Innocence Project expands
The project has expanded to include MU journalism and law students.
Jan. 25, 2008
Molly Frankel's case will have a second chance in court early this year.
Frankel isn't the one standing trial. But the case she's been researching since September for the Innocence Project will be brought before the Missouri Supreme Court on habeas corpus, which is a legal action where one can ask a judge to review an already tried case.
The UM system's Innocence Project's goal is to convince courts to overturn wrongful convictions. The program was formed out of Kansas City's Midwest Innocence Project incorporates the MU's and the University of Missouri-Kansas City's law schools and the MU School of Journalism.
"I think that's the best way to investigate cases," said Steve Weinberg, a journalism professor who is also in charge of the Journalism School's portion of the project. "Lawyers can do things that journalists cannot do and journalists can do things lawyers cannot do and it's just a really smart mix."
At MU, the School of Journalism's portion of the project is a section of Intermediate Writing taught by professor Steve Weinberg. The class of 14 students spends the first part of the semester learning about the reasons for wrongful imprisonments and how the system works.
"Journalists are quick learners, and the journalism students are the best in the world, so I'm sure we can make it work," Weinberg said.
UM-Kansas City professor Tiffany Murphy at MU professor Rod Uphoff each offer a one-semester courses addressing similar topics to second- and third-year law students.
Frankel spent the last semester researching trial documents and other records. This semester, as a graduate student in Weinberg's class, she will interview people and examining the physical evidence from the trial and the appeals.
During the second part of the semester, students from both schools with study actual cases and eventually present them in front of a judge.
The students will split into teams that will include a mix of students from each of the three classes. Each team will research a separate case.
Since the classes meet at different times on different campuses, they'll use password-protected Web sites, e-mail, and video and telephone conferences.
"We'll find a way to make it work," Weinberg said. "It won't be ideal, but we think the advantages of working across campuses and working in teams outweigh the disadvantages of the coordination we have to figure out."
The classes will take a trip in February to Kansas City, where students will meet with Dennis Fritz, who was wrongly convicted of first-degree murder and released through the Innocence Project.
The Project first screens potential cases sent by inmates, their families or their lawyers. Then the inmates fill out detailed questionnaires. When Murphy came to the Midwest Innocence Project in December 2007, between 250 and 300 cases were already in various stages of litigation.
"Once we look at the questionnaire, and if it looks like this might be a credible claim of actual innocence, then there's a lot of separate investigating we have to do before we ever make a decision," Weinberg said.
When a case is finally chosen, the Innocence Project spends more than a few months on it.
"When I've done some of these cases as a journalist, it's taken me years to figure out what the truth might be," Weinberg said.
A single case can take hundreds of hours of work, Uphoff said. Students have to review records and evidence from courts and interview witnesses, which can often be hard to find. Any information provided by witnesses must then be verified with written documentation.
"One significant roadblock to determining if a defendant was wrongfully convicted is that it takes a lot of time and money to investigate these cases," Uphoff said.
Factors such as what kind of crime the case is, how much work was already done by lawyers, how many students are available and how much time they can dedicate to the case all determine how long a case is looked at.
The project will review cases that are mostly serious felony cases, where the convicted person is likely to spend years in prison
Uphoff said there are several reoccurring problems with falsely accused individuals, including mistaken eyewitnesses, unreliable and faulty science, ineffective assistance of defense counsel and prosecutorial misconduct.
There is debate about how widespread the problem of wrongful convictions actually is. Some say it's a rare occurrence, but Uphoff disagrees.
"They occur more frequently than many folks would like to admit," Uphoff said. Courts have exonerated more than 200 prisoners based on DNA evidence in the last 10 to 15 years.
It is likely that errors are occurring in cases in which there is no DNA, but it is virtually impossible to prove it, Uphoff said. DNA is recovered in only 5 to 7 percent of cases.
"It's hard to tell how many times the same mistakes have been made in cases without DNA evidence," Uphoff said.
In a 1996 study, the FBI examined 10,000 rape cases in which the local police thought the suspects were guilty, then supplied DNA evidence to the FBI to see if the DNA evidence confirmed their suspicion, Uphoff said.
In 60 percent of the cases, the local police had arrested the correct person. In 20 percent, the local police had arrested the incorrect person. Results in the last 20 percent were inconclusive.
Missouri's program would be a widespread step towards reducing numbers like those in the Midwest.
Weinberg said the project is funded by appropriations from the UM system, MU's provost and UM-Kansas City's law school.
"This is a wonderful opportunity for students to get involved in public interest work and really understand how the criminal justice system works and do some really great things for people or cases who are actually innocent," Murphy said.
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