A group of dedicated young lawyers are fighting for men who are serving time for crimes they did not commit — giving the innocent a second chance at freedom.
By Denise Trowbridge, New Orleans CityLife, March 2004
When Emily Bolton, a young lawyer, discusses wrongful conviction, her voice is calm and steady and an intense fire burns behind her clear green eyes. "When a prisoner is truly innocent, everything falls into place. The facts of his case line up and his innocence is so clear, it’s amazing no one has seen it before," she says. "When that happens, I have the chance to give him his life back."
Bolton started the Innocence Project New Orleans in 2001. The nonprofit provides legal representation and resources to indigent prisoners in Mississippi and Louisiana who are actually innocent — meaning they have conclusive proof that they were not involved in the crime for which they have been convicted — and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Executive Director Robert Hoelscher likens IPNO to a claims office. "We are a lot like an independent auditor of the legal system," he says. "We’re investigators and we’re trying to put a system in place to address the worst mistake the legal system can make — convicting an innocent person."
Since 2001, the Innocence Project has grown from one lawyer to a staff of eight aided by two full-time volunteers. Working on a shoestring budget in a small Baronne Street office, they’ve exonerated three men who spent a combined total of 59 years in prison for crimes they did not commit.
But those three men are only needles in the haystack of the criminal justice system. In the IPNO office, there are more than 1,000 applications spilling out of file cabinets, waiting to be reviewed. Nearby, a stack of manila envelopes from prisoners asking for help — many with nowhere else to turn — wait to be opened.
Road to Freedom
For many of these inmates, the Innocence Project is their last hope, and their pleas for help come in a letter from the inmate or a phone call from vigilant friends and family. The next step is a 20-page application detailing the relevant information of the case, including two simple questions: Are you innocent? Can you prove it?
"Oftentimes, we run into problems with those two questions, even with those who really are innocent," says Emily Maw, IPNO’s legal director. "Because these people have been saying they were innocent since the beginning and no one has listened, they are starting to believe their innocence doesn’t matter."
In a way, they are right. "Legally, being innocent is not a valid, free-standing claim," Maw says. "In most cases, you need more than that to get your case back into court. You need to show a constitutional violation in either your trial or legal process."
The Constitution doesn’t specifically state that it is illegal to detain innocent people, Bolton says. IPNO believes that innocence is enough. If the answers on the application are compelling and point to a possible case of wrongful conviction, the real work begins. IPNO tracks down case records, police reports, trial transcripts and physical evidence. They interview witnesses, facilitate DNA tests and consult experts. On many cases, they spend as many as 2,000 hours searching for and analyzing evidence — all before they agree to represent a prisoner. "By that point we can be certain that it is a case of actual innocence," Maw says.
After careful scrutiny and approval by their 13-member board of directors — a mix of law professors, practicing attorneys, social workers and law fellows — the IPNO lawyers take that evidence and try to get the case in front of a judge. That isn’t always easy, no matter how much evidence they’ve compiled. Often, the two-year deadline for appeals has passed, and they have to fight to get the case back in court. "We argue that innocence shouldn’t have a time limit," Maw says. "We believe that no matter how long it’s taken to prove our client is innocent, the evidence should be reviewed."
But legally, even with proof in hand, a judge is not required to hear the case. "Once we file a petition," Maw says, "it is at the judge’s discretion."
"But we do find more and more courts these days are keeping their ears open," Bolton says. "They are becoming aware that we don’t play around. We don’t file frivolous requests. They are starting to realize that we are only bringing true innocence cases to them."
Mistakes Happen
In 1976, Gregory Bright and Earl Truvia were sentenced in New Orleans to life in prison for the murder of Elliot Porter. They were convicted based on the testimony of a single eyewitness. The truth surfaced 25 years later: the witness testified under a false name, was a chronic drug user and a clinically diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic. In a later hearing, it was determined that her testimony was riddled with inaccuracies and that the prosecutor in the original trial knew about these problems, but did not inform the defendants’ attorneys.
IPNO represented them, and in 2002, Bright and Truvia’s sentences were overturned. In 2003, Orleans Parish District Attorney Eddie Jordan dropped the charges, and they were released from prison after serving 27 years for a crime they did not commit.
As Truvia and Bright’s cases illustrate, mistakes happen.
Barry Scheck, Peter Neufeld and Jim Dwyer are New York lawyers who created the first Innocence Project in 1992. They also chronicled the true stories of 10 men who were wrongly convicted in the book "Actual Innocence." The book not only inspired other lawyers to start 30 Innocence Projects throughout the United States, it also brought attention to the mistakes that put innocent people behind bars.
The most common is mistaken identity, especially when witnesses are identifying someone days or months after the incident. "Jurors usually believe an eye witness, even though the human memory is so unreliable," Maw says. "Jurors find it hard to dispute someone who says ‘this is the guy’ in court, even though the scientific evidence doesn’t support that claim."
Shoddy science — or using questionable techniques to reach a scientific conclusion — is another major factor in wrongful conviction. Common examples are hair analysis, shoe-print matching, and teeth mark evidence. "You just can’t accurately identify someone based on teeth marks in a bologna sandwich found at the scene of the crime," Maw says.
On the other hand, DNA testing has been a powerful tool in exonerating the innocent. Scheck estimates DNA testing can eliminate at least 25% of prime suspects before a case even goes to trial. And for those sent to prison prior to DNA testing, there is hope. Last year, the Louisiana legislature passed a statute that allows prisoners to apply for a DNA test at any time. If that test proves they did not commit the crime, they are released. "It’s not perfect," Maw says, noting that in many cases DNA evidence is either lost or destroyed before it can be tested. "But, it’s a big step in the right direction."
Misconduct on the part of the police or the prosecution can also lead to wrongful conviction. This can be anything from coercing a suspect into giving a false confession to withholding key pieces of evidence from the defense. Both of these can be aggravated by political pressure to find the perpetrator after a violent crime has shaken up a community. "I don’t believe that they purposefully go after the wrong person or overlook evidence of innocence," Maw says. "But sometimes, due to public pressure, they are so convinced they have the right guy that they start to only see the evidence that supports a conviction."
The defense is also at a disadvantage. Public defenders often lack the time and resources to properly handle serious cases. The prosecution holds the comprehensive case file, deciding which evidence to share with the defense. Public defenders have no legal right to look into that file until after the conviction. "The prosecution self-regulates," Bolton says. "But to make sure we are really trying the facts, the defense needs to see all of the prosecutor’s files, not just the parts they choose to share."
Bolton and Maw insist IPNO is not trying to point fingers. "Sometimes, a prosecutor or a judge is personally invested in a conviction, and they assume our work is a personal slight against them." Maw says. "I think the system can learn from and correct mistakes without blaming an individual. We don’t want to point fingers. We want the system to correct its mistake and make an effort not to let those kinds of mistakes happen again."
And there are compelling reasons to correct those mistakes. Hoelscher succinctly states why everyone should care that innocent people are in prison: "When an innocent person is serving time for a crime he did not commit, the real perpetrator is still out on the street." Incarcerating the wrong person also carries a hefty price tag —approximately $15,000 each year to imprison one inmate in Louisiana. It cost Louisiana taxpayers a total of $885,000 to detain the three innocent men IPNO exonerated.
"Ultimately, a quality justice system means getting the right person for the right crime," he says. "Truth and accuracy in the legal system benefits everyone."
The Perils of Freedom
When Truvia and Bright were released from prison, the state of Louisiana handed them a bright orange garbage bag filled with their legal paperwork and a $10 check.
Truvia had no shoes; he had to borrow a pair of shower sandals from another inmate whose feet were two sizes larger than his. Everyone in Bright’s immediate family died, leaving him with only a scattered support network of nieces and nephews.
Of the 141 people who have been exonerated by Innocence Projects nationwide, Truvia and Bright are better off than most. "The recently released don’t have anything," Bolton says. "They are dependent on family for shelter, if they even have any. They are trying to get driver’s licenses, cars and jobs. It’s a struggle, and not all of them succeed."
To address these problems, IPNO is lobbying the Louisiana legislature for a compensation program for the wrongly convicted, and they’ve started Inside-Out, a monthly support group for Louisiana exonerees and their families. IPNO is also trying to secure funding to hire a full-time advocate to help exonerees handle every day issues that arise when adjusting to life outside of prison, such as how to explain a 27-year lapse in employment history due to wrongful imprisonment to potential employers.
"We can’t disconnect our legal representation from post- release aid," Hoelscher says, noting IPNO has developed a level of trust with their clients, which is helpful when dealing with post-release problems. "If they are a Louisiana exoneree, they are part of our family. We are permanently linked to them."
That’s why, on exoneration day, the IPNO staff’s feelings of joy are equaled by their apprehension. "We feel elated and joyous but realistically apprehensive because we have put them in a position where they will be struggling," Maw says.
"As soon as they walk out of the prison door, I start to worry," Bolton says. "I wonder where they are going to sleep, how they are going to eat and how they are going to take care of themselves." She says that without an employment history, finding any sort of social aid is difficult and that newly released prisoners — innocent or not — have a hard road ahead of them. "If what we do is to have any meaning at all," Bolton adds, "We need to offer them assistance for the first two to three years."
A Calling
For the staff at IPNO, the work they do is not a job; it’s a calling. "We work very long hours. It’s much more a lifestyle than a job," Maw says. She moved to New Orleans from her home near Bristol, England, to volunteer with the Louisiana Crisis Assistance Center, a nonprofit that provides legal defense to indigent death-row inmates, and obtain her law degree from Tulane University.
"This kind of life attracts people who don’t mind. You don’t choose this work because it’s a good job or for money," she says. "You choose it because you passionately care about it."
Hoelscher was working as a nonprofit administrator at the University of Texas at Austin when he read a copy of "Actual Innocence." He found the issue of wrongful conviction compelling, so he contacted Bolton when he discovered that she was already investigating wrongful conviction cases in New Orleans. He volunteered to help Bolton with the administrative aspects of the project. And when they had the project on more stable footing, he moved to New Orleans. Hoelscher says his goal is to grow the staff and leverage IPNO’s assets so that they can help more inmates. "Cash and cases. That’s our motto," he says with a laugh. "We need more cash to try more cases." His challenge now, he says, is to turn IPNO into a sustainable social institution through grants and private donations. It is challenging because IPNO is such a new entity, and most people have either never heard of them or don’t fully understand what they do. "Organizationally, we’re still on baby food," Hoelscher says. "We aren’t even old enough to be a toddler."
Bolton was conducting death penalty research for Amnesty International in London, when she decided her heart was set on indigent defense. "Within two months I realized that I could achieve more by representing people than I could by writing reports," she says. Bolton volunteered with the LCAC while attending law school at Tulane.
At school, she took notice of a prison population not entitled to legal help — specifically those serving life sentences without parole, despite their innocence.
Bolton received for a fellowship from Equal Justice Works to investigate wrongful conviction in Louisiana and founded IPNO.
All of them love the work they do and it shows.
"These people (inmates) are on my mind the minute I wake up in the morning," Bolton says. "Every day I spend not working is another day they spend incarcerated for a crime they did not commit. I can piddle around and read the paper in the morning, or I can go into work and shave another day off of their sentence.
"This work is exciting and interesting," she adds. "Most people only watch this on TV on Law & Order, but we get to do it every day."