LAW 8000 - Actual Innocence: Current Awareness

Amanda Knox was an American foreign exchange student in Perugia, Italy, who was wrongly convicted, along with her then-boyfriend, of killing her roommate in what prosecutors speculated was a sex act gone wrong. Knox recounts the nightmare of her conviction and how she was vilified in tabloids and media across the world.

In 1989, five black and Latino teenagers were arrested and charged with brutally attacking and raping a white female jogger in Central Park. News media swarmed the case, calling them a “wolfpack.” The five would spend years in prison for a crime they didn’t commit before the truth about what really happened became clear.

Creators: Kelly Loudenberg
Available on Netflix.

Nick Yarris is the sole subject of this 2015 documentary feature. Nick tells his story starting with his youth to his murder conviction. He explains the 21 years he spent on death row and his exoneration. The film was nominated for Best Documentary Film at the 2015 London Film Festival.

This widely acclaimed 2015 Netflix documentary series exposes the details around the case of Steven Avery, a man who, despite being exonerated for a crime he did not commit in 2003, found himself behind bars again in 2005 for an unrelated crime. The second season of the show follows up on the post-conviction process.

Errol Morris’ award-winning 1988 documentary presents compelling evidence that Randall Adams was wrongfully convicted of killing a police officer in Dallas, Texas.

James Richardson was a citrus picker in Florida who was convicted of the deaths of his seven children in 1968 by poisoning them. Time Simply Passes follows his conviction, miraculous release in 1989, and the following twenty-five years as he battles with the state to attain a settlement through landmark legislation. Filmmaker Ty Flowers created the Award-winning film with his father Charles, an investigative journalist from Florida who has spent the majority of his life working on the case.

The show started in 2013 and four seasons have been released.

In 1989 a jogger was assaulted and raped in New York's Central Park, and five young people were subsequently charged with the crime. The quintet, labeled the Central Park Five, maintained its innocence and spent years fighting the convictions, hoping to be exonerated. This limited series spans a quarter of a century, from when the teens are first questioned about the incident in the spring of 1989, going through their exoneration in 2002 and ultimately the settlement reached with the city of New York in 2014. The cast is full of Emmy nominees and winners, including Michael K. Williams, John Leguizamo, Felicity Huffman, and Blair Underwood. Oscar nominee and Emmy winner Ava DuVernay co-wrote and directed the four episodes.

If the link does not work then try this link: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/criminal_justice/policy/ >> ABA Criminal Justice Policies from 1996 to Present >> 2017 >> 112B

188 people have been exonerated from California prisons. After years of wrongful imprisonment, there is no established state program to help them to secure housing, access health and mental health services and transition home from incarceration. That’s where we come in. Exonerated Nation is on a mission to meet the immediate needs of exonerees in California.

The Innocence Network is an affiliation of 67 organizations from all over the world dedicated to providing pro bono legal and investigative services to individuals seeking to prove innocence of crimes for which they have been convicted, and working to redress the causes of wrongful convictions. Currently, the Innocence Network consists of 55 U.S. based and 12 non-U.S. based organizations.

The majority of the Innocence Network’s members are based in the United States and are mainly focused on criminal justice reform in the United States, but the Network also includes non-U.S. organizations that meet its membership criteria. The Network maintains an International Committee, and we strongly encourage the development of sister networks across the world, such as Red Inocente, recognizing them as critically important partners in this work globally.

The Innocence Project's mission is to free the staggering number of innocent people who remain incarcerated, and to bring reform to the system responsible for their unjust imprisonment.

The National Registry of Exonerations is a project of the Newkirk Center for Science & Society at University of California Irvine, the University of Michigan Law School and Michigan State University College of Law. It was founded in 2012 in conjunction with the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law. The Registry provides detailed information about every known exoneration in the United States since 1989—cases in which a person was wrongly convicted of a crime and later cleared of all the charges based on new evidence of innocence. The Registry also maintains a more limited database of known exonerations prior to 1989.

The Southern Center for Human Rights was founded in 1976 by ministers and activists concerned about criminal justice issues in response to the Supreme Court's reinstatement of the death penalty that year and to the horrendous conditions in Southern prisons and jails. Its creation followed the historic case of Gates v. Collier, 349 F.Supp. 881 (N.D. Miss.1972). affirmed, Gates v. Collier, 501 F.2d 1291 (5th Cir. 1974), brought in federal court in the Northern District of Mississippi, which ending egregious constitutional violations at the Mississippi State Penitentiary (Parchman Farm). For a detailed description of the horrific abuses at Parchman Farm, click on the two court decisions. For a description of Mississippi's use of its criminal justice system to maintain white supremacy after Emancipation through convict leasing and Parchman Farm, see David M. Oshinsky, Worse than Slavery: Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice (Free Press 1996).

Originally named the Southern Prisoners Defense Committee, the organization's attorneys and investigators struggled alongside civil rights organizations, families, and faith-based organizations to protect the civil and human rights of people of color, poor people, and other disadvantaged people facing the death penalty or confined to prisons and jails in the South.

After the 1970s, the criminal justice system exploded in size and reach. After holding steady for 150 years, the number of people imprisoned in the United States increased from around 200,000 to over 2 million. The United States now has the highest incarceration rate of any nation in the world.

In addition to providing representation to people facing the death penalty, SCHR employs class action lawsuits and individual representation in challenging unconstitutional and unconscionable practices within the criminal justice system. It also engages in public education and joint efforts with other organizations and individuals to oppose the death penalty and overcrowding of prisons and jails, to advocate for effective representation for poor people accused of crimes, just and humane sentencing policies and the fair, equal, and humane treatment of all people who come into the criminal justice system.

The goals of the blog are to: provide a single location on the web where one can go daily to find updated news and commentary relating to wrongful convictions; spur debate, discussion and learning on the issue; create a repository where, through time, nearly all media and information about wrongful convictions will be accessible and searchable in one location.

The Collateral Consequences Resource Center is a non-profit organization established in 2014 to promote public engagement on the myriad issues raised by the collateral consequences of arrest or conviction. Collateral consequences are the legal restrictions and discrimination that burden people with a criminal record long after their criminal case is closed. The Center develops a variety of resources and projects aimed at practitioners, courts, researchers, policymakers, and those most directly affected by criminal justice involvement. Recently, we have focused particular attention on the rapidly-expanding inventory of state laws aimed at mitigating the adverse impact of a criminal record.

On our website, we provide news and commentary about this dynamic area of the law, practice and advocacy resources, and our Restoration of Rights Project (RRP), which provides information about how to obtain relief from collateral consequences in different jurisdictions. The RRP includes state-by-state profiles analyzing the law and practice in each U.S. jurisdiction relating to restoration of rights and status, as well as 50-state comparison charts that make it possible to see national patterns in restoration laws and policies. (RRP profiles and CCRC comments have been cited in multiple federal court decisions and dozens of scholarly works.) In addition, we draft annual reports on new legislative developments, participate in court cases challenging specific collateral consequences, provide recommendations and research in connection with policy reform efforts, and engage with social media and journalists on these issues.