We pursue true justice by freeing innocent people and reforming our system. Our work involves:
+ We help innocent people who have no access to legal services.
+ The path to exoneration is long, complicated, and expensive.
+ Innocent men and women are living free because of our work.
We provide free investigative and legal services in cases of factual innocence. Our aim is to discover the truth so innocent people can be where they belong—at home, with their families and friends, living their lives.
It takes years to exonerate or free someone. Each case we investigate comes with unique challenges that require dedication and patience. Our team often spends years locating and requesting evidence, seeking out and interviewing new witnesses, and getting old case files and transcripts from former attorneys.
We have helped free 20 innocent people across the state who collectively served more than 100 years for crimes they did not commit, and we have secured the release of nine more innocent people. Still, we receive more than 500 requests for assistance each year, and that number is growing.
Guided by principles rather than specific outcomes, we are committed to holding our justice system accountable. We seek to identify and correct problems that perpetuate wrongful convictions, such as mistaken eyewitness identifications, coercive interrogations that lead to false confessions, and scientifically unsupported techniques such as bite mark evidence and other “junk science.”
Together with our exonerees, we’ve successfully advocated for policies and practices to identify, prevent, and rectify wrongful convictions in Washington State, including policies to:
+ Improve eyewitness identification procedures.
+ Mandate preservation of crime scene evidence.
+ Promote access to post-conviction DNA testing.
+ Scrutinize jailhouse informants and other incentivized witnesses.
+ Compensate those who are actually innocent for every year lost in prison through Washington’s Wrongly Convicted Persons Act.
We serve as a nonpartisan resource for judges, attorneys, the media, and the general public, sharing information about how wrongful convictions have happened and how we have secured freedom for our clients. Our decades of research and partnership with other Innocence Network organizations around the world give us access and insight into the problems within our justice system, and how to fix them.
Through our legal clinic with the University of Washington (UW) School of Law, students investigate cases, interview clients and witnesses, and draft and argue legal motions. Students develop skills in problem-solving, interviewing, fact-investigation, negotiation, and trial preparation.
Spending time in prison is incredibly traumatic. Not only have innocent people lost their jobs and financial security, they are stigmatized for serving time in prison. In many cases, after years in prison, exonerees have also lost connection with their families and communities.
We provide social and emotional support and connect exonerees to services and resources so they can get back on their feet and return to the lives they’ve been missing. We also help our freed clients connect with a community of exonerees who can provide a type of support and understanding that no one else can.
Everyone loses when the wrong person is convicted of a crime. The victim of the original crime does not get justice, while the actual perpetrator remains at large, in some cases victimizing others. We connect survivors with organizations dedicated to providing original crime victims and their loved ones support through the trauma of a wrongful conviction.
© 2024 Washington Innocence Project.
