June 23: A Day of Action for Criminal Justice Reform
Mark your calendar and get ready to speak up for criminal justice reform next Wednesday, June 23.

The Innocence Project will be asking supporters to call Senate leaders on Wednesday, urging them to support the creation of a national criminal justice reform commission.

A bill pending in the U.S. Senate would form a National Criminal Justice Commission to review and evaluate the country’s sprawling criminal justice system and make recommendations for reform. The bill is sponsored by Virginia Sen. Jim Webb, with more than three dozen co-sponsors from both parties.

The 254 DNA exonerations to date have revealed troubling flaws in our criminal justice system, and the proposed blue-ribbon panel could consider the causes of wrongful convictions and recommend federal measures to address them. And the issues seen in wrongful conviction cases extend throughout the system. From forensic oversight to indigent defense, the commission’s work could lead to reforms that improve public safety and confront the causes of injustice.

Phone numbers and more will be posted here on the morning of June 23 – but sign up for Innocence Project email updates here to get the action alert in your inbox on Wednesday morning.

Let your friends know about next week’s day of action by posting on Facebook and Twitter today.

And read more about the proposed commission below:

Open Congress: S. 714 National Criminal Justice Act

Sen. Jim Webb: National Criminal Justice Commission Act

Tags: Layla D’monte, Miscarriage of Justice, legal

A First Pitch on the Anniversary of Freedom
Seven years ago this week, Kenneth Wyniemko walked out of a Michigan courthouse a free man for the first time in more than eight years. Last night, he marked the anniversary of his freedom by throwing out the first pitch at a home game of the minor league Lansing Lugnuts baseball team.

Wyniemko was convicted in 1994 of breaking into the home of a 28-year-old woman in Clinton Township, Michigan, and raping the victim. His conviction rested on two common causes of wrongful conviction – eyewitness misidentification and snitch testimony.

The attacker wore a nylon stocking over his head – concealing his face – but the victim described what he looked like based on a few glimpses she had gotten of him during the attack. A composite sketch was constructed from her description (the victim later said that she believed it to be 60 percent accurate). Around the time the victim produced her description, Wyniemko was arrested for a misdemeanor charge, and the police made the visual connection between him and the composite sketch, and he was charged with the rape.

In addition to the eyewitness evidence, a jailhouse snitch testified — in exchange for a dismissal of the case pending against him — that Wyniemko had confessed to him that he committed the crime. Wyniemko was convicted and sentenced to 40-60 years in prison.
After the Michigan Legislature passed a law in 2001 permitting DNA testing in rape cases, Wyniemko’s case was among the many investigated by Thomas M. Cooley Law School Innocence Project. A DNA test was conducted and Wyniemko was exonerated on June 17, 2003.

Several years later, prosecutors announced that the DNA testing that exonerated Wyniemko had implicated another man in the crime, but that the statute of limitations prevented them from charging him.

Watch a video interview with Wyniemko below, where he discusses the snitch testimony in his case and more.

Other Exoneree Anniversaries This Week:

Calvin Johnson, Georgia (Served 15.5 Years, Exonerated 6/15/99)

Jerry Townsend, Florida (Served: 21.5 Years, Exonerated: 6/15/01)

Tags: legal, Miscarriage of Justice, pro bono

Enforce Existing Federal Forensic Science Oversight Program

Writing on The Hill’s Congress Blog today, Innocence Project Policy Director Stephen Saloom calls for the U.S. Department of Justice to make sure crime lab problems are properly addressed by enforcing the regulations under the Paul Coverdell Forensic Science Improvement Grant Program. Saloom writes:

In order for the Coverdell grant program to operate as Congress intended, the Obama Administration must manage the program properly and give grant applicants the tools they need to properly investigate forensic problems. Specifically, the Department of Justice, which administers the program, should:

- give grant applicants clear guidance on what constitutes an appropriate oversight entity and process for investigating forensic problems;
- encourage applicants to provide supporting documentation with their applications;
- make it easier for members of the public to file allegations under the Coverdell program;
- make sure funded labs are referring problems to their investigative entities;
- monitor thoroughness and independence of investigations; and, once all of these steps have been taken,
- withhold funding when the requirements are not met.

Read his full post here. (The Hill, 4/13/09)

Download the Innocence Project’s new report finding that only 13% of designated forensic oversight agencies meet requirements of federal law.

Tags: legal, pro bono, Innocence Project

Events This Week in New York and Virginia
Today in Virginia, Innocence Project Co-Directors Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck will be awarded the prestigious Thomas Jefferson Medal from the University of Virginia for their decades of service to public interest law and the impact of their work on the criminal justice system. They will discuss “innocence, science and due process” at the law school in Charlottesville, Virginia, at 4:15 p.m. ET. The event is free and open to the public. Get directions here.

And at noon this Thursday, April 16, Innocence Project Staff Attorney Vanessa Potkin and exoneree Alan Newton will speak at New York University in New York City. They will discuss Newton’s case, proposed reforms to prevent wrongful convictions and Newton’s new organization to support the exonerated after release.

Alan Newton was imprisoned for 21 years in New York. His repeated requests over many years for DNA testing on biological evidence from his case were denied because the evidence was not located and believed to have been destroyed. When Newton became a client of the Innocence Project, the involvement and the persistence of the chief prosecutor of sex crimes in the Bronx, Elisa Koenderman, resulted in a successful search for the rape kit. DNA testing in 2006 showed that Alan Newton was not the rapist. He was released and exonerated of the rape, assault and robbery charges against him.

Since his release, Alan completed his bachelor’s degree and is now planning to attend law school. He is a co-founder of A.F.T.E.R. , Advocates for Freedom, Transformation, and Exoneree Rights, Inc., which provides services and a support network for exonerees.

Join them this Thursday, April 16th, from 12-2 p.m. in Kimmel 905 at New York University. To RSVP for the event, please email Bindi Patel at bindi.patel@nyu.edu today.

Tags: Innocence Project, Miscarriage of Justice, legal