Innocence Project

Innocence Project website:
http://www.innocenceproject.org/?gclid=CJ6_kpCsqZoCFQRkswod0gHU0w

The Innocence Project was created in 1992 by two men from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University to assist prisoner that could be proven innocent with DNA testing. To this day, 238 people in the U.S. have been exonerated, 17 of these men were on death row. The average years these men spent in prison were 12 years each. Twelve years is too many years for an innocent man to spend in prison.

The Innocence Project is closely run by full-time attorneys and clinic students at Cardoza School. Their goal is to free the increasing number of innocent people that are in prison with the break through of DNA, and to bring reform to the system. Many of the men in prison were convicted on misidentification, false confessions, government misconduct, informants/snitched, invalidated or improper forensic science, and bad lawyering.

Most of these reasons for incarceration are self explanatory, but a few are need more detail. Government misconduct includes fraud or misconduct on the behalf of the prosecutors and/or police departments. Informants/snitches are often paid to testify, testified in an exchange for release, or have testified in several cases that they overheard a conversation or witnesses the crime. Invalidated or improper forensic science includes hair microscopy, bite mark comparisons, firearm tool mark comparisons and footwear comparisons which haven’t been subjected to a rigorous scientific evaluation as DNA has, and has sometimes been improperly conducted or inaccurately conveyed in trial testimony causing a conviction of an innocent person.

There are innocent people in prison and someone needs to assist these persons in their release. People in prison are believed to be in prison because they had committed a crime against society, but there are those people who shouldn’t be in prison and the real perpetrator is still in the community that thought they were being protected. The innocent people in prison need someone to believe in them, and this is just the project to do so. This is proof that even though forensic science has come a long way, mistakes can still be made, but these mistakes can be corrected as well.


Video of a man exonerated thanks to the Innocence Project:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DSS18Prxmo&feature=PlayList&p=262A9897FBDA015A&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=1