Carrie has graciously agreed to answer my questions and yours. Prior to joining The Innocence Project, she was a staff attorney for the Legal Aid Society in the Bronx (hence how we met).
Over the course of the next week, email your questions or put them in comments for Carrie. I have many questions, but she is very excited to answer all of yours. After we collect all your questions, we'll interview Ms. Wood. I hope to have the interview for you the week of June 25.
Also, we're going to attempt a redesign of the website over the next few weeks. It's been up and running for ten months. Time for some changes.
Have a good weekend.
Do you solicit cases or do cases come to you? Is there some kind of screening process each person has to go through? Do you guys have to believe in the person's innocence before you will take up their cause? What kinds of things do you guys do to help free innocent people? Is it costly and where do you get your funding?
ReplyDeleteLisa's comment mirrors my question. Often, the claims of an exoneration or of "innocence" seem to be based on something that merely questions some of the evidence -- but enough to bring about "reasonable doubt." Is "actual innocence" something that you try to determine before working on a case, or is any case worth fighting simply because of a determined opposition to the death penalty. (Don't have the time to try to frame that question without letting my obvious bias show -- sorry)
ReplyDeleteAlso, it appears that receiving the death penalty as a sentence is actually a positive thing for some since the sentence alone triggers the more serious case review and the attention of groups like The Innocence Project. How often does your organization work on cases where the death penalty was not incurred, but a long prison sentence was?
Greg