Innocence Project

A best practice developed by the Innocence Project to ensure accurate eyewitness identification could be running afoul of the First Amendment. The Daytona Beach News-Journal reports on local law enforcement's use of witness identifiation affidavits that direct witnesses to crime not to talk to the media; these affidavits were recommended to try to avoid wrongful convictions. Seth Miller, of the Innocence Project of Florida, told the newspaper that cases that receive a lot of media coverage can taint witnesses' opinions and potentially lead to wrongful convictions. But an attorney who practices in the area of media law said having law enforcement tell witnesses not to talk to the press violates their First Amendment rights.

Four wrongfully convicted women were freed today after being convicted of ritualistic sex abuse, The Huffington Post reports. Mark Godsey, director of the Ohio Innocence Project and writing in the Huffington Post, said the exonerations were possible because of Texas' "new law, known locally as the 'Junk Science Writ,' allows inmates to overturn their convictions and seek new trials when outdated and/or unreliable forensics were used by the prosecution to convict them." Other states should follow Texas' lead, Godsey argued.

An appellate court has upheld a $8,600 award in civil penalties and attorney fees against the New Orleans Police Department for violating a public records request made by the New Orleans-based Innocence Project, The Times Picayune reported. The newspaper further reported: "the local office of the Innocence Project, a non-profit legal group that seeks to exonerate wrongfully convicted defendants, sued the NOPD earlier this year after it was denied access to investigative files from a 1991 aggravated rape and burglary case. State law requires a response to the request within three days, but 65 days elapsed before City Attorney Sharonda Williams' office responded, mostly denying the request." Violators of  the public records law can face penalties of up to $100 per day.

California has enacted a law to make it easier for the wrongfully convicted to get compensation for the time they spent imprisoned, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported. Under a prior statute, defendants who were let go had to prove their innocence before they could get compensated for their wrongful imprisonment. Only 11 of 132 people released from California prisons since 2000 because they were wrongfully convicted were able to get compensation through the prior system, according to the Union-Tribune.

The Innocence Project of New Orleans is challenging a charge from the New Orleans Police Department to inspect public records, The Louisiana Record reported. The argument in their complaint? "The IPNO cites the Louisiana Constitution, which says that 'no person shall be denied the right to…examine public documents, except in cases established by law' and claims that the fee the NOPD wishes to charge is not legal as it is not a fee for copying, and a requester must be allowed to inspect records for free," The Record also reported.

The Philadelphia Inquirer has this report on a judge ordering a new trial in a Pennsylvania Innocence Project case: "Calling the original trial evidence 'extremely weak' and newly uncovered evidence compelling, a Philadelphia judge has granted a new trial for two men serving life for the 1995 robbery-murder of a North Philadelphia business owner."

The family of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed by the state of Texas for allegedly killing his three children by setting his family home on fire, is seeking a post-death pardon for Willingham due to "outdated arson forensics and possible prosecutorial misconduct," the Austin Chronicle reports. In 2009, the New Yorker wrote an extensive and amazing piece on the Willingham case and whether an innocent man was executed. It is well worth a read: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_grann

In another Innocence Project development out of Alaska, the Alaska Department of Law has asked law enforcement in that state to ask for an independent review of a Fairbanks murder, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported. The Alaska Innocence Project asked for the exoneration of the four men convicted in that killing. The full report: http://www.newsminer.com/fairbanks_four/state-seeks-independent-review-o...

You might think false confessions are impossible, but attorney Ronald Goldfarb argues that "an expert on false confessions pointed out that prisoners of war as well as common criminal suspects confess to crimes they didn’t commit after stressful, prolonged, deceitful interrogation." The solution? Record police interrogations. Assure better defense lawyers for criminal defendants.