(photo: Wikimedia.org)
4-28-14 update – New research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences estimates that the number of innocent people on death row is about twice that of previous estimates–or about 120 of the approximately 3,000 people on death row in the United States, as reported by TIME. “Each quest for mathematical clarity only serves to underline the troubling paradox at the heart of the modern death penalty,” says reporter David Von Drehle. “We want the option of execution (every poll confirms this, even as the percentages in favor of capital punishment appear to be trending downward). But we also want certainty.”
The Michigan Innocence Clinic, a project of the U-M Law School, takes on cases of individuals wrongfully convicted in the state’s courts. The Clinic is modeled on Innocence Projects in many other states, with one difference. (Check what’s going on in your state.) It’s the only project in the country that focuses on cases that cannot be solved with DNA evidence.
In most felony convictions, DNA or other biological evidence is simply not available, so investigators must dig for other causes of how a prosecution went awry. Typical flaws in cases are eyewitness misidentification—with the shortcomings of eyewitness testimony repeatedly demonstrated—improper forensic science, false confessions, prosecutorial misconduct, unreliable or coerced police informants, and bad lawyering.
Take as an example the prosecution that sent David Gavitt to prison for 27 years. In 1985, his wife and two young daughters died in an overnight fire at their home, and David was hospitalized with burns and cuts. Police and prosecutors spent their energies attempting to prove a case of arson. Arson science has come a long way in recent decades, and many of the old theories about the burn patterns of fires as they spread have been soundly disproved. The Innocence Clinic brought modern experts into the analysis of Gavitt’s case, which convinced the current county prosecutor to drop the charges and release him from prison. Despite his quarter-century-plus in prison, he was luckier than Cameron Todd Willingham, convicted of arson in Corsicana, Texas, for a fire that took the lives of his three tiny daughters. The faulty evidence that convicted Willingham also was refuted by subsequent, more scientific investigators, but the State of Texas refused to reexamine the case and executed him.
The Michigan Innocence Clinic has received some 4,000 applications (each 20 pages long) from inmates, and has a more than a dozen active cases. It has succeeded in exonerating eight prisoners so far. For a case that has previously been unsuccessfully appealed to be re-examined, not only must evidence must be strong, it must fit certain legal requirements. A video shows the kinds of holes in the prosecution that the Clinic uncovers.
According to an article by Alice Rhein in the Spring 2014 Michigan Alumnus magazine, a Clinic staff member is creating a documentary about one of its successful cases. He is attempting to crowdfund it, and so far has raised about a third of the projected $25,000 budget.
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