CLIENT REPRESENTATION
The Project currently accepts applications for legal representation
from prisoners in Mississippi who believe that they may have a meritorious
claim of actual innocence. Mississippi has one of the highest
incarceration rates in the country. Other than Texas and Louisiana, whose
state population is almost half the size of Mississippi, no other state in
the country jails its citizens the way Mississippi does. The state
incarcerates more than 650 people per 100,000.
Aside from freeing over two hundred persons, exonerations work has
provided irrefutable proof that there exist significant systemic problems
in our criminal justice system - among them issues of race and class,
inherently faulty methods of eyewitness identification, the prevalence of
false confessions, and under funded and ill-trained defense counsel - all
of which play a significant role in the incarceration of innocent people.
The Project conducts a preliminary screening of applications and reviews
the applications against
nationally accepted indicia of wrongful conviction. Preliminary
screening determines which cases will be advanced to Stage 1 screening,
where existing case documentation such as transcripts can be fully
reviewed, and DNA evidence is located if it exists. If a case passes Stage
1 screening, it is then moved to Stage 2, where it is more thoroughly
investigated and new evidence is sought. A non-DNA case may wait for
several years for investigative resources to be available in this stage.
If at the end of an exhaustive Stage 2 investigation it appears that the
innocence claim has merit and that there is new, credible evidence that
supports the innocence claim, the case is presented to the Project's case
review panel, consisting of Board and Advisory Panel members with the
relevant expertise, who determine whether the case should be advanced to
Stage 3 and litigated, or whether further investigation is needed, or
whether it should be rejected.
If a case reaches Stage 3, further investigation is conducted and an
exhaustive application for post conviction relief is prepared for filing
in the appropriate court by staff and student attorneys. The application
filed in court will contain a request for DNA testing if relevant. If an
evidentiary hearing is achieved, Project attorneys conduct the hearing,
often with the assistance of local counsel.
MIP welcomes offers of pro bono legal services. Please email
info@mississippiinnocence.org to assist MIP with client
representation.
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