursday. Read more about the case on the Innocence Blog.

Before the hearing was delayed, Scheck had planned to present evidence about the cases of Claude Jones (above left) and Cameron Todd Willingham (above right), both of whom were executed in Texas based on faulty evidence.

Forensics in Flux

Reports of flawed forensics and evidence mishandling continued to surface across the country this month, with the Innocence Project renewing calls for federal forensic oversight to prevent wrongful convictions.

The troubled San Francisco Police Department crime lab suffered another blow with reports last week that lab officials secretly destroyed reports of evidence mishandling in the lab and that prosecutors had hidden a report detailing allegations that a lab analyst withheld key DNA evidence from a grand jury in a murder case.

In New York, a lab was placed on probation by an accrediting agency after an audit turned up more than a dozen failures to meet standards.

The Texas Forensic Science Commission met last week in Austin. The panel is slated to hear from arson experts January 7 in its investigation of the questionable evidence used to convict Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in 2004 for allegedly setting a fire that killed his three daughters. Video of the complete January 7 hearing will be streamed live on our website.

The Innocence Project is a member of the Just Science Coalition, which supports the creation of an independent science-based forensic entity that directs and funds research in forensic sciences, sets standards and enforces those standards.

Why I Give: A Donor Profile

Rev. Earl W. Koteen
Consulting Minister for Climate Change

Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry of California

Going to seminary and seeing the movie "After Innocence" were the sparks that led me to support the Innocence Project.

Prior to seminary, I assumed that nearly all people accused of crimes were guilty. Taking courses in social work and working with ministers, therapists and the mentally ill, I learned that false accusations are much more common than I had ever imagined. I learned that memories aren't locked in place, they're fluid and can change during therapy sessions and interrogations. I learned many things that led me to believe that many people are falsely accused, and some are falsely convicted. I also learned that such false convictions are most frequent among the disadvantaged.

The documentary "After Innocence" had a profound impact on me. The most poignant characters in the documentary were Ronald Cotton and Jennifer Thompson. Jennifer had erroneously identified Ronald as the perpetrator who broke into her house and sexually assaulted her. A decade later, after DNA testing had proven Ronald innocent and pointed to the real perpetrator, they became close friends and joined forces to prevent future wrongful convictions. They wrote about their experiences in the book "Picking Cotton." The depth of their healing was moving and miraculous.

The work of the Innocence Project challenges common assumptions about our criminal justice system and forces us to accept that the system doesn't always get it right. I am so grateful for the wonderful work of this organization and proud to call myself a supporter.

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