looking back at 2018 Table of Contents From Our Executive Director Continuing Support: 2 10 Life After Exoneration 3 From Our Board President Changing Pennsylvania Laws 11 Educational Institution Support / 4 For All of Pennsylvania's Pro Bono & Corporate Partners Convicted Innocent 12 Annual Events 2018 Exonerees: Financial Overview 7 When the Barriers Come Down 14 15 Thanks to Our Donors Client Breakthroughs: Get in Touch with Us 8 Justice Is Within Reach 18 Pennsylvania Innocence Project: From Our Philadelphia & 19 9 Advocates for Innocence, Pittsburgh Offices Board of Directors, & Staff From Our executive director In 2018, another innocent man joined his But we have so much more to do. fellow exonerees in finding his freedom. Dontia Patterson was released from prison, We also continue working with law wrongly convicted of murdering a childhood enforcement to improve the bad methods friend. We celebrate with Dontia’s family and are that lead to these tragedies. This past year, working with him as he enters a world so foreign to we helped the Montgomery County District the one he left over a decade ago. Attorneys office train detectives and prosecutors in interview and interrogation techniques used in the With each release of an innocent man or UK that don’t rely on coercion to achieve results, 8 woman, we feel the obligation to these but cognitive interview methods that yield more heroes as they try to navigate an unfamiliar accurate and reliable information. In other words – world. That is why we are working with a group methods that don’t lead to false confessions. We’ve of dedicated volunteers to establish the country’s continued our work with the Philadelphia Police first peer-led support group, so exonerees can meet Department, encouraging their adoption of best- together in a safe space to support each other. evidence based live lineup presentations that lessen We also hired a social worker this year, Margaret the likelihood of eyewitness error. And we continue Mason, who is working to put that group together our advocacy for “open file” discovery statewide annual report 201 report annual / as well as providing direct case management for so that prosecutors turn over everything they have our clients. And we are working to the day when from the investigation, not just documents they Pennsylvania joins the majority of our sister choose to disclose. states in providing compensation to those unjustly imprisoned for crimes they did not commit. Of course, none of this is possible without you. Not one of our clients would have found This past year was also the culmination of many freedom without your financial support. years of hard work in advocating for major And without you, Pennsylvania justice would elude changes in Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania so many. Thank you for all you do to support the Legislature passed two pieces of legislation Project and the extraordinary men and women we that will dramatically impact the way we do our are so honored to serve. work, enable the convicted innocent to more easily get into court, and provide DNA testing that had been unjustly and arbitrarily denied before. We’re Pennsylvania Innocence Project Innocence Pennsylvania grateful to all of our partners who helped make Marissa Boyers Bluestine that a reality. You can read about this victory in Executive Director, 2 more detail further in this Report. Pennsylvania Innocence Project From Our board president The Pennsylvania Innocence Project has generosity of people like you, we have been now completed its ninth year. We persist able to develop and expand our capacity. notwithstanding the changes in our broader We now have a forensic science specialist who has community. provided training for Pennsylvania attorneys on complex forensic matters such as complex DNA Making improvements to the justice system to testing, fire investigations, and cases of alleged avoid wrongful convictions is very much a part shaken baby syndrome. In addition, we now have a of our mission. Whether it is our pursuit of social worker to help exonerated clients transition open investigation files to avoid the withholding to the world of freedom. of information by prosecutors or the exclusion of confessions or eyewitness evidence obtained Our work helping wrongfully convicted persons improperly, the Pennsylvania Innocence find freedom continues. We receive and review Project works to achieve justice for all. and carefully investigate letters from inmates That is the core of our mission and we have across the Commonwealth and work tirelessly to made advances toward that goal in several develop approaches to achieve their exoneration. tangible ways: requesting the introduction of Across the country and in Pennsylvania, the public a rule of criminal procedure that would allow is increasingly aware of situations in which an access by defense counsel of prosecution files, and innocent person is convicted and incarcerated. extending from 60 days to 1 year the time within We are working to reduce that number to zero. which a petition for post-conviction review based In 2018, we furthered those goals by exonerating on newly discovered evidence must be filed. Dontia Patterson, and helping Letitia Smallwood bring her 44-year nightmare to an end. You will We have not yet succeeded in having the read their stories in this report. Pennsylvania Supreme Court adopt the open file rule nor have we succeeded in completely As we approach the 10th anniversary of our eliminating the Post Conviction Relief Act’s creation, you can be sure that every dollar time limitation. But we are moving in the right contributed to the Pennsylvania Innocence direction. Our “north star” is our belief that Project is spent in a way designed to no one should spend one night in jail for reduce the time it takes for an innocent a crime he or she did not commit. And we person to be freed. On behalf of each of those will continue to work tirelessly to identify any and incarcerated, we thank you. Project Innocence Pennsylvania all persons incarcerated in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania who fit that criteria and do everything we can to have them exonerated as quickly as possible. Howard Scher President, Board of Directors In order to achieve our goals, we need an infrastructure and resources. Through the Our history The Pennsylvania Innocence Project was founded in 2008 under the / leadership of David Richman and David Rudovsky. In 2009, thanks 201 report annual to the immense support of then Dean JoAnne Epps, its doors opened at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law. In 2016, the Project opened a second office in Pittsburgh, housed by Duquesne University Law School. This office helps to better serve clients incarcerated in Western Pennsylvania and build upon the Project’s movement for wrongful conviction reform statewide. The Project continues working to exonerate wrongfully convicted persons across the Commonwealth with 8 the help of its dedicated staff, legal interns, and supporters. 3 Identifying the incarcerated innocent and working if a convicted individual does not file a petition to exonerate them is certainly the heart of our within the law’s time limits, courts don’t have the work at the Pennsylvania Innocence Project. But power to hear the petition and must dismiss it – since our founding we have worked to prevent without even a hearing. wrongful convictions and improve our criminal When Pennsylvania inmates gained access to justice system to respond to these grave injustices information capable of proving their innocence, in meaningful ways. This year, we had our biggest 8 they only had 60 days to file something back impact yet: Governor Wolf signed two bills in the court that convicted them. Sixty days. There into law that will dramatically improve the was never a reason the time was so short; the ability of the convicted innocent to seek legislature just created that deadline out of thin air redemption in court. in the late 1990s. The stories of injustices caused Innocence Should Never Be Time-Barred by this arbitrary deadline are legion: cases where actual perpetrators gave detailed confessions to the annual report 201 report annual It’s not just enough to be able to establish / crime, or eyewitnesses who knew the true offender strong evidence of an individual’s innocence. finally garnered the strength to come forward, even That evidence has to be presented to a court. children finally able to confront the fact that they In Pennsylvania, the statute that governs these lied about their parents’ abuse which never actually petitions is the Post-Conviction Relief Act (PCRA). happened. In each case, inmates’ petitions were The PCRA is the only means by which a wrongly dismissed without a hearing in court because they convicted person can hope to reverse their could not meet the 60 day filing deadline. conviction and clear their name. And of all state laws governing post-conviction innocence Pennsylvania Lagged Behind Most Other claims, Pennsylvania has been among the States in DNA Testing Statutes harshest. DNA has been used to overturn hundreds of Hundreds of viable innocence claims have convictions nationwide – 13 of them here in Pennsylvania Innocence Project Innocence Pennsylvania been turned away by Pennsylvania courts Pennsylvania. Yet in significant ways, our laws for being “time barred.” That means that, no Continued on next page >> 4 matter how convincing the evidence of innocence, << Continued from previous page Pennsylvanians Have Pleaded Guilty denied convicted innocent people the ability to to Crimes They Did Not Commit access the very evidence that could not only prove William Kelly both confessed to a crime their innocence but identify the actual offender. he did not commit and pleaded guilty to it. For those who pleaded guilty or completed their Mr.