Innocence Projects

Innocence Project Of Florida

The Innocence Project of Florida (IPF) began in January of 2003 in response to an October 1, 2003, filing deadline for post-conviction DNA motions. Beginning with two advocates (Jennifer Greenberg and Sheila Meehan) working out of a hallway at the FSU College of Law, IPF has been screening, investigating, placing and litigating innocence cases ever since. We have to date received thousands of inquiries and/or requests for assistance.

IPF has also spent four legislative sessions at the Capitol, advocating on behalf of the innocent, so far concentrating our efforts primarily on the issues of filing deadlines and compensation for exonerees. We were quite pleased when the 2006 legislature voted to remove the deadline for filing petitions for DNA testing and the governor signed the bill into law. In 2007, legislators passed a global compensation bill that will pay $50,000  for each year of wrongful incarceration. Unfortunately, the bill also includes a so-called “clean hands” provision that excludes from payment anyone with a prior felony conviction or a felony conviction received while wrongfully incarcerated. No other state with a compensation law has such a provision, and we will attempt to have it removed during the 2009 legislative session. We also plan to begin addressing remedies for the ongoing problem of wrongful incarceration.

Shaken Baby Convictions Are Coming Under Scrutiny

Pullitzer Price-winner Maurice Possley has a lengthy article on Shaken Baby Syndrome today on TheCrimeReport.org.

At the time the case was unremarkable—one of thousands of successful prosecutions during the past 30 years of parents and other care-givers who have been found guilty of charges ranging from manslaughter to murder, based on findings of what is known as the triad—retinal hemorrhage, bleeding in the brain and brain swelling. Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) is one of the few instances in the criminal justice system where the diagnosis is the basis for prosecution.

That last sentence is the most remarkable: the diagnosis itself is the basis for prosecution. It is remarkable because, as we know, scientists are fundamentally like any other human being: they are fallible. Oftentimes, like in fingerprint cases, or serology cases, a scientist will provide testimony that is corroborated by other circumstantial or physical factors, and the holism of the evidence against a defendant will lead to a conviction. Oftentimes the scientist’s evidence is, as it were, the last straw, but the prosecution would maintain a fairly strong case without their testimony.

On the other hand, these SBS cases are remarkable because it seems like a scientist’s testimony was enough by itself to prosecute, and even win a conviction.

The article opens by telling the story of Audrey Edmunds, a Wisconsin woman who had her SBS conviction overturned last year.

Edmunds was granted a new trial by a judge who ruled that the testimony “shows that there has been a shift in mainstream medical opinion.” In effect, the scientific foundation of the syndrome had been undermined to the extent that a new jury would probably have a reasonable doubt about Edmunds’ guilt…

A soon-to-be-published analysis of shaken baby cases and recent developments in the medical community by University of Maine School of Law professor Deborah Tuerkheimer presents persuasive evidence and raises troubling questions about whether many of these convictions were of innocent people who were found guilty on the basis of faulty science. The analysis is scheduled to be published in September by Washington University Law Review.

As science changes, the criminal justice system often struggles to keep up. SBS is one such example, and because of the “shift in mainstream medical opinion,” these cases ought to come under heightened scrutiny and intense review.

Source:

http://floridainnocence.org/content/?p=930

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The Wisconsin Innocence Project

The revelation of wrongful convictions has shaken up the criminal justice system. Nationwide, law students in innocence projects across the country have worked to free hundreds of wrongly convicted inmates, giving them their lives back after years of unjust incarceration. Law students in the Wisconsin Innocence Project have worked to free nine people, relying in some cases on cutting-edge DNA technology, in other cases on old-fashioned investigation.

Through their work on these cases, the students learn about the operation of the criminal justice system, and how our system, often touted as the best in the world, can sometimes go awry. In proving innocence years after a conviction, the students gain insight into how a wrongful conviction can occur, and how it might have been prevented.

Mission Statement

The Wisconsin Innocence Project has three core missions: 1) to investigate and litigate wrongful convictions, 2) to educate law students through closely supervised work on possible wrongful convictions, and 3) to remedy the causes of wrongful convictions through scholarship, education and collaboration with governmental and criminal justice agencies.

Source:

http://law.wisc.edu/fjr/clinicals/ip/index.html

Keith A. Findley

Clinical Professor of Law

E-mail: kafindle@wisc.edu
Telephone: 262-4763
Office: Room 4318H, Law School

Education:
B.A. 1981, Indiana University
J.D. 1985, Yale Law School,

Teaching Areas:
Appellate Advocacy
Criminal Law

Research Interests:
Wrongful Convictions
Eyewitness Identification Procedures
Interrogations & False Confessions
Forensic Sciences
Legal/Clinical Education

Curriculum Vitae

More Contact Info

975 Bascom Mall
4318H Law
Madison, WI 53706
262-4763
Fax: 263-3380

Biography

Keith Findley teaches in the clinical programs at the Law School’s Frank J. Remington Center, where he has served as co-director of the Criminal Appeals Project and where he co-directs the Wisconsin Innocence Project (which he co-founded with Professor John Pray).  He currently serves as the president of the Innocence Network, an affiliation of 54 innocence projects in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.  Through the Wisconsin Innocence Project, students investigate and litigate claims of actual innocence based upon newly discovered evidence on behalf of wrongly convicted prisoners. Through the Criminal Appeals Project, students work under public defender and court appointments representing state and federal defendants appealing their criminal convictions and sentences.

Prof. Findley’s primary areas of expertise are in criminal defense work and appellate advocacy. He has previously worked as an Assistant State Public Defender in Wisconsin, both in the Appellate and Trial Divisions. He has litigated hundreds of postconviction and appellate cases, at all levels of state and federal courts, including the United States Supreme Court. At the Law School, he has taught criminal procedure, and regularly teaches courses on appellate advocacy and wrongful convictions. He also lectures and teaches nationally on appellate advocacy and wrongful convictions.

Source:

http://law.wisc.edu/profiles/kafindle@wisc.edu

Further Publications:

http://law.wisc.edu/profiles/pubs.php?iEmployeeID=129