exodus SUMMER 2018 • ISSUE XXI IPNO Welcomes New Executive Director Jee Park became IPNO’s new executive director on June 2, 2018. Jee joined IPNO in January 2017 as senior attorney for policy from Orleans Public Defenders (OPD) where she was its deputy district defender. In 1998, Jee became exposed to the many senseless cruelties and injustices of the criminal justice system working for Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) in Montgomery, Alabama. The lessons she learned from her death row clients and their cases, and the compassion and strengths she witnessed in her clients have long motivated Jee to fight for a justice system worthy of its name, a system that does not repeatedly and consistently fail to protect the innocent but poor. “I am humbled by this opportunity to lead IPNO. The organization continues to free the innocent and advocate for meaningful and lasting change in the criminal justice system and we have proven ourselves to be a major player in criminal justice reform. Our cases clearly demonstrate how wrongful convictions happen and what we must do to prevent them,” said Park. “All of our clients are victims of a combination of inadequate defense resources, racial discrimination, poor policing practices, misconduct by prosecution or defense, inaccurate and unreliable forensic evidence, and a cursory process driven by an overburdened system. I am honored to be working alongside of IPNO’s smart, hard-charging, dedicated staff to continue fighting these challenges.” - continued on page 12 Malcolm Alexander, Bobbie Jean Johnson and Gerald Manning FREE! Read more inside. 2018 BOARD OF DIRECTORS Michael W. Magner (Chair) Judy Perry Martinez Partner Of Counsel Jones, Walker, Waechter, Poitevent, Simon, Peragine, Smith & Redfearn Carrere & Denegre, LLP New Orleans, Louisiana New Orleans, Louisiana Ileana Ortiz Frank X. Neuner, Jr. (Vice Chair) Navigator/Spanish Interpreter Managing Partner EdNavigator After 12 years at IPNO, staff attorney Kristin Wenstrom joined the Louisiana NeunerPate Center for Children’s Rights (LCCR) as senior staff attorney for their Campaign Herschel E. Richard, Jr. Lafayette, Louisiana to End Extreme Sentencing for Youth. We are grateful for Kristin’s unwavering Of Counsel dedication to our clients and for her years of hard work to free so many of our Michael Friedman (Secretary) Cook Yancey clients like Jerome Morgan. We are proud of her and know she will continue to Co-Owner Shreveport, Louisiana bring light into dark places. Pizza Delicious New Orleans, Louisiana D. Majeeda Snead Clinical Professor IPNO welcomed two new staff members this year: Devon Geyelin joined John A. Nolan (Treasurer) Loyola University College of Law as an investigator fellow in February and Kiah Howard joined as a senior John A. Nolan, CPA LLC New Orleans, Louisiana investigator in May. They both come with years of demonstrated commit- New Orleans, Louisiana ment of working for poor, condemned prisoners and for racial justice. Donald Wayne Washington Melody Chang Partner A warm welcome to our Summer 2018 Interns: Benjamin Boggs (Case Western Student Jones, Walker, Waechter, Poitevent, Reserve University School of Law), Emily Cannon (Louisiana State University), Haley Carrere & Denegre, LLP Johnson (Howard University School of Law), Tevin Lashley (Jesuit High School of Hon. Stanwood R. Duval, Jr. Lafayette, Louisiana New Orleans), Thuy Le (Tulane University Law School), Kennadi Robinson (New Of Counsel Orleans Charter Science and Mathematics High School), Laurel Sheridan (Tulane Duval, Funderburk, Sundbery, Jason R. Williams University Law School), Kelli Slater (Tulane University Law School) and Zack Struver Richard & Watkins APLC Councilmember-At-Large (Columbia Law School). Houma, Louisiana New Orleans City Council New Orleans, Louisiana Thank you to two volunteers who have made things happen since Robert Jones January: Katie Knafler, who has been conducting legal research, Client Advocate and Missy Kroninger, who assisted with the gala, silent auction Orleans Public Defenders and more. New Orleans, Louisiana A huge thanks to Lyft, the ride-sharing company, for donating ride credits to IPNO which has helped our investigators pick up This newsletter reports on IPNO’s activities in and out of court so that our documents and get our car-less clients to important appointments. supporters and members of the public may understand what we do. Any information about an open case that is contained in this newsletter is also New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival donated tickets to IPNO contained in the public court record of the case. clients this year, some of whom have never attended. Thank you New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation for continuing to Client Greg Bright with support IPNO and provide some fun for our clients! Jazz Fest tickets Bernard Noble, who was originally sentenced to 13 years for two joints of marijuana was released on parole in April. Mr. Noble’s case demonstrates the stark racial Mission: disparity of drug sentencing laws as applied to white and black people Innocence Project New Orleans (IPNO) frees innocent, life-sentenced prisoners. and how different states treat marijuana usage. While some states We support our clients living well and fully in the world after their release. We are legalizing and profiting from marijuana sales and use, Louisiana advocate for sensible criminal justice policies that reduce wrongful convictions. stripped Mr. Noble of his dignity and liberty. Mr. Noble had been a long-time client of Jee Park from Orleans Public Defenders As of May 2018, IPNO has freed or exonerated 32 innocent clients. and she continued to represent him until his release. Photo Courtesy of Mollie Walton Corbett 2 ipno exodus | www.ip-no.org Summer 2018 | ipno exodus 3 With New Law, Louisiana Ushers in Eyewitness Identification Reform As exonerees Jerome Morgan, Robert and instructing the eyewitness that the mistakes and wrongful convictions to secure incorporating many of the procedures Jones, Kia Stewart, Malcolm Alexander, perpetrator may or may not be in the lineup. their support. In Louisiana, 14 out of 15 DNA advocated by IPNO in the legislation. Reginald Adams and Henry James Mr. Alexander, who was wrongly convicted exonerations involved mistaken identifica- Soon after, IPNO and Sen. Bishop sat down looked on, Gov. John Bel Edwards on of rape and served nearly 38 years in prison tions. Two of the men exonerated were with LDAA Director Pete Adams, LSA rd May 23 signed into law a bill aimed at before he was exonerated this January, sentenced to death. Early on, many legislators Director Michael Ranatza and representa- preventing wrongful convictions caused hopes Act 466 will prevent others from offered slim odds for passing an identification tives from the Louisiana Association of by eyewitness mistakes. The legislation, experiencing what he painfully endured. law in one year saying “the politics were not Chiefs of Police and the Louisiana State Act 466, will give Louisiana one of the “My line-up was unfair. I was the only one in our favor.” Regardless, IPNO persisted, Police to collaboratively draft the bill’s country’s most progressive laws on shown to the witness twice. Each time she reaching out to both progressive and language. When the bill received 45 green eyewitness identifications. picked me, she said she was unsure. If police conservative decision makers about why cards in support from distinguished and Sponsored by Sen. Wesley Bishop, had to follow this law back then, I might not this bill was necessary and timely, holding concerned community members when D-New Orleans, Act 466 mandates police have been wrongly convicted,” he said. over 30 meetings with legislators, giving it was presented to the Senate Judiciary officers conducting eyewitness identifica- four community presentations from New Committee C, its passage was secured. Act 466’s journey to becoming law began Orleans to Shreveport, speaking to the tions to use procedures which have been last fall, when IPNO staff and an advocate Louisiana now joins 19 other states that shown to reduce misidentifications, Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus and even have passed laws aimed at reducing the from the Innocence Project met with addressing the Louisiana District Attorneys including ensuring that the administrator legislators and leaders of the law enforcement likelihood of eyewitness misidentification. conducting the procedure does not know Association (LDAA). After meeting with Act 466 went into effect on May 23rd, and community to educate them about the far IPNO, the Louisiana Sheriff’s Association the identity of the suspect in the lineup too prevalent nexus between eyewitness law enforcement agencies must have new (LSA) voted in March to adopt a model policy policies in place by January 30, 2019. 4 ipno exodus | www.ip-no.org Summer 2018 | ipno exodus 5 IPNO Holds Groundbreaking NOPD IPNO Seeks Accountability Training Symposium Last year Robert Jones was exonerated The difficulties of Nearly 50 New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) commanders and supervisors, after a 25-year ordeal in which prosecutors holding prosecutors as well as supervisors from police departments around the country, attended a committed misconduct from the moment accountable are illus- groundbreaking two-day symposium hosted by IPNO and the NOPD in March. they indicted Mr. Jones all the way through trated by a recent de- The event, which emerged from a partner- Bill Brooks, psychologist Nancy Steblay, to their unsuccessful 2015 effort to have cision of the