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THE INNOCENCE PROJECT 2016 ANNUAL REPORT Benjamin N CELEBRATING 25 YEARS OF FREEDOM AND JUSTICE THE INNOCENCE PROJECT 2016 ANNUAL REPORT Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University The Innocence Project row. These people served an are not isolated or rare events was founded in 1992 by average of 14 years in prison but instead arise from systemic Barry C. Scheck and Peter before exoneration and release. defects. Now an independent J. Neufeld at the Benjamin The Innocence Project’s full- nonprofit organization closely N. Cardozo School of Law time staff attorneys and Cardozo affiliated with Cardozo School at Yeshiva University to clinic students provided direct of Law at Yeshiva University, assist prisoners who could representation or critical the Innocence Project’s mission be proven innocent through assistance in most of these is nothing less than to free the DNA testing. To date, 350 cases. The Innocence Project’s staggering number of innocent people in the United States groundbreaking use of DNA people who remain incarcerated have been exonerated by technology to free innocent and to bring substantive reform DNA testing, including 20 people has provided irrefutable to the system responsible for who served time on death proof that wrongful convictions their unjust imprisonment. Letter from the Co-Directors, This year marks the Innocence Project’s 25th anniversary. Who would Board Chair and have known back in 1992 that our work would eventually lead to an Executive Director ..................4 overhaul in how the criminal justice system and the judiciary investigate A Paradigm Shift .....................6 and try criminal cases? Championing A When the Innocence Project started as a fledgling law clinic at Cardozo New Golden Standard .............8 Law School, our work was considered unconventional, to say the least. Our goal then was to apply DNA testing to criminal justice—not as a Dismantling the Status Quo for Criminal Investigations ......10 means to convict but rather as a tool to reveal innocence in cases of wrongful conviction and to expose widespread failure in the system’s Fostering Change In the capacity to protect innocent people and uphold justice. Now, a quarter Past and into the Future .........12 of a century later, our mission remains intact, but with all that the Restoring Justice, exoneration cases have revealed, the breadth and scope of our work Restoring Freedom ..................14 have also expanded and evolved. Year in Review .........................16 In the past 25 years, with the help of many dedicated supporters, the Financial Information ..............18 Innocence Project has helped hundreds of innocent people from around the country to secure freedom and justice. Their stories stirred a public Donors ....................................19 awakening and, in essence, ignited a new justice movement. Staff .......................................28 The exoneration cases bared truth about our justice system. They Board of Directors ..................30 exposed where the system is most flawed and taught us that wrongful convictions are not anomalies; they’re byproducts of a system that Founders Circle .......................31 regularly misses the mark. Photo © mattedesign With lessons learned through DNA exoneration cases, the Innocence Project Peter J. Neufeld has fostered meaningful state and federal reform. Partnering with exonerees Co-Director as well as members of the Innocence Network, we’ve educated lawmakers from across the country around the causes of wrongful conviction. Barry C. Scheck Leveraging this growing awareness, we’ve pressed for the successful Co-Director passage of more than 100 laws related to our work. Maddy deLone In tandem, the Innocence Project has offered innovative and science- Executive Director based solutions to courts and law enforcement to confront some of the chief contributors to wrongful convictions, whether they be eyewitness Rodney Ellis misidentification, forensic practices that aren’t backed by science, false Board Chair confessions, government misconduct, incentivized witnesses or inadequate defense lawyers. Now a quarter of a century in—with many successes behind us but even more challenges ahead—the Innocence Project is preparing to employ its unique expertise to contribute to tackling the system’s deeper systematic failures: racial bias; overreliance on guilty pleas, especially in misdemeanor cases; the lack of accountability for prosecutors; and inadequate public defense systems—through education, advocacy, litigation and science- and research- based reforms. We hope that you will join us for the next leg of our journey. Undoubtedly, we could never have made it this far without you. And we know that our continued work and success is possible only through the committed giving of friends and supporters like you. 5 A PARADIGM SHIFT Darryl Howard was Several factors contributed to his But a new justice movement—one wrongful conviction, including that met at the cross section of wrongfully convicted prosecutorial misconduct and science and criminal justice—was the use of unreliable informants burgeoning. The Innocence Project for a double murder as eyewitnesses at his trial. At had formed three years prior in North Carolina that time though, most Americans and was using DNA technology couldn’t conceive that an innocent to expose a phenomenon that in 1995. man could be sent to prison, much few knew existed: the wrongful less that it was common practices conviction of innocent people. used throughout our nation’s Each of the wrongful conviction trusted criminal justice system cases that the Innocence Project that led to it happening. litigated served as a teaching 6 Darryl Howard, seated outside his home in North Carolina, several days after he was YEARS exonerated in August 2016. Photo: Sameer Abdel-Khalek. OF FREEDOM AND JUSTICE 1992 • Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld establish the Innocence Project (IP) at the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law. • The IP’s first client, Glen Woodall, exonerated in West Virginia. moment. They provided detailed develop surefire methods—many and indisputable proof that our of which have been adopted by justice system is indeed fallible. law enforcement all around the This work stirred the country to country—to correct and prevent reexamine its beliefs about the the system’s mistakes, and help criminal justice system and to call rebuild the system into the fairer 1993 on law enforcement, the judiciary one to which we’re all entitled. • Kirk Bloodsworth becomes and policy makers to take action In 2001, a post-conviction DNA first person exonerated from death row through post- ensure justice and the protection testing law passed in North conviction DNA testing. of innocent people. Carolina, paving the way for The cases also informed and Howard’s exoneration in 2016. led the Innocence Project to 777 CHAMPIONING A NEW GOLDEN STANDARD After spending four years The year that Harrell was But in order to pursue DNA testing in prison and two decades convicted, not a single state in cases like Dion’s, new and had a law explicitly granting better laws had to be passed. on the sex offender prisoners access to DNA testing. In direct response to the lack of registry, Dion Harrell DNA technology would become access across numerous states, the Innocence Project fostered was exonerated in 2016 the hallmark of the Innocence Project’s work—leveraging legislative reform, making post- of a 1992 wrongful rape science to expose the system’s conviction DNA testing possible conviction in New Jersey. mistakes, to exonerate innocent for people trying to secure their people of wrongful convictions innocence. and to identify real perpetrators. 8 Dion Harrell pictured here 1996 with family and supporters standing outside a New Jersey • U.S. Attorney courthouse, just minutes General after being exonerated. Janet Reno commissions Photo: Sameer Abdel-Khalek. report on causes of the 28 wrongful convictions overturned through DNA testing. 2000 • Actual Innocence, by Peter Neufeld, Barry Scheck and New York Times reporter Jim Dwyer, is published. • Earl Washington is exonerated based on DNA evidence. His case helped pass laws that make it easier for people to get their cases back in court to prove their innocence. 2001 • IP client Marvin Anderson is exonerated under newly passed DNA testing law in In 2013, we celebrated Oklahoma incarcerated in order to access Virginia. becoming the 50th state to pass post-conviction testing, making • IP celebrates the exoneration such a law, but we continue to him ineligible. But the Innocence of Indiana-based client Larry refine those laws to get rid of Project worked closely with Mayes—the 100th person onerous restrictions that still state legislators to eliminate exonerated in the United limit accessibility. For example, those restrictions. Now, under States. in Harrell’s case, when the a much-improved law, more Innocence Project first petitioned people have the constitutional 2003 the court for DNA testing, New right to access DNA testing to • Illinois becomes first state Jersey law required people to be prove their innocence. to pass a law requiring digital recording of interrogation from start to finish. 999 Last spring, Keith Harward was exonerated based on DNA evidence after spending 34 years in prison for a 1982 rape and murder in New Port News, Virginia, that he did not commit. Photo: Richmond Times-Dispatch. DISMANTLING THE STATUS QUO FOR CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS In April of 2016, Keith Harward’s wrongful conviction was belonged to another individual— Harward was exonerated of based on bite mark comparison not Harward. analysis—a forensic method we now Many people have been sent to rape and murder in Virginia. know to be completely lacking in prison based on forensic methods He spent nearly 34 years of scientific validity. Over the course that have no scientific foundation of his prosecution, six forensic his life behind bars, all the or through misleading expert dentists testified that the marks testimony. In response, over the past while being innocent. found on one of the victims of the 25 years, we’ve raised the bar for 1982 crime scene were made by forensic practices so that they are Harward’s teeth.
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