Raistlin

I'm working in my law school's Innocence Project clinic this semester. The Innocence Project is one of my favorite non-profits, whose mission it is to find people wrongly convicted of crimes and work to exonerate them. The clinic basically involves getting law school students to do all the work, as the number of people petitioning the Innocence Project is massive. So I will be working to figure out if the clients given to me are innocent. The most well-known (and easiest) way this is done is by DNA testing.

However, DNA testing is severely limited, because there has to actually be DNA evidence available for testing. Outside of rape cases, this is uncommon. Such as my first case, which involves a man who was implicated in an armed robbery only by the one who actually committed the robbery (my client was the "getaway driver"), but with no other evidence. The robber, obviously, was able to cut a deal for his testimony. There is no DNA evidence to test (as is the case with the vast majority of crimes). So I will be trying to dig up other evidence, trying to find witnesses, interviewing those witnesses, etc., to try to piece together what happened, and to determine how solid his alibi is.

My professor/advisor has us reading a book called Actual Innocence, which is written by some of the founders of the Innocence Project about some of the most horrible exoneration stories. It truly is terrifying what can be happen, and there is almost no accountability for police officers and prosecutors who ruin people's lives this way. Prosecutors in the US, especially, have what's called "absolute immunity," which basically means they can not be personally liable at ALL for what they do as a prosecutor, no matter how outrageous their conduct (lying, hiding exculpatory evidence, etc.). Police have "qualified immunity," (they can only be personally liable if they violate someone's clear and well-established constitutional right), but it's still very rare for a cop to have to pay himself.

I highly recommend the book for anyone who's interested in criminal justice issues. It will make you angry, but it will also open your eyes to glaring injustices. But they are symptoms, not the problem, and many of those problems still have not been corrected. Prosecutors still have absolute immunity, allowing them to lie and distort and even hide evidence (with rare exception) with impunity. Most crime labs across the country are connected to the local police department, giving them incentive to distort or outright lie in order to further the conclusion the police have. The book discusses the case of Fred Zain and Ralph Erdmann, and another particularly horrible case I know of is that of Stephen Hayne and Michael West.

There are a lot of bad things that still need fixing. The great things about the Innocence Project is that it is bringing attention to these harms, all while trying to mitigate their damages.