The Exoneration Initiative

Just under a month ago, I wrote about a few different organizations that dedicate themselves to helping exonerate people who have been wrongfully convicted. I linked the entry here, but this post is going to be a profile on one of the organizations: The Exoneration Initiative. 

The Exoneration Initiative is a non-profit organization that provides free legal assistance to wrongfully convicted people based in New York. They focus their efforts on cases that lack DNA evidence, meaning cases where DNA testing is not an option to prove a person's innocence. 

According to The Exoneration Initiative, less than 10% of wrongful conviction criminal cases have DNA evidence to test. Exonerating the innocent of the other 90+% of cases is far more difficult. The Exoneration Initiative, however, has taken up the challenge. 

Cases that lack DNA evidence are often far more costly than cases that have DNA since it takes longer and more man power to investigate and legal fees quickly add up. 

That's where EXI comes in. 

Cases go through a detailed screening process and EXI focuses on cases where there is compelling evidence to prove innocence. Their website explains further: 

When reviewing convictions, we focus on the forms of weak evidence which have been proven unreliable over the past few decades–such as mistaken eyewitness identifications, false confessions, and bad forensics. We ferret out prosecutorial and police misconduct, and perjury, which also play significant roles in wrongful convictions. Once we have enough information to guide our investigation, we hit the streets looking for new evidence of innocence which has never been heard on its merits by a judge or jury and then we bring it into court, where we fight to exonerate our client.

 The Exoneration Initiative works relentlessly to help those the justice system has wronged. Read about their success stories here.