News Archive

October 2, 2015, is Wrongful Conviction Day. IU McKinney’s Law Clinic students will observe this second International Wrongful Conviction Day with an assignment from Wrongful Conviction Clinic Director Fran Watson. Current students Andy Brown, Antwonette Demming, Rameez Dossani, Ranissa Dycus, Heather Kinser, and Scott Sarbacker are to take every opportunity during the day to engage friends, family, and peers in consideration of the important and often disturbing questions raised by wrongful convictions.

For example:

• Did you know that a eyewitnesses may be 100 percent certain of an identification and, unintentionally, 100 percent wrong?
• Are you aware that false confessions are a reality, no matter how counterintuitive?

• Have you considered that legal remedies may be limited for persons who have spent decades in prison as a result of convictions based on false science? 

As Ninth Circuit federal appellate Judge Alex Kozinski wrote in Criminal Law 2.0, 44 GEO. L.J. ANN. REV. CRIM. PROC (2015), “much of the so-called wisdom that has been handed down to us about the workings of the legal system, and the criminal process in particular, has been undermined by experience, legal scholarship, and common sense.”

Judge Kozinski’s article specifically seeks to debunk what he interprets as common myths:

1) Eyewitnesses are highly reliable;

2) Fingerprint evidence is foolproof;

3) Other types of forensic evidence are scientifically proven and therefore infallible;

4) DNA evidence is infallible;

5) Human memories are reliable;

6) Confessions are infallible because innocent people never confess;

7) Juries follow instructions;

8) Prosecutors play fair;

9) The prosecution is at a substantial disadvantage because it must prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt;

10) Police are objective in their investigations;

11) Guilty pleas are conclusive proof of guilt;

12) Long sentences deter crime. 

While studying the causes and remedies, Professor Watson and IU McKinney Wrongful Conviction Clinic students apply the knowledge in the representation of clients in various stages of post-conviction litigation. For example, in June 2015, the Indiana Court of Appeals granted client Darryl Pinkins the right to pursue a successor state post-conviction action based on presentation of analysis and conclusions prepared pro bono by experts Dr. Mark Perlin, PhD, MD, founder and chief executive officer of Cybergenetics; and Dr. Greg Hampikian, PhD, professor of biology and founder and director of the Idaho Innocence Project.

With the support of the affidavits of Dr. Perlin and Dr. Hampikian, the Wrongful Conviction Clinic asserts that Darryl Pinkins continues to serve prison time while innocent of the sexual assault crimes for which he was convicted and imprisoned in 1991. Proof will be offered in the form of the state-of-the-art technology developed by Cybergenetics. TrueAllele Casework is an automated computerized DNA interpretation system that rapidly infers genetic profiles from all types of DNA evidence samples. Importantly, by virtue of this new scientific system and the Indiana court’s authorization to proceed to an evidentiary hearing, Darryl Pinkins has the opportunity to establish his innocence and the genotypes of the real perpetrators are available for the pursuit of justice.

Sponsored by the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted (AIDWYC), a Canadian non-profit organization connected to the exoneration of Rubin Hurricane Carter, Wrongful Conviction Day seeks to highlight the need to prevent and remedy wrongful convictions around the world through litigation, education, and reform. The group and IU McKinney’s Wrongful Conviction Clinic are both members of the Innocence Network, the affiliation of organizations dedicated to providing pro bono services to persons seeking to prove innocence of crimes for which they have been convicted and working to redress the causes of wrongful convictions.

Interested in knowing more about Wrongful Conviction Clinic work at IU McKinney?  Contact one of the students mentioned in this story or Professor Fran Watson.