October 2, 2008 - The murderer had worn a dark hooded sweatshirt. So during the trial when prosecutors showed an eyewitness a photo lineup of six men and asked if any was the perpetrator, they took care to conceal any trace of clothing in the photographs. Goodlatte's discovery is the kind of revelation students in the U.Va. innocence clinic hope to use to exonerate innocent people convicted in Virginia, many of whom are victims of poor lawyering or questionable police techniques.
(Media-Newswire.com) - October 2, 2008 — The murderer had worn a dark hooded sweatshirt. So during the trial when prosecutors showed an eyewitness a photo lineup of six men and asked if any was the perpetrator, they took care to conceal any trace of clothing in the photographs.
But the witness had already seen the photos during an interview with police, when the defendant was “the only person you can see clearly wearing the dark hooded sweatshirt in the lineup,” said Jen Goodlatte, a third-year student participating in the Innocence Project at the University of Virginia School of Law.
Goodlatte's discovery is the kind of revelation students in the U.Va. innocence clinic hope to use to exonerate innocent people convicted in Virginia, many of whom are victims of poor lawyering or questionable police techniques. Launched in June, the clinic is part of the Innocence Network, an international affiliation of organizations dedicated to overturning wrongful convictions. The Innocence Project, a national organization started by lawyers Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, is a founding member of the network.
“The Innocence Project [clinic] at U.Va. School of Law will bring critical expertise and resources to investigating wrongful conviction cases,” Neufeld said. “We know that innocent people are convicted and spend years or decades in prison in Virginia, and this clinic will help exonerate more of them.”
Led by Deirdre Enright, a 1992 Law School graduate who has defended people after they've been convicted of capital crimes, the clinic includes 12 students each year and will soon employ a full-time investigator to help collect evidence for appeals.
Unlike the national and regional Innocence Projects, the U.Va. clinic will consider cases without DNA evidence. Many of the clinic’s cases are referred from the Innocence Project and the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project.
“This is sort of the dream class if you’re a law student because it involves great issues for research that are topical – DNA, new techniques in DNA, new testing, eyewitness ID, jailhouse informants, poor lawyering, poor prosecuting — it’s all these great cutting-edge issues,” Enright said.
Enright represented death-penalty inmates in Mississippi and Richmond, before starting the Virginia Capital Resource Center’s office in Charlottesville with her husband, Rob Lee. She may be best known for representing Darrell Rice, who was accused of a pair of murders in Shenandoah National Park, and also, briefly, of being the Route 29 stalker. He was indicted in the national park murders but the charges were dismissed.
Students in the six-credit clinic are each examining a potential case, and the clinic will eventually focus on a select few. Over the year students will interview prison inmates and ex-inmates and help gather evidence to make a case for exoneration.
Third-year law student James Cass researched cases in which DNA evidence cleared inmates last year for U.Va. Law professor Brandon Garrett, which triggered his interest in the clinic. “I wanted to do what I could to get involved so we could get innocent people out of prison,” he said.
Just weeks into the course, Cass has already met with a man who served an 18-year sentence for allegedly raping two women in Danville, Va. Two other suspects in the case were neither located nor questioned, and Cass said questionable witness testimony prompted the prosecutor to offer a plea bargain during the trial.
The deal sounded good to the defendant, who faced a maximum of two life sentences if convicted. Now out of prison, the man doesn’t want to register as a sex offender because it makes it difficult for him to find or keep a job.
“It was good to put a face to a name and be able to see he has been mistreated,” Cass said. “Now we know what we’re fighting for.”
During the interview, the students realized the convicted man’s uncle had interrupted the perpetrators at the scene of the crime. In their single meeting before the trial, the defendant’s attorney had not told him the name of the witness or the location of the crime. He also didn’t know his attorney could have had DNA evidence analyzed.
Third-year law student Dennis Barrett recalled reading a trial transcript from one of the cases the clinic students are considering.
“I kept reading through the court transcript thinking there’s got to be something more, and then it just ends. How has this guy been in prison for 15 years based on one shady witness?” Barrett said. “If the general public saw some of the facts behind these cases they would just be aghast.” Eyewitness misidentification has been a factor in more than 75 percent of wrongful convictions overturned with DNA testing, according to the Innocence Project.
“Eyewitnesses are really unreliable, particularly if they are frightened at the time of the event and when they’re making their identification,” Enright said. “And yet they’re the most believable to jurors.”
Enright knows all students in the course won’t become criminal defense attorneys overnight, but “I hope they’ll learn to go to their law firms and take these kinds of cases. I hope that’s their first lesson,” she said, adding that maybe some will catch the bug.
“You’re representing people who you are certain at the end are innocent of what they did, and I can’t think of anything more motivating for a law student or for me,” Enright said.
Second-year law student Amy Pentz said she’s already realized the need to pay attention to how law affects real people.
“It’s important for everybody who’s going into the law to realize that the legal system at times fails people, and it’s our job to use our skills to uphold its integrity,” she said.
-- By Mary Wood and Rob Seal
This story originally appeared on the U.Va. School of Law Web site.
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This story was released on 2008-10-03. Please make sure to visit the official company or organization web site to learn more about the original release date. See our disclaimer for additional information.
