Law students from the Indiana University Maurer School of Law will have the opportunity to help exonerate wrongfully convicted Hoosiers through the newly established Indiana Innocence Project, which officially launched Saturday (Aug. 17).
Established in association with the national Innocence Project—which has helped free more than 240 wrongfully convicted prisoners since 1992—the Indiana Innocence Project (INIP) has been made possible through the support of the Herbert Simon Family Foundation, along with the Law School and IU’s Department of Criminal Justice.
The Indiana Innocence Project will screen and investigate cases with meritorious innocence claims, secure DNA testing when biological evidence exists, advocate for the release of the factually innocent, provide services to exonerees, educate toward reform to prevent wrongful incarcerations, and sustain academic collaborations for student learning.
“The Law School’s role is particularly necessary for the last component of the INIP’s mission statement—to sustain academic collaborations for student learning,” said Prof. Valena Beety, a member of the INIP’s Board of Directors and the Robert H. McKinney Professor of Law. “We have student externs and research assistants who have been working with the INIP over the past year preparing for the launch of the project, and who will continue working with the project in data intake, screening cases, transcript reviews, research, and correspondence with applicants.”
In addition to Beety, other INIP Board of Director members include IU Department of Criminal Justice Professor Marla Sandys, IU McKinney School of Law Clinical Professor Emerita Fran Watson, Indiana exonerees Kristine Bunch and Roosevelt Glenn, and Indiana attorneys Scott Montross and Jim Voyles.
“The Indiana Innocence Project is the collaborative effort of dedicated individuals to right the ultimate wrong of our criminal justice system. I am honored and energized to work with our students to help free the innocent and prevent future wrongful convictions in our state,” Sandys said.
The project has launched a website where incarcerated individuals who believe they were wrongfully convicted can submit their case for review.
According to the Notre Dame Exoneration Justice Clinic, the prosecution and conviction of innocent people in Indiana is “a problem of serious concern.” Since 1989, there have been 47 exonerations in the state, but 11—almost 25 percent of Indiana’s total—have occurred in Indiana since 2017.
Statistics from the NDEJC indicate these wrongful convictions have a racial dimension. “Specifically, 22 of the 47 Indiana exonerees (47%) are African Americans,” according to the clinic, “whereas African Americans comprise only ten percent of Indiana’s population. Almost half of the wrongful convictions in Indiana involved African Americans, raising significant questions about equal justice in the Indiana criminal justice system.”
Beety’s experiences as a federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C., and as an innocence litigator in Mississippi and West Virginia, shape her research and writing on wrongful convictions, forensic evidence, prosecution, and incarceration. She served as the Founding Director of the West Virginia Innocence Project, at West Virginia University College of Law, and the Deputy Director of the Academy for Justice, at Arizona State University Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. She has successfully exonerated wrongfully convicted clients, served as an elected board member of the national Innocence Network, and served as an Appointed Commissioner on the West Virginia Governor’s Indigent Defense Commission.
“The Indiana Innocence Project will bring together all stakeholders in restoring justice: prosecutors, defense attorneys, and civil litigators, as well as exonerees, families, and advocates,” Beety said. “Together we can restore justice for wrongly convicted Hoosiers.”
Beety is the co-editor of The Wrongful Convictions Reader (with Russell Covey), and author of the award-winning book Manifesting Justice: Wrongly Convicted Women Reclaim Their Rights. She is also a co-author of the treatise Scientific Evidence (with Paul C. Giannelli, Edward J. Imwinkelried, Jane Campbell Moriarty, Andrea Roth, & Jennifer Oliva) and the litigation guide Miscarriages of Justice: Litigating Beyond Factual Innocence (with Karen Newirth & Karen Thompson).