Cooley Launches Innocence Project in Michigan
The Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Lansing, Michigan, has announced that it has initiated an Innocence Project for the State of Michigan. The Cooley Law School project will be part of the Innocence Network now being organized to allow a sharing of resources with other projects around the country. The work of Innocence Projects, nationally, has been credited with the release of dozens of wrongfully convicted in-mates mainly through the use of sophisticated DNA testing.
The purpose of the Innocence Project is to identify, provide legal assistance to, and secure the release of those persons who are imprisoned for crimes they did not commit. The exact number of innocent people in prison is unknown. However, recent statistics in relation to DNA cases indicate that the number is large. According to the National Institute of Justice report on innocence there were approximately 10,000 sexual assault cases referred to the FBI in the previous eight years. In 26% of those cases, the primary suspects were exonerated due to DNA. Without DNA, a relatively new and expensive scientific process, many of those suspects would likely have been convicted.
Unfortunately, the nation's prisons and jails hold inmates who could not afford DNA testing at the time of their conviction. Others were locked up before the testing reached its present degree of sophistication. And, there are many more cases where there is strong evidence of innocence apart from DNA, yet due to police and/or prosecutorial misconduct combined with ineffective assistance of counsel, a conviction was obtained. In the past three years, The Innocence Project in New York has obtained the release of 50 wrongly convicted prisoners through the use of DNA. In non-DNA cases, the Washington Innocence Project has obtained the release of nine wrongly convicted prisoners in the past two years. The successes of these and like programs dramatically illustrate the scope of the problem.
Formation of the Michigan project was spurred by Lansing attorney F. Martin Tieber, an adjunct professor at Cooley and long-time director of the Lansing Office of the Michigan State Appellate Defender. Mr. Tieber organized a group of approximately 160 of the best criminal defense practitioners state-wide who will form a participating attorney panel to take project cases into court. The Innocence Project at Cooley will be run by Professor Norman Fell, the school's Director of Clinical Programs. Professor Fell had twenty years of state and federal criminal defense experience prior to joining the Cooley faculty.
"Cooley Law School's Michigan Innocence Project, in contrast to several others operating in other states, is uniquely modeled on a participating attorney panel concept. Attorneys from every corner of the state have agreed to work with the Project on a pro bono basis. Anyone in the know who looks at this list will agree that it includes the best and most experienced criminal defense practitioners, at trial and appeal, in Michigan. That so many attorneys of this caliber would donate their time and energy to this cause speaks volumes about the importance of this effort," said Tieber.
This Innocence Project does not have a political agenda, is non-partisan, and is neither liberal nor conservatively based, explained Fell.
"It is about right and wrong. It is about correcting an imperfection in our system of justice. To allow an innocent person to languish their life away in prison for a crime he did not commit is unconscionable. We now have scientific means by which guilt or innocence may be established to certainty. We have the means to correct a wrong. There can be no reasonable justification for not doing so. The system of justice will not be weakened by the process, but strengthened. It is wise to recognize that even the best of human systems will experience error. It is a sign of strength to own up to our mistakes, to minimize their impact and to correct them when we can," said Fell.
Cooley Law School students will have the opportunity to work directly on the Project operating as one of Cooley's clinical programs. Cooley students will be intricately involved in various aspects of the program such as creating screening procedures, reviewing case files, applying screening devices, investigating facts, interviewing involved persons, writing case histories, doing case analysis and preparing written case evaluations. As cases are selected for assignment to participating attorneys, the Project will provide student assistance to the attorneys in the form of a blended intern/externship program. A key part by the team effort is the involvement of some of Michigan's best criminal investigators, as well.
"The Innocence Project is a fantastic addition to the school's clinical opportunities and demonstrates the school's commitment to practical legal scholarship," stated Fell.
The Thomas M. Cooley Law School Innocence Project will focus on cases that require DNA and other hard scientific evidence, but will not strictly limit itself to this type of case. The Innocence Project clinical program anticipates a start-up date of January 2001 and will begin accepting cases in Spring 2001. For more information, contact Terry Franklin, Director of Communications, (517) 371-5140, franklit@cooley.edu.