Innocence Project

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The Innocence Project is a US non-profit organization that aims to clear up legal errors .

The project was started in 1992 by Barry Scheck , a law professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University in New York City and one of the defense counsel in the trial of OJ Simpson , and Peter Neufeld in 1992. It currently employs five attorneys and about 20 law students working pro bono on circumstantial convictions who plead innocence and seek retrial. Subsequent DNA analyzes of evidence are usually used for this purposecommissioned. Such procedures were often not yet available at the time of the conviction, in other cases the defendants could not afford extensive investigations or were inadequately represented by a lawyer.

Over 6000 cases are currently (2011) being evaluated, and there are around 3000 new inquiries each year. Since the project was founded, the innocence of over 350 people ( status quo November 13, 2019: 367 people), including 21 sentenced to death , has been proven. These people spent an average of 14 years in prison before they were rehabilitated. In about 70% of these cases there was false identification by eyewitnesses , in over 15% false statements by informants were a cause of the misjudgment. In almost 25% of the cases, the defendants made false confessions in the course of the trial because they were put under pressure by the investigative authorities or because they were hoping for a milder verdict.

The project also advocates adequate compensation for wrongly imprisoned persons and calls on the states to create a legal basis for a legal right to conduct DNA tests and to set up commissions to investigate the causes of legal errors. It is networked with other organizations with the same objective in the Innocence Network .

Examples

  • Darryl Hunt was exonerated in 2004 after serving 19½ years innocent of rape and murder.
  • James Calvin Tillman was exonerated in 2007 after serving 16½ years innocent of rape.
  • Lynn DeJac was exonerated and fired in 2007 after thirteen and a half years. She had been convicted of murder innocently. She is conducting a lawsuit against New York State.
  • In 2007 Floyd Brown was exonerated. He was in Wadesboro for the murder of an 80-year-old woman. Brown has the mental faculties of a seven year old. The only evidence had been a forged report from a State Bureau of Investigation agent, and there was never a confession. The agent's forged report was written at a level of language that Floyd himself could not have achieved. Floyd was not given the opportunity to defend himself against the allegation because he was deemed incapable of negotiation. Floyd Brown is suing the State of North Carolina over these blatant legal violations.
  • In June 2010, Barry Gibbs received the highest damages the City of New York have ever paid, $ 9.9 million. He had been falsely charged with the murder of prostitute Virginia Robertson. He had been charged in connection with the investigation into the Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa case . Since he was innocent, he did not regret his alleged actions. The authorities refused a pardon because he did not regret his actions. When Eppolito was found guilty of multiple murders, exculpatory material came to light.
  • In September 2010, shortly before his execution, Kevin Keith was pardoned by Ohio Governor Ted Strickland. The Ohio Innocent Project had supported him.
  • Greg Taylor spent 17 years innocent in prison for murder and was pardoned in February 2010, shortly before his scheduled execution date.
  • Steven Avery spent 18 years (1985-2003) innocent in prison in Wisconsin for a rape. The story of the first and a new conviction for a murder in 2005 is the subject of the documentary Making a Murderer ( Netflix , 2015)

literature

  • Jim Dwyer, Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck: Actual innocence. Five days to execution, and other dispatches from the wrongly convicted . Doubleday, New York 2000. ISBN 0-385-49341-X
  • Taryn Simon, Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck: The innocents . Umbrage, New York 2003. ISBN 1-884167-18-7

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://www.innocenceproject.org/about/
  2. ↑ exon rate. Retrieved November 13, 2019 (American English).
  3. ↑ DeJac Expects worst fromState in suit ( Memento of 17 January 2012 at the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ Rogue Justice. CNN. Atlanta. Jan. 30, 2011. Television
  5. ^ John Marzulli: Barry Gibbs, man framed by 'mafia cop,' gets $ 9.9M settlement for 18-year prison sentence , New York Daily News . June 3, 2010. Accessed July 6, 2010. 
  6. ↑ JOYCE PURNICK, "METRO MATTERS; 19 Years Late, Freedom Has A Bitter Taste" , New York Times , Oct 3, 2005, accessed Aug. 14, 2010
  7. ↑ Bob Driehaus: Ohio's Governor Spares Life of a Death Row Inmate . In: New York Times , September 2, 2010, p. A13. 
  8. ↑ Leigh Lundin: Death and Destruction . In: Capital Punishment . Criminal letter. August 29, 2010. Retrieved March 23, 2014.
  9. ↑ Andrew Welsh-Huggins: Kevin Keith: Clemency overrides unanimous parole board decision . In: Mansfield News Journal , September 3, 2010. Archived from the original on September 6, 2010 Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.mansfieldnewsjournal.com