And Justice For All?

How Groups Committed to Social Justice Can Change the World

Danielle Niemi and William Standard

PLSI 386/CST 300

Professor Emery

May 18, 2011

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The only statement I want to make is that I am an innocent man—convicted of a crime I did not commit. I have been persecuted for 12 years for something I did not do. From God’s dust I came and to dust I will return—so the earth shall become my throne.

- Cameron Todd Willingham’s last words prior to his execution1

It is an axiom of the United States justice system that “people are innocent until

they are proven, by competent evidence, to be guilty.”2 If someone is proven to be guilty

of the crime(s) they were accused of, then it is safe to assume that they are indeed guilty

because a fair and impartial judicial process secured their conviction. If you are guilty of

a crime, then you must do the time because the tenets of justice dictate that the guilty

must repay their debt to society. That all seems fair enough but what is one to think about

innocent people in prison repaying a debt to society that they never incurred in the first

place? Can one conceive of innocent Americans rotting away in prison cells, constantly

on their tiptoes trying to avoid being beaten, raped, and/or murdered? Unfortunately, it is

a common occurrence because “it doesn’t matter who you are, whether you are a police

officer, or a United States Marine … it can happen to anybody.”3 For the countless men

and women in prison for crimes they did not commit, there is hope: the Innocence

Project. Since 1992 the Innocence Project has led the battle against injustice by using

DNA evidence to exonerate persons incarcerated for crimes they did not commit. Their

objective “is nothing less than to free the staggering numbers of innocent people who

remain incarcerated and to bring substantive reform to the system responsible for their

unjust imprisonment.”4 Because the Innocence Project is an organization working for

social justice, their success rests in how effective and efficient their strategy is.

The Innocence Project has inspired the creation of other Innocence Projects that

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all work together to free wrongfully convicted people from prison. This collaboration is,

in a sense, a movement. The last great social movement that the United States saw was

the Southern Freedom Movement. For the Southern Freedom Movement to survive for as

long as it did with as many people involved as were involved is no small feat. The

Southern Freedom Movement is an anomaly of modern times and very inspiring for other

movements because it proves that people united can make a difference. The Innocence

Project’s efforts to date mirror the efforts of the Southern Freedom Movement but the

former still has a steep uphill mountain of bureaucracy to wade through in order to

fundamentally reform the U.S. justice system. Having survived for nineteen years and

counting, “what started off as a small … mom and pop operation has now mushroomed

into a kind of … new civil rights movement in this country. It’s not just about

exonerating the innocent; It’s also about reforming all of criminal justice.”5 Using the

Southern Freedom Movement as a comparison study, the aforementioned quote will be

put to the test to determine how the Innocence Project’s successes in the past and their

efforts in the present will bring about the reform of the U.S. criminal justice system.

This essay will provide a critical analysis of the Innocence Project based on our

understanding of how fundamental social change happens as developed from our study of

the Southern Freedom Movement. Using the Southern Freedom Movement as an

exemplary model for how movements for social change emerge and develop, we will

examine the Innocence Project’s infrastructure, coalitions, use of the arts, research and

clear identification of the problem, use of non-violent resistance, development of local

leadership, handling of contradictions within the movement, personal relationship and

community building, and to what extent they are operating in the right historical moment.

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By examining these key components, this essay will offer conclusions as to why the

Innocence Project has successfully accomplished what it has, explore indications that the

organization will become more or less successful in the future, examine to what extent

the Innocence Project has fulfilled its goals, explain the differences between what the

organization wishes to accomplish and what they have accomplished so far, and offer

opinions on the sociopolitical significance of the Innocence Project and it’s potential to

alter the U.S. legal system, including the U.S. system of capital punishment.

Building Infrastructure and Creating Coalitions

Founded in 1992 by attorneys Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld in association with

the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University in New York, the

Innocence Project provides pro bono legal services to inmates whose valid claims of

innocence can and will lead to their exoneration of the crime(s) they were convicted of.

As of 2004, “the Innocence Project [has become] an independent nonprofit organization

(still affiliated with Cardozo) in order to expand [their] capacity for litigation and policy

reform. Since then, [their] staff has grown from seven to 50, and … have quickly built an

institution that is capable of vetting thousands of cases a year.”6 Although the Innocence

Project is now its own nonprofit organization, it still works with the Cardozo School of

Law at Yeshiva University by allowing students to “provide direct representation or

critical assistance in most of these cases.”7

The inception of the Innocence Project was the first step towards creating a

powerful infrastructure. In 2001, Kathleen “Cookie” Ridolfi, an original member of the

Camdem 28,8 and Linda Starr founded the NCIP (Northern California Innocence Project)

at Santa Clara University’s School of Law. In 2004, Ridolfi “co-founded the Innocence

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Network, a collaboration of 49 innocence projects in the United States and in four other

countries.”9 As of 2010, “the Network grew to include 63 member organizations, with 54

in the United States and nine organizations in four other countries.”10 Although all of

these organizations have coalesced under the Innocence Network, California DNA

Project (affiliated with the NCIP) attorney John Scardamaglia explains: “they are all fully

functional separate offices. … The Network provides resources, research, [and

information about] what has happened in other cases in other states. [For Example], if the

D.A. comes back at you with this, how do you address that. It’s a huge resource for the

Network chapters.”11 The individual chapters correspond with one another regularly but

also meet once a year for the Innocence Network’s annual conference. Although the

Innocence Project and individual Innocence Network chapters are all independent from

one another, Scardamaglia explains: “we rely on them (the Innocence Network) but all

the network folks rely on each other. … They’ve got some big brains at the New York

office too so if we need some help, they’ll talk to us about it.” The cooperation and

unification of the individual chapters under the Innocence Network is similar to the

Southern Freedom Movement’s organizational structure.

The Southern Freedom Movement was a group of organizations working together

(more or less) to bring about fundamental change in the southern United States. The

NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) was established

in 1910 after progressive white reformers joined with the newly formed Niagara

movement, a black civil rights organization. “The strategy of the NAACP was to work

toward justice for African Americans through existing legal institutions.”12 While the

NAACP began as an organization based in the northern United States, in 1919 the first

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black executive secretary, James Weldon Johnson, created the “Southern Empire.”13

Johnson “observed that few NAACP branches existed in the South, and yet it was in the

South that such branches were most needed.” Through a series of meetings set up by

Johnson, “nineteen branches were opened in Southern cities from Richmond, Virginia, to

Tampa, Florida.”14 The NAACP’s strategy of working through existing institutions to

bring about fundamental social change is the exact strategy of the Innocence Project,

Innocence Network, and individual chapters throughout the U.S. and overseas.

The SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) was also a prominent

figure in the success of the Southern Freedom Movement. Established in 1957 “as an

organization of primarily churches, the SCLC added a political dimension to the social

and spiritual force of the black church.”15 The SCLC realized that ”the two principal

methods necessary to expand the struggle were voting and mass direct action. The SCLC,

founded entirely by African Americans, would both work within the existing structures

and challenge those structures by nonviolent protest.”16 Riding the success of the

Montgomery Bus Boycott, the SCLC, led by Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., organized

voter registration campaigns, sit-ins, held trainings “in nonviolent resistance to the

inevitable retaliation from segregationists,”17 and established citizenship schools.

CORE (Congress of Racial Equality), founded in 1942, was an organization that

worked for social justice. “The techniques employed by CORE—sit-ins, picketing, public

demonstrations, the Freedom Rides—were inspired by Gandhi’s methods in India, by the

methods of the American labor movement, and by resistance by conscientious objectors

to the draft.”18 CORE organized the 1961 Freedom Rides to challenge the government to

enforce the U.S. Supreme Court decision Boynton vs. Virginia, a decision that “extended

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the ban on discrimination aboard buses traveling interstate to include facilities in bus

terminals.”19 During the Freedom Rides, CORE’s bus was attacked by segregationists

who used violence to forcefully end the rides. “Shaken by their assault and unable to

locate a driver…to continue the rides, CORE formed a coalition with SNCC and the

SCLC.”20 Understanding the risk they were taking, the newly formed Freedom Ride

Coordinating Committee trudged along despite persistent attacks by segregationists. Had

CORE not reached out to fellow Southern Freedom Movement organizations to form an

alliance, the Freedom Rides would have been unsuccessful which would consequently

have delivered a major setback to the momentum of the movement.

SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) was a powerful leg of the

Southern Freedom Movement’s infrastructure largely because of its aggressive voter

registration campaigns, food distribution program, and its unique leadership philosophy.

SNCC was launched in 1960 following the success of the Greensboro student sit-ins and

the Nashville Movement’s student sit-ins. The visibility and successes of both these

movements spread rapidly throughout the South in the form of non-violent student

demonstrations that challenged segregation in prominent southern cities. With assistance

from Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ella Baker, the students organized themselves into

SNCC.

The NAACP, SCLC, CORE, and SNCC all united under the auspices of COFO

(Congress of Federated Organizations). COFO was the Southern Freedom Movement’s

equivalent of the Innocence Network because it functioned to provide “the support for the

people, who shared the same vision and passion and cooperated regardless of tensions

among the leadership.”21 The parallels between the Southern Freedom Movement and the

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Innocence Project are seen in the growth of the Innocence Project into an expansive

network of organizations dedicated to the common cause of social justice and their

willingness to work within the existing systems of power to effect change and promote

reform.

Strategic Use of the Arts

The use of art in a social movement is critical to its success but first it is important

to set up boundaries for what “art” really is. Art is literature, poetry, paintings, film,

music, and anything else that is designed to evoke an emotion. “We enjoy works of art

because they enable us to go beyond the explicit structures of our normal experience.”22

Social movements are spawned out of a desire for change and their momentum must be

sustained with a consistent passion to fuel their efforts. What creates passion, among

other things, is art. The Innocence Project and the Southern Freedom Movement both

strategically include(d) art in their fight for social justice; their efforts are as much the

same as they are different. Both movements recruited artists who used their fame to

garner publicity for the cause. The Innocence Project Artists’ Committee “help[s] raise

awareness and money to free innocent prisoners, they [also] speak about the need to

prevent wrongful convictions, and they integrate theses issues into their art.”23 The

Innocence Project Artists’ Committee includes many famous celebrities, both young and

old, and the varying demographic allows them to reach people of all ages, races, and

backgrounds to educate about wrongful convictions. The Southern Freedom Movement

also enjoyed the support of famous people, specifically SNCC who had the public

support of, among others, Harry Belafonte, James Baldwin, and Dick Gregory. These

“prominent African Americans could bring with them materials, resources, influence, and

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the power of the press.”24 The strategic use of artists to provide publicity for the cause

isn’t the only similarity between the two movements.

The use of storytelling is a powerful phenomenon. Story telling in print, on

screen, and on stage is still enjoyed by people to this day. “Throughout the inhabited

world, in all times and under every circumstance, myths of man have flourished; and they

have been the living inspiration of whatever else may have appeared out of the activities

of the human body and mind.”25 Myths are ultimately stories. People desire to hear

stories; they always have and they always will. The Innocence Project has benefited from

the art of storytelling to bring awareness to their organization and their cause. John

Grisham’s 2006 book The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town tells the

heartbreaking tale of the wrongful conviction of Ron Williamson for a 1982 murder he

didn’t commit, a case the Innocence Project worked on and won. It is Grisham’s only

non-fiction book to date. In addition to the publication of The Innocent Man, Grisham is

also a member of the Innocence Project Artists’ Committee and his multiple contributions

to the organization have been a godsend.

Prior to the 1890s, theater was the primary visual medium for storytelling

however with the invention of the film camera, cinema quickly dominated the visual

storytelling arena. Several films have featured the Innocence Project including Jessica

Sanders’ 2005 documentary After Innocence and Tony Goldwyn’s 2010 film Conviction.

Although these films did not see blockbuster success at the theater, they did reach niche

audiences and their message has not fallen on deaf ears. The challenge that the Innocence

Project faces is educating the general public about the problem of wrongful convictions.

While mainstream media continues pumping out shows like NCIS, CSI, and Law &

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Order where every episode is neatly tied up with the conviction of the archetypal bad

guy, people cannot and do not believe that the justice system is fundamentally flawed. By

using art to promote the cause, people are finally starting to listen.

Art is a powerful means to communicate ideologies and philosophies. Film and

theater share many common denominators—primarily the ability to convey information

through visual story. During the Southern Freedom Movement era, movie going

audiences were more apt to watch a Hollywood blockbuster than a social documentary.

“When suburban couples did decide to go out to the movies, they tended to be more

selective … Rather than attending a local theater regularly, they would choose an

‘important’ film – one based on a famous literary work or distinguished by its stars or

displaying lavish production values.”26 Since the Southern Freedom Movement did not

have access to the big screen, they were limited to the theater as a medium for visual

storytelling. SNCC members John O’Neal and Doris Derby teamed up with Mississippi

Free Press reporter Gil Moses and established the Free Southern Theater in 1963. They

felt “that the theater will add a necessary dimension to the current Civil Rights movement

through its unique value as a means of education.”27 The Free Southern Theater offered

an experience of live theater that many Southern blacks were unfamiliar with. “In the

summer of 1964, the Free Southern Theater toured Mississippi, presenting two plays:

Martin Duberman’s In White America, a dramatization of major events in African

American history based on documents, and Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.”28

Southern blacks were given the opportunity to learn their own history via the plays they

watched from the Free Southern Theater and many were inspired as a result.

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Using art as a morale booster is where the two movements differ. Unlike the

Innocence Project, the Southern Freedom Movement was a very hands-on public battle.

People came from across the nation to partake in the sit-ins and voter registration

campaigns in the southern United States. Activists endured beatings at the hands of angry

white segregationists who also used intimidation tactics (not limited to bombings and

lynching—basically terrorism) to counter the activists’ progress. Activists were

constantly faced with the threat of violence and the possibility of imprisonment and this

constant threat can and does take a toll on the psyche. With as much adversity as the

activists endured, it is phenomenal that they didn’t give up. One of the reasons that they

didn’t give up was because of the power of music. To keep morale high, southern

freedom fighters used the power of song to keep their heads up and their minds focused

on their goal; after all, there was no time for distraction. The use of song in conjunction

with political activism was seen as early as the labor movement of the 1930s. During the

1932 Tennessee Wilder Strike, leader Barney Graham kept his strikers’ morale high in

many ways, one of them being through the song “The Wilder Blues.”29 Having been

inspired by the previous use of song in social demonstrations, freedom riders sentenced to

small stints at Parchman Prison sang freedom songs to keep their spirits up. When you

have people in the trenches (so to speak) as the Southern Freedom Movement did,

maintaining morale is pivotal to maintaining the longevity of the fight. As explained, the

strategic use of arts has a long history in American social movements from as early as the

labor movement of the 1930s all the way to present time in the efforts of the Innocence

Project. The use of art is critical to a blossoming social movement because art has the

power to inspire people and inspiration leads to action.

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Research and Identifying the Problem

It is important that social movements, in their infancy, identify their problem. The

Innocence Project and Southern Freedom Movement both identified the denial of

freedom because of injustice as the primary problem for their respective movements. The

words freedom and injustice can be interpreted differently depending on the context

under which they are defined. Freedom to the Innocence Project is exoneration from

wrongful imprisonment. Injustice to the Innocence Project is the wrongful imprisonment

of an innocent person. Freedom according to the Southern Freedom Movement meant

equal rights and equal protection under the law. On a deeper level, “when they said

‘freedom,’ there were very clear things that they all meant by that: the freedom to go to a

restaurant, freedom to sit at any lunch counter they wanted to, freedom to sit on a bus,

freedom to hang out with anybody you wanted to, [and] freedom from fear. Fear from

what? Fear from being lynched.”30 Injustice to the Southern Freedom Movement is the

separation of races where one race is privileged with first class citizenship and the other

race denied those privileges. Both movements began after identifying that freedom and

injustice were problems. If an innocent man or woman isn’t free then no one is. If an

entire race of people is not free, then no one is. If injustice is allowed to continue without

opposition, then freedom will never be attained. Books, cinema, and theater can only go

so far: fundamental change must be achieved through the existing U.S. legal system. Both

the Innocence Project and the Southern Freedom Movement took to the court system to

fight for fundamental change and resolve their freedom and injustice problems once and

for all.

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The Innocence Project and all its individual chapters provide pro bono legal

services to inmates who make valid claims of innocence. The Innocence Project and its

host of attorneys engage students at Cardozo School of Law in researching the validity of

an inmate’s claim. Likewise, the NCIP also recruit students to work on their cases

however the NCIP’s backlog to even evaluate a claim of innocence is 2-3 years. Attorney

John Scardamaglia, speculates that the NCIP has received “somewhere around 4000

requests for assistance” since opening their doors in 2001. “We investigate all of them,”

Scardamaglia explains. “Many we close very quickly because there’s no true claim of

evidence; somebody writes to us and says ‘the food here is bad’ or ‘I shouldn’t have got

37 to life for this; I really should have got 8-12 and I think this sucks.’ They write us for

all kinds of reasons.” Although the backlog for reviewing claims is 2-3 years, inmates

requesting assistance go into the application process knowing it will take a while for their

claim to be reviewed. After the 2-3 year wait, a Santa Clara University law student

performs the initial screening. Scardamaglia explains that “a student will call the trial

attorney. They’ll call the appellate attorney. They’ll try to find some court documents.

They’ll try and find out what happened in the case.” Students screen these cases for

“things that will push us one way or another,” says Scardamaglia. “Was this a drive-by

shooting so there’s no possibility of DNA? Is there something that could suggest a cause

of wrongful conviction? Was it an eyewitness ID case? Was it a single perpetrator rape

case where the victim didn’t know the perpetrator so DNA is going to be very relevant?”

Unfortunately, some of the cases that escalate onto an actual attorney’s desk prove the

guilt of the inmate. Scardamaglia explains that this “happens about half the time. It’ll get

through the nine levels of screening, we’ll find the DNA that’s stuck in the court’s vault

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and has been there hiding for 19 years; we’ll get a judge to order the testing, get the lab to

run the results and all this takes … then more years because nothing happens quickly.

And we’ll get the results and it’ll hit our guy which is tough.” The cases that do prove an

inmate’s innocence escalate even further until their exoneration can be secured.

Through their research efforts, the Innocence Project has identified several

components that have contributed to wrongful convictions. The single greatest cause of

wrongful convictions is eyewitness identification. While eyewitness testimony serves as a

powerful persuading factor for juries, on-going research by social scientists have proven

the unreliability of human memory. “Research shows that the human mind is not like a

tape recorder; we neither record events exactly as we see them, nor recall them like a tape

that has been rewound. Instead, witness memory is like any other evidence at a crime

scene; it must be preserved carefully and retrieved methodically, or it can be

contaminated.”31 The Innocence Project has also identified other factors that play a

significant part in wrongful convictions: invalidated or improper forensic science, false

confessions/admissions, prosecutorial misconduct, the use of informants and ineffective,

incompetent, or overburdened defense lawyers. On a larger scale, the Innocence Project

has developed a series of priority issues targeted at specific aspects of the justice system

badly in need of reform.

Because of the Innocence Project’s work, several states have created broad-based

criminal justice reform commissions to study wrongful convictions and advocate for

changes in the system. The California Commission on the Fair Administration of

Justice’s32 final report recommended several changes to current procedures. “From the

outset, Commission Chair John Van de Kamp resolved to issue interim reports as we

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addressed each of the identifiable causes of wrongful convictions and California’s

administration of the death penalty.”33 Attorney John Scardamaglia explained that,

among other recommendations:

What the commission recommended is what they call ‘sequential viewing’ where

you look at a photograph and you say yes or no. And you look a photograph and

you say yes or no. And you do that until you’ve looked at all the photographs that

the officer has. And what the commission also recommended that they tell you

ahead of time, ‘I’m going to show you a series of photographs, the person may or

may not be in there.’ Just give them that brief admonishment and tell them ‘you

don’t have to pick anybody.’

Commissions in other states have already begun to recommend the implementation of

improvements in investigations, lab operations, and prosecutorial practices necessary to

help ensure the integrity of the criminal process.

The NCIP has also researched causes of wrongful convictions specifically limited

to the state of California. NCIP co-founder Kathleen M. Ridolfi and Maurice Possley’s

publication Preventable Error: A Report on Prosecutorial Misconduct in California

1997-2009, released in March 2011, detailed instances of prosecutorial misconduct that

“ranges from small technical errors to presenting false evidence, engaging in improper

examination, making false and prejudicial arguments, violating defendant’s Fifth

Amendment right to silence and discriminating against minorities in jury selection.”34

Attorney John Scardamaglia explained that the NCIP’s recent report wasn’t received well

by California prosecutors. “Now all the district attorneys in California hate us because we

pointed out all the things that they do wrong, why that’s bad, and we cited names and

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cases and they didn’t like it. Nobody likes seeing their name in the paper for doing

something wrong.” The ongoing efforts of the Innocence Project and individual

Innocence chapters to research the cause of wrongful convictions mirrors the Southern

Freedom Movement’s efforts to solve their problem. In this regard, the Innocence Project

is following the example of the Southern Freedom Movement by recognizing the

importance of research in developing a clear understanding of the causes that lead to

innocent people being sent to prison, and more, by using that understanding to develop

effective strategies and procedures to correct and reform systemic deficiencies.

The use of research in the Southern Freedom Movement goes back to the

NAACP’s campaign against lynching in the early twentieth century. Lawyers working to

bring attention to the non-enforcement of lynching laws used evidence gathered by

NAACP researchers to back their claims in court. The Dyer Bill was introduced to the

United States Senate in 1920. The bill would have made “lynching a federal crime

distinct from murder. … The bill would remove the responsibility for prosecuting

lynching from the biased state courts of the South. NAACP research had concluded that

lynchings were seldom responses to crimes of rape but were a form of terrorism designed

to maintain white supremacy.”35 Unfortunately, the Dyer Bill was never adopted into

law. Despite the failure of the Dyer Bill, NAACP continued research into discrimination

and the unequal treatment of black citizens led to other cases which could be used in

court to undermine segregation. This effort led to the 1954 Supreme Court decision

“Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, a decision that banned segregation in

public education.”36

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Strategic use of Non-Violence

An “unfortunate misconception about nonviolent action … is that when you see it,

it’s ad-hoc, it’s spontaneous; people just decide to show up in the city square and

protest.”37 As we learned through our case study of the Southern Freedom Movement,

social movements don’t appear out of thin air and the use of nonviolence in public

demonstration is not an inherent human behavior. Nonviolence is learned and diligently

acted out. According to Southern Freedom Movement veteran and activist Bruce

Hartford, there are two kinds of nonviolence: philosophic nonviolence and tactical

nonviolence. Hartford explains: “Philosophic nonviolence (principled nonviolence) was a

way of life. Gandhi practiced philosophic nonviolence. Dr. King practiced philosophic

nonviolence. …The strategic premise of philosophic nonviolence was to appeal to the

hearts of your adversary … and through redemptive suffering to win public support and

to persuade people rather than to coerce people.”38 On the other side of the nonviolence

continuum is tactical nonviolence, also referred to as the “strategic use of nonviolence.”

Hartford explains:

Tactical nonviolence focuses on building political movements to win legislation,

court cases, and alter social behavior to coerce changes in society’s practice. For

example, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that outlawed the kind of segregation that

you saw in the movie Nashville. That law did not end segregation by convincing

the segregationists that it was wrong. It ended segregation by saying ‘if you

segregate we’re going to sue you and put you in jail.’ In other words, it coerced a

change. ... Both types of nonviolence try to persuade. But tactical nonviolence

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will go to coercion—nonviolent coercion—whereas philosophically nonviolent

people tend not to want to do that.

For an organization like the Innocence Project, the employment of nonviolence as a

philosophy or as a tactical strategy is a moot point. The Innocence Project’s battle is

primarily in the courtroom. The Innocence Project does not organize demonstrations or

sit-ins like the Southern Freedom Movement because their battles are very different.

Direct resistance is not applicable to the Innocence Project because their goal is not as

immediate as the Southern Freedom Movements. There are no more lynchings and most

importantly, there is no “enemy.” During Hartford’s speech, he frequently referred to the

Southern Freedom Movement’s opposition as the “enemy.” In the Innocence Project’s

case, there is no definable “enemy” and this is the big difference between the two

movements. Being sent to prison for crimes they didn’t commit has already victimized

the Innocence Project’s clients and the perpetrator of the victimization is an unjust legal

system that cannot be picked out in a line-up.

The Southern Freedom Movement, on the other hand, relied on court battles as

well as tactical nonviolent demonstration to coerce change. Nonviolent public

demonstrations were organized all over the South. They were designed to challenge Jim

Crow laws by challenging the federal government to enforce anti-segregation laws

already on the books. These public demonstrations put activists at risk of violence by

white segregationists. To prepare for the Nashville sit-ins and the violence that was sure

to ensue, SNCC activist James Lawson held workshops where “both black and white

students trained in techniques of nonviolent resistance.”39 The Freedom Rides, the

Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Greensboro student sit-ins, the Nashville student sit-ins,

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and the numerous voter registration campaigns held in the South, all of these

demonstrations viewed tactical nonviolence as crucial to their effort. By strategically

planning demonstrations to challenge Jim Crow laws and by strategically training people

on how not to respond violently when faced with violence, the activists were using

tactical nonviolence to coerce change.

Development of Local Leadership

The development of local leadership was an important aspect of the Southern

Freedom Movement but isn’t really applicable to the Innocence Project. The Innocence

Project, Innocence Network, and individual Innocence chapters are all structured

similarly. Many are based out of law schools that engage students in the investigative

aspect of each case. Although these students are acquiring valuable investigative skills

and education on the reasons for wrongful convictions, they aren’t being groomed to

become leaders in the fight against injustice. There is no central leadership to the

Innocence Network however each chapter has their own internal structure (a necessary

for the success of any business or organization). Even though it isn’t important to the

Innocence Project to develop local leadership, it was nonetheless important for some

organizations involved in the Southern Freedom Movement.

In 1958, the SCLC launched “its Crusade for Citizenship. Through the Crusade,

the SCLC hoped to use mass direct action applied by local organizations to implement

the NAACP’s legal gains in the area of voting rights.”40 Southern Freedom Movement

heavy weight Ella Baker “was skeptical of the SCLC’s leader-centered style, [but] she

saw the Crusade as a means of developing local leadership and organizing communities

around a common objective.”41 Baker was an important figure in the cultivation of

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leadership during the Southern Freedom Movement. She “believed strongly in

communities who achieved self-sufficiency through sharing; throughout her life, she

remained skeptical of the type of leadership that robbed people of their initiative and right

to act autonomously.”42 Essentially, Baker believed in democracy within the movement.

The problem had already been identified, the next challenge was how to approach that

problem.

Every organization involved in the Southern Freedom Movement had some sort

of internal organization, a hierarchy of sorts where certain people were in leadership roles

and others ground soldiers. “SNCC resisted the bureaucratic structure of the established

adult groups, preferring instead loose organization and a consensus style of decision

making. The students established an organization that was very different from the

established groups.”43 SNCC’s structure was different from the other organizations

because Baker advocated for “‘group-centered leadership’ versus ‘leader centered group

pattern of organization’… [where] leaders tend to become more interested in perpetuating

their own leadership rather than keeping the focus on the goals of the organizations.”44

Ultimately the “SNCC philosophy [was] that local leadership should be cultivated.”45 In

an effort to groom local citizens into leaders, “SNCC organizers recruited and trained

leaders from the bottom rather than the top of black society”46 and this approach to

cultivating leadership placed it at odds with the other Southern Freedom Movement

organizations.

Learning How to Deal With Contradictions Within the Movement

Because the various chapters of the Innocence Network work independent of the

one another, there aren’t any contradictions for those involved to deal with. That being

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said, the Innocence Network does have its share of annoyances. As attorney John

Scardamaglia jokingly pointed out, “Barry [Scheck] takes credit for everything. …When

anybody is exonerated anywhere in the world, Barry did it. All you have to do is ask him,

he’ll tell you. …Cookie’ll give Barry a hard time like ‘really, you’re on the news taking

credit for what we did?’” Another annoyance felt by the NCIP is the name of the

California Innocence Project, the southern Californian complement to the NCIP. “They

don’t call themselves the ‘Southern California Innocence Project.’ We’re very bitter

about that. Why do you have to be California? You cover Southern, we cover Northern,

why don’t you, anyway…” As Scardamaglia expressed, the annoyances within the

movement are really insignificant, comical at best. The lack of contradictions within the

movement is probably a result of the independence of each division. No one organization

has power over another; they all work together for the same common goal and seem to be

a tight-knit community of professionals with big hearts.

The Southern Freedom Movement, by comparison, had many contradictions to

deal with. Like the Innocence Network, the Southern Freedom Movement was made up

of many individual organizations operating independent of one another. One of the major

conflicts in the movement was between SNCC and the NAACP. SNCC’s philosophy was

direct action. They were responsible for sit-ins as well as voter registration campaigns

that, unlike the NAACP’s efforts of voter registration targeting the middle class,

“approached the entire community.”47 The NAACP didn’t appreciate SNCC’s efforts to

target the entire community.

Although SNCC’s voter registration philosophy placed them in conflict with the

NAACP, they also experienced a conflict within their own group. “In the summer of

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1961 … SNCC members debated the direction of the organization at a workshop held at

the Highlander Folk School.” The conflict involved whether to concentrate SNCC’s

efforts on direct action or voter registration. “The direct action group, mostly [of people]

from Nashville, saw voter registration as a ‘safe’ activity, which took the focus off the

streets where they thought the struggle belonged.” This debate carried the potential to

break SNCC when “a compromise was proposed by Ella Baker, who suggested that

SNCC work on both objectives, forming one branch to concentrate on direct action and

another to work on voter registration.” The swift resolution of SNCC’s internal conflict is

a testament to the group’s democratic philosophy.48

Although SNCC had their own internal conflicts as well as conflicts with the

NAACP, all four organizations “were hampered because the leadership of these

organizations had trouble working together. To avoid the conflict of egos and

competition for funds, the freedom fighters in Mississippi formed a coalition in 1962 by

creating the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO).”49 The founding of COFO was

absolutely necessary to get the various organizations to work together because after all,

organizations united are more powerful together than they are separate.

The efforts that went into creating the MFDP (Mississippi Freedom Democratic

Party) were immense. All four organizations united under COFO “worked to create a new

[political] party—one open to both black and white voters—the Mississippi Freedom

Democratic Party”50 but it was “SNCC organizers [who] had been the backbone of the

Summer Project and had gained national prominence as a result of the successes. …

SCLC and NAACP leaders, perhaps because they felt threatened by SNCC’s success,

began to attack SNCC for its focus on relying on poor people to become leaders of their

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own movement.”51 These attacks did not help to ease the tensions already felt by SNCC

and the NAACP.

After the MFDP’s failed attempts to register with the National Democratic Party

in Atlantic City, violence against blacks escalated in Mississippi. The negative publicity

generated from this violence caused businesses to suffer. Talks were initiated between

whites and the federal government to put an “end to violent reprisals against blacks. Such

tactics succeeded in driving a wedge between SNCC and the NAACP. SNCC organizers

and their local following wanted both economic and political rights, while the NAACP

was willing to settle for an end to Jim Crow segregation laws.”52 By 1965, the cumulative

tension had taken its toll and COFO was disbanded after each organization withdrew

from it.

Unfortunately, the four organizations were unable to resolve their differences and

this is partially because of egos and age differences. The NAACP, SCLC, and CORE

were all adult organizations. SNCC was an organization comprised of young students.

The passion SNCC exhibited ultimately seemed to threaten the older organizations.

Although the four organizations temporarily set their differences aside to work towards

the establishment of the MFDP, they never learned to put their differences aside long

enough where all could enjoy a functional relationship.

The Innocence Project, Innocence Network, and individual Innocence chapters

have not experienced the internal conflicts that the NAACP, SCLC, CORE, and SNCC

experienced primarily because of their membership criteria. In order to be eligible to join

the Innocence Network, a number of qualifications must be met but primarily

“organizations eligible for formal membership in the Innocence Network shall be limited

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to organizations that are dedicated to providing pro bono legal and/or investigative

services to individuals seeking to prove their innocence of crimes for which they have

been convicted.”53 The Innocence Network’s criteria for admission does not allow for

organizations like SNCC, SCLC, or CORE to join; one has to be in the law profession in

order to be potentially eligible and in that respect, the Innocence Network is like a giant,

international NAACP.

Personal Relationship and Community Building

The NCIP has a special relationship with the Santa Clara County District

Attorney’s Office. In 2010, Jeffrey Rosen beat incumbent District Attorney Dolores Carr

for the district attorney position in Santa Clara County. After assuming office in 2011,

Rosen reestablished the “Conviction Integrity Unit,” a special investigative unit that had

been previously disbanded under then-District Attorney Dolores Carr’s tenure. “Rosen

named veteran Santa Clara County prosecutor and Harvard Law School graduate David

Angel to lead the unit. Rosen hoped the unit, which would operate on a full-time basis

and work in conjunction with groups like The Innocence Project, would restore public

confidence in the office.”54 Attorney John Scardamaglia explains: “we’re thrilled that

[Rosen] has reestablished that unit and we have, as a result, a great relationship with their

office. [Angel] did that job before Dolores Carr was the D.A. … and we got two

exonerations as a result of their work.” The newly reestablished Santa Clara County

Conviction Integrity Unit is a great example of creating personal relationships because

the new district attorney has reached out to the NCIP in an effort to clean up his office’s

image as well as correct injustice.

Niemi/Standard 25

The NCIP’s tireless efforts don’t go unnoticed by their colleagues and local

professionals. Large law firms have, from time to time, stepped in to assist the NCIP on

cases for free. Scardamaglia explains:

The big firms whose name you don’t see on the door, they make a lot of money.

The partners are doing quite well and they like to help out where they can. … One

of our recent exonerees, Francisco Carrillo … was convicted in Los Angeles

County 20 years ago … A large law firm…based in San Francisco called

Morrison and Forrester [assisted on the case]. They put a partner on it [and]

associates. They spent a lot of their own money investigating, doing a ton of

work. We figure, all total, they probably put $2 million dollars into getting

Frankie out.

Not only large law firms with a conscience but also local professionals have stepped in to

donate their services to the NCIP. “We use investigators who work for us for free

basically,” Scardamaglia explains. “Sometimes we can scratch out a little money to pay

them. But they’re good people and we have a couple local investigators that will work for

us for free because they’ve got good hearts and they want to help. But they also have to

pay their bills so they don’t have a ton of time to give us.” The organization’s noble

plight has not gone unnoticed in their respective communities and because of this, many

professionals have stepped in to help by donating generous amounts of time and

resources towards the exoneration of wrongfully convicted people. The efforts of the

Innocence Project in building personal relationships within the community are reflected

in the Southern Freedom Movement, specifically in the instance of the Montgomery Bus

Boycott.

Niemi/Standard 26

The success of the Montgomery Bus Boycott is highly important to the Southern

Freedom Movement. Although a boycott of the Montgomery Bus System had been

planned well before Rosa Parks’ arrest on December 1, 1955, she was nonetheless the

perfect poster child to use to start the boycott. The boycott began in December 1955 after

Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus and lasted until

“December 17, 1956, three hundred and eight two days after it had begun, [when it]

ended at 5:45 A.M., as [Martin Luther] King, Ralph Abernathy, Rosa Parks, and Glenn

Smiley boarded a city bus.”55 The decision to officially end the boycott came after the

U.S. “Supreme Court upheld an earlier district court ruling declaring racial segregation

on Alabama’s public transportation unconstitutional.”56 The Montgomery Bus Boycott

would not have been successful if only part of the community participated. “Nearly every

member of the black community”57 had united to execute the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Author and journalist Juan Williams pointed out that “the articulate leadership of King

and the founding of the SCLC were the two most important results of the Montgomery

bus boycott. So too was the realization that black people, united for a just cause, could

successfully stand up to segregation.”58 Community unification of this magnitude has not

been seen since but is nonetheless a testament of the capacities of humans to set aside

differences when faced with adversity.

SCLC’s Citizenship Schools were important in developing community because

they “prepared people not only to vote but to understand themselves as citizens with the

right to participate.”59 The SCLC understood that community building was pivotal to

their strategy. “The evaluation form used by the Citizenship Schools stressed that

‘graduation’ meant taking an active role in the community.”60 Enthusiasm is contagious;

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it cannot be learned, it can only be felt. SCLC graduates enthusiastically going out into

the community would surely rub off on non-participants to elicit their participation with

the movement.

Being in the Right Historical Moment

The Innocence Project is in the right historical moment however they face a steep

uphill battle. The establishment of the Innocence Project was made possible by progress

in the scientific community. “Forensic use of DNA technology in criminal cases began in

1986 when police asked Dr. Alec J. Jeffreys (who coined the term ‘DNA fingerprints’) of

Leicester University (England) to verify a suspect’s confession that he was responsible

for the two rape-murders in the English Midlands.”61 By December of 1992, DNA

evidence was being used in U.S. courts, not simply by prosecutors as evidence of guilt,

but also by defense lawyers to prove innocence. Since DNA technology has been

introduced into courtrooms, “there have been 271 post-conviction DNA exonerations in

the United States.”62 That number seems to be growing everyday. Had science not

progressed to the point where DNA could be applied to criminal cases, then the

Innocence Project would have ceased to exist but because of the progress made in the

scientific community, the technique of using DNA to exonerate people has been

extremely successful.

While the Innocence Project focuses only on DNA cases, other chapters expanded

their focus to include non-DNA cases. The NCIP, for example, works on many different

kinds of cases not limited to DNA. A challenge the NCIP faces is not only the State’s

preservation of evidence but also the lack of biological material. “Barry Scheck, a co-

founder of the Innocence Project, which has used DNA testing to exonerate prisoners,

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estimates that about eighty percent of felonies do not involve biological evidence.”63

Because there are so many causes of wrongful convictions not limited to lack of DNA

evidence, the goal of reforming the justice system seems almost implausible. However,

the goal of ending segregation and establishing equal rights for southern blacks seemed

pretty implausible as well. Faced with the threat of death everywhere they turned,

freedom fighters’ persistence resulted in many victories like the infamous Brown v Board

of Education decision. Although the Brown case did not immediately lead to an end of

segregation in the U.S., it did mark a dramatic shift towards a more equal and just

society. As Bruce Hartford explains, social change doesn’t happen immediately:

Imagine you have a big block of wood that’s sitting on a table and you want to

move that block of wood … What you do is you take a whole chain of rubber

bands (this is called the rubber band theory of history) and you attach it the block

of wood and then you get to the other side of the table and you start pulling on

that chain of rubber bands. And you pull and you pull and what happens? The

block don’t move, the bands just expand. And you pull and pull and the block

don’t move. And you pull and you pull and the block don’t move. You pull and

suddenly the block moves and it moves so fast it smacks you in the hand. That’s

the way social change actually happens.

While it may seem daunting that some people’s evidence has been destroyed or no

evidence exists at all, Hartford’s point is that, persistence in the fight will lead to victory

eventually. It may seem impossible but eventually, that block will move. It is a fact that

some people will remain in prison for crimes they didn’t commit and there is little to no

hope for them. But once genuine reform of the justice system has happened, it will be

Niemi/Standard 29

harder to send someone away for a crime they didn’t commit. We may not be there yet

but we will be and when that day comes, the injustice that countless people endure(d) will

not have been in vain.

Conclusion

The Innocence Project and the Southern Freedom Movement are very similar and

very different. Their differences lie in the nature of the problem and resistance

encountered by opposition. The Innocence Network and all the individual chapters aren’t

marching in the streets or staging sit-ins because those efforts aren’t applicable to their

cause. Staging a boycott or disrupting commerce at lunch counters is designed to

negatively impact people’s wallets. People are more apt to negotiate change if their

wallets are being negatively affected. It is not evident that a boycott or a sit-in would hurt

the wallets of the prison industry. Because the prison industry is impenetrable to boycotts

or sit-ins, public demonstration is pointless. The Innocence Project is not taking their

campaign to the streets for that very reason. That being said, the mass public

demonstrations of the Southern Freedom Movement were critical to their success. By

directly challenging Jim Crow laws and hitting people hard in their wallets, after a long

and deadly struggle, the freedom fighters finally won.

The similarities between the Southern Freedom Movement and Innocence Project

provide proof that the latter will be triumphant; it just takes time. What has made them

successful so far is their powerful infrastructure, their benefit of the arts promoting their

cause, their clear identification of the problem, their lack of contradictions within the

movement, their community and relationship building skills, and being (more or less) in

the right historical moment. Although the Innocence Project may be in the right historical

Niemi/Standard 30

moment because of the advances in DNA technology, they still have a long road to travel

before their ultimate goal of reforming the justice system can be achieved. Their recent

surge of successes is proof that their efforts have not gone unrewarded.

In 2011, it seems like every other week a major headline appears where some

poor guy was exonerated having spent decades in prison for crimes he did not commit.

The most recent exoneration happened on May 12, 2011 when, after serving 27 years in

prison for crimes he did not commit, Johnny Pinchback was exonerated in Texas

“because DNA testing proved he had been wrongly convicted of raping two teenager

girls … Pinchback was freed after DNA evidence found on pubic hair cuttings of one of

the girls was tested. It was the only biological evidence that remained in the 1984 case.

The rest was lost or destroyed.”64 A major obstacle in the Innocence Project’s way is the

preservation of evidence. Attorney John Scardamaglia describes the hunt for evidence:

If it’s a piece of what we politely refer to as ‘biological material’ which means

exactly what you think it means, is it in the police department? Is it at the district

attorney’s office? Is it in the court’s exhibit room? Has it been destroyed? We

spend a lot of time searching for evidence only to find its been destroyed. Courts

think, ‘well, we’re running out or room so these are old cases, they’ve been sitting

on the shelf for 15 or 20 years, throw them in the incinerator.’ They are supposed

to retain this material as long as the person is in prison.

Pinchback is lucky that Dallas County preserved some of the evidence but how many

people will spend time in prison for crimes they did not commit because the State has

destroyed their evidence? There is no way to tell. On one hand, the breakthroughs in

DNA technology place the Innocence Project in the right historical moment, but on the

Niemi/Standard 31

other hand, the archaic procedures of States regarding preservation of evidence kills any

chances some people have at seeing freedom. Several states have presented legislation

that would reform the way states preserve evidence but for people already in prison for

crimes they did not commit, time is against them. For those sitting on death row, time is

really against them. It is an extremely frustrating race against time.

For people like Cameron Todd Willingham, it is too late. Convicted of murdering

his three young daughters by arson on December 23, 1991, Willingham was sentenced to

death by the state of Texas. The only evidence that a crime was even committed was

based on the fire investigator’s report that an accelerant was used to burn down the house

where Willingham’s children were sleeping. Until his execution on February 17, 2004,

Willingham adamantly proclaimed his innocence. “On his death certificate, the cause was

listed as ‘Homicide.’”65 The Innocence Project, even after his death, worked to clear

Willingham’s name and in 2006, a panel of the nation’s top fire investigators “concluded

that ‘each and every one’ of the indicators of arson had been ‘scientifically proven to be

invalid.’”66 To put it bluntly, the fire was an accident, no crime was committed, and the

state of Texas executed an innocent man. The “homicide” listing on Willingham’s death

certificate seems appropriate. What started as a tragedy ended in tragedy; Willingham

was innocent of the crimes he was convicted of and the state of Texas murdered him. To

call Willingham’s execution a “mistake” is repugnant; a mistake is a typo on a term

paper; a mistake is not pulling over at that last rest stop to use the restroom when the next

rest stop is 60 miles away; a mistake is overdrawing your checking account because you

miscalculated how much money you had. The State’s execution of an innocent man is not

a mistake—it is murder! Until fundamental reform of the justice system finally happens,

Niemi/Standard 32

Willingham won’t be the first and certainly won’t be the last innocent man or woman to

spend time in prison and/or be executed. Although it is too late for Willingham, the noble

efforts of the Innocence Project will eventually bring him justice and save countless lives

in the process. Willingham’s suffering was not in vain; he was a martyr for justice but he

didn’t have to be if justice had protected him like it is supposed to. The state of Texas has

blood on its hands and seven years after his death, they still haven’t admitted that they

executed an innocent man.

Niemi/Standard 33

Notes

1. Cameron Todd Willingham. “A Shocking Final Statement.” (PBS, 2004), http://www.pbs.org/ wgbh/pages/frontline/death-by-fire/documents/shocking-final-statement.html (accessed on May 16, 2011).

2. Coffin vs. U.S., 156 U.S. 432 (1895).

3. Barry Scheck. After Innocence, DVD, directed by Jessica Sanders. (2005, New York: New Yorker Films, 2005).

4. Innocence Project, ”Mission Statement,” http://www.innocenceproject.org/about/Mission-Statement.php (accessed on May 13, 2011).

5. Peter Neufield, After Innocence, 2005.

6. Innocence Project, “The Innocence Project Annual Report 2009,” http://www.innocenceproject.org/news/AnnualReport2009.php (accessed on May 17, 2011).

7. ”Mission Statement,” Innocence Project.

8. In 1971, 28 members of the “Catholic Left” broke into the draft board office in Camden, New Jersey to sabotage files that identified citizens who were eligible to be drafted into the war in Vietnam. All of the activists proudly admitted their guilt and were eligible for an astronomical amount of prison time because of their crimes. A jury of their peers acquitted them of all charges. See Anthony Giacchino’s 2007 film The Camden 28 for additional information.

9. Northern California Innocence Project, “NCIP Staff,” http://law.scu.edu/ncip/about-ncip.cfm (accessed on May 13, 2011).

10. The Innocence Network, “Innocence Network Exonerations 2010,” http://www.innocencenetwork.org/docs/innocence-network-exonerations-2010-pdf/view (accessed on May 13, 2011).

11. John Scardamaglia, unpublished interview with authors, (Northern California Innocence Project, Santa Clara, CA, April 29, 2011).

12. Kathy Emery, Linda Reid Gold, Sylvia Braselmann, Lessons From Freedom Summer: Ordinary People Building Extraordinary Movements. (Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 2008), 28.

13. Ibid., 30.

Niemi/Standard 34

14. Ibid., 30.

15. Ibid., 79.

16. Ibid., 80.

17. Ibid., 82.

18. Ibid., 55.

19. Ibid., 65.

20. Ibid., 66.

21. Ibid., 202.

22. Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. (New York: Routledge, 1995), 38.

23. Innocence Project, “The Innocence Project Artists’ Committee,” http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/The_Innocence_Project_Artists_Committee.php (accessed on May 13, 2011).

24. Emery, Gold, and Braselmann, Lessons From Freedom Summer, 154.

25. Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, 3rd ed. (Novato, CA: New World Library, 2008), 1.

26. Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell, Film History: An Introduction, 2nd ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003), 328.

27. Emery, Gold, and Braselmann, Lessons From Freedom Summer, 310.

28. Ibid., 312.

29. Ibid., 96.

30. Kathy Emery, “Untitled” (lecture, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA, January 26, 2011).

31. Innocence Project. “Understand The Causes: Eyewitness Misidentification,” http://www.innocenceproject.org/understand/Eyewitness-Misidentification.php (accessed on May 13, 2011).

32. NCIP co-founder Kathleen “Cookie” Ridolfi and current California Governor Jerry Brown both served on this Commission.

Niemi/Standard 35

33. “California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice Final Report.”

Gerald Uelmen, ed. http://www.ccfaj.org/documents/CCFAJFinalReport.pdf (accessed on May 13, 2011).

34. Tracey Kaplan, “Report Finds Prosecutorial Misconduct in Bay Area,” San Jose Mercury News, April 16, 2011, http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_17864595?source=most_emailed&nclick_check=1 (accessed on May 13, 2011).

35. Emery, Gold, and Braselmann, Lessons From Freedom Summer, 35.

36. Ibid., 43.

37. Cynthia Boaz. “Egyptians Revolt was Organized, Non-Violent, SSU Prof Says,” by Jeremy Hay, Press Democrat, March 13, 2011. http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20110313/ARTICLES/110319778 (accessed on May 13, 2011).

38. Bruce Hartford, “Untitled.” (lecture, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA, March 9, 2011).

39. Emery, Gold, and Braselmann, Lessons From Freedom Summer, 120.

40. Ibid., 81-2.

41. Ibid., 82.

42. Ibid., 126.

43. Ibid., 129.

44. Ibid., 129.

45. Ibid., 133.

46. Ibid., 118.

47. Ibid., 134.

48. Ibid., 144.

49. Ibid., 202.

50. Ibid., 316.

Niemi/Standard 36

51. Ibid., 350.

52. Ibid., 343.

53. The Innocence Network. “How to Join,” http://www.innocencenetwork.org/join (accessed on May 13, 2011).

54. Mike Colgan, “Santa Clara District Attorney Unveils ‘Integrity Unit.’” CBS Broadcasting, March 18, 2011. http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2011/03/18/santa-clara-district-attorney-unveils-integrity-unit/ (accessed on May 13, 2011).

55. Emery, Gold, and Braselmann, Lessons From Freedom Summer, 88.

56. Ibid., 88.

57. Ibid., 88.

58. Juan Williams, Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years 1954-1965, (New York: Penguin Books, 1988), 89.

59. Emery, Gold, and Braselmann, Lessons From Freedom Summer, 100.

60. Ibid., 101.

61. Edward Connors, Thomas Lundregan, Neal Miller, and Tom McEwen. Convicted by Juries, Exonerated by Science: Case Studies in the Use of DNA Evidence to Establish Innocence After Trial, report prepared for the U.S. Department of Justice, June 1996, 4.

62. Innocence Project, “Know the Cases,” http://www.innocenceproject.org/know/ (accessed on May 17, 2011).

63. David Grann, “Trial By Fire: Did Texas Execute an Innocent Man?” The New Yorker, September 7, 2008 http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_grann (accessed on May 15, 2011).

64. Jennifer Emily, “Dallas Man Freed After 27 Years Behind Bars for Rapes He Did Not Commit.” The Dallas Morning News, May 12, 2011, http://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/headlines/20110512-dallas-man-freed-after-27-years-behind-bars-for-rapes-he-did-not-commit.ece (accessed on May 17, 2011).

65. Grann, “Trial By Fire.”

66. Ibid.

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Bibliography After Innocence, DVD. Directed by Jessica Sanders. (2005, New York: New Yorker

Films, 2005). Boaz, Cynthia. “Egyptians’ Revolts Was Organized, Non-Violent, SSU Prof Says.” By

Jeremy Hay. Press Democrat, March 13, 2011. http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20110313/ARTICLES/110319778 (accessed on May 13, 2011).

California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice Final Report, edited by

Gerald Uelmen. http://www.ccfaj.org/documents/CCFAJFinalReport.pdf (accessed May 13, 2011).

Campbell, Joseph. The Hero With a Thousand Faces, 3rd Ed. Novato, CA: New World

Library, 2008. Colgan, Mike. “Santa Clara District Attorney Unveils ‘Integrity Unit.’” CBS

Broadcasting, March 18, 2011. http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2011/03/18/santa-clara-district-attorney-unveils-integrity-unit/ (accessed on May 13, 2011).

Douglas, Mary. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of the Pollution and

Taboo. New York: Routledge, 1995. Emery, Kathy, Linda Reid Gold, and Sylvia Braselmann. Lessons From Freedom

Summer: Ordinary People Building Extraordinary Movements. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 2008.

Grann, David, “Trial By Fire: Did Texas Execute an Innocent Man?” The New Yorker,

September 7, 2008 http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_grann (accessed on May 14, 2011).

Kaplan, Tracey. “Report Finds Prosecutorial Misconduct in Bay Area.” San Jose

Mercury News, April 16, 2011. http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_17864595?source=most_emailed&nclick_check=1 (accessed on May 13, 2011).

Thompson, Kristin, and David Bordwell. Film History: An Introduction, 2nd ed. New

York: McGraw-Hill, 2003. U.S. Department of Justice. National Institute of Justice. Convicted by Juries, Exonerated

by Science: Case Studies in the Use of DNA Evidence to Establish Innocence After Trial by Edward Connors, Thomas Lundregan, Neal Miller, and Tom

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McEwen, June 1996. http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/dnaevid.pdf (accessed on May 17, 2011).

Williams, Juan. Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years 1954-1965. New

York: Penguin Books, 1988. Willingham, Cameron Todd. “A Shocking Final Statement.” PBS (2004),

http://www.pbs.org/ wgbh/pages/frontline/death-by-fire/documents/shocking-final-statement.html (accessed on May 16, 2011).