Oklahoma Innocence Clinic http://innocence.okcu.edu The Oklahoma Innocence Project at OCU LAW identifies and rectifies convictions of innocent people in Oklahoma who have been wrongfully imprisoned, or who are on death row. Fri, 11 Jan 2013 15:43:03 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Freed after almost 32 years behind bars http://innocence.okcu.edu/index.php/2012/10/freed-after-almost-32-years-behind-bars/ http://innocence.okcu.edu/index.php/2012/10/freed-after-almost-32-years-behind-bars/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2012 22:03:57 +0000 bbarbeitman http://innocence.okcu.edu/?p=685 Slain girl’s aunt helped inmate get legal help, DNA testing that led to release

October 2, 2012
By Andy Grimm, Chicago Tribune reporter
Click here for a link to the original article

Andre Davis was at the bottom of the deepest hole they can put a man in when the letter reached him.

The envelope held a lifeline, an offer of help, but even a less-jaded man than Davis would have been skeptical. The return address was for a stranger who introduced herself as the aunt of Brianna Stickel.

Three-year-old Brianna had been raped and suffocated in 1980 in a small house in Rantoul, Ill. Two Champaign County juries had said Davis was the killer.

Tell me what happened, Judi Stickel wrote. I have doubts, she said. I can help you.

Davis had been 19 when he was arrested, and during the dozen years until that letter arrived, the Chicago native always believed he would be exonerated. He had no idea how, or when, and it had been a long time since anyone had offered to help him with anything.

He was sentenced to 80 years without parole. Prosecutors had pushed to have him executed. In prison, Davis soon found that when someone is convicted of raping and killing a child, fellow inmates are only too happy to carry out a death sentence. As far as Davis knew, Brianna’s family wanted him dead, just like everybody else.

Davis threw away the letter. A few weeks later, he threw away another.

From her kitchen table in Davenport, Iowa, Stickel kept writing once or twice a month to update Davis on the contents of a folder she was filling with old police reports and court records, and the more she read, the more convinced she became that Davis did not kill Brianna.

Between jobs working construction, tending bar or pressing clothes for a dry cleaning chain, Stickel made phone calls and scribbled notes on the backs of envelopes and the margins of newspaper clippings. It was two years before Davis wrote back.

Davis was 50 when he was released from prison this summer, thanks to DNA evidence uncovered by Northwestern University’s Center on Wrongful Convictions.

He had been behind bars 31 years, 10 months and 29 days, the longest any Illinois inmate has served before being exonerated by DNA testing, Davis’ attorneys said.

If not for Judi Stickel, he might be there still.

More than 100 inmates have been exonerated of crimes in Illinois since 1989, and lawyers at the Center on Wrongful Convictions cannot recall another case in which they were recruited by someone in the victim’s family.

“I just wanted answers. That’s what I told him,” Stickel recalled in a recent interview. “And I kept bugging him and bugging him until he wrote me back.”

Doing hard time

It was hard-earned paranoia that led Davis to assume that Stickel wanted information about him so she could have him killed in prison or hurt his loved ones on the outside.

His mother and father had spent their life savings on his trial. His upwardly mobile extended family on Chicago’s South Side and in the suburbs might have had means to help, but they had all but ignored him since his arrest.

He’d had no attorney since his last appeal in 1984. The jailhouse lawyer who’d offered to work on his case took one look at his file and promptly told inmates and guards scattered around the prison system to reserve a special place in hell for the convicted child-killer.

Davis was at Pontiac Correctional Center only a few days before inmates began calling him a pedophile. When the insults escalated into threats and assaults, he realized guards always wrote him up as the instigator.

And so Davis, who had only a juvenile arrest for auto theft on his record before he landed in prison, racked up one of the longest disciplinary records in the state.

When the “supermax” lockup opened in Tamms in 1998 to house the purported most-dangerous inmates in Illinois, he was one of the first ones shipped there.

Tamms inmates spend 23 hours a day alone in a tiny, gray cell. The only respite is a daily hourlong trip to a 12-by-30-foot prison yard, with walls so high the sun can only reach your skin if you are outside at noon.

“After the first couple weeks, I didn’t even go for yard,” Davis said.

“I was like, what’s the point? Half of it has a tin roof over it, the other half has a fence over it. They just put that there to make the sky seem farther away.”

Family mystery solved

Stickel remembers writing Davis the first time while he was still living in the general population at a maximum security prison in 1992. She had recently moved back to Davenport from Nevada, where she had been studying to become a paralegal.

She never finished her classes, but she enjoyed poring over court records and watching cop shows, and Davis’ case was not the first mystery she solved.

Stickel’s older brother had died when she was 14, and she’d always been told he’d been shot dead by two boys that were his closest friends. For years, she and her relatives had seen the boys walking free and unpunished in Davenport.

She decided to head to the courthouse and find out why. As she read through the files, she learned the family lore was wrong: The three boys had been playing Russian roulette. Her brother had shot himself.

Stickel was mortified that she had been so wrong about an innocent family. And she wondered about another family tragedy, the death of her brother’s daughter, Brianna, in faraway Rantoul.

She found where Davis was imprisoned and wrote him a letter. She got no response. She wrote again.

“I said to my sister, ‘You know, we never really did know what happened with Brianna’s case,’ ” she said. “We should go down to Rantoul and find out.”

She drove to Rantoul and asked to meet with the detective who had handled the case. He assured them, she said, that Davis was the killer and pleaded guilty, drumming his fingers on a folder he refused to let them open.

So they went to the Champaign County courthouse. They found out Davis had not pleaded guilty, had in fact been found guilty in 1981. He was awarded a second trial on appeal and was again found guilty in 1983.

Stickel requested copies of the transcripts, but what arrived in the mail a few weeks later was a stack of police investigation reports. Reading the reports, witness statements didn’t seem to gibe with court testimony, and investigators never seemed to have investigated witnesses she believed should have been suspects.

She became convinced Davis might be innocent.

She wrote Davis again in late 1994, after her trip to Rantoul. This time, he wrote back with questions for her.

A few months later, Davis sent his mother, Emma Davis Ellis, to meet with Stickel and her sister to “see what kind of people they were.” In a mall food court in Davenport, Davis’ mother sifted through Stickel’s files.

For about two years, Stickel spent every free moment researching Brianna’s murder. She went back to Champaign and got transcripts. Then she interviewed the coroner and trial witnesses.

She called lawyers trying to get them to take Davis’ case, but had no money to hire one. She wrote the state’s attorney in Champaign. She wrote the governor and the attorney general. She wrote newspapers. She wrote TV host Maury Povich.

Around 1998, she ran out of people to write. Stickel was sure Davis would walk out of prison, free and exonerated. She just didn’t know how or when.

DNA testing

One afternoon in late 2002, Stickel’s sister called her and told her to turn on the TV. Oprah Winfrey was doing a show on wrongful convictions.

Soon after, a handwritten letter arrived at the Center on Wrongful Convictions, outlining Stickel’s investigation. Stickel then mailed Davis forms that Northwestern wanted him to fill out to apply for a review of his case.

Davis began corresponding with the legal team at Northwestern. He had his first DNA test in 2004, as none was available at the time of his arrest. He’d been convicted largely on the strength of imprecise 1980s forensic technology and the statements of two witnesses who had known each other since childhood.

One witness discovered Brianna’s body, then told police that Davis had confessed to killing “a white woman,” court records show.

The second witness turned out to be a DNA match for semen found on bedclothes in the room where Brianna was found, court records show. The Tribune is not naming him because he has not been charged. Police in Rantoul would not say if he is a suspect in Brianna’s murder.

Davis got news of the DNA results in 2005.

‘You’re free’

In March 2012, an appellate judge ordered a new trial for Davis. Champaign County prosecutors, weighing the new evidence against their 32-year-old case file, dismissed the charges in July.

A judge ordered Davis released immediately, catching his legal team and family by surprise. He had no ride home from prison.

“I hadn’t been around people in 14 years, and they were talking about putting me on a bus,” Davis said.

When a jail administrator unlocked his handcuffs and shook his hand, Davis estimates it was the first time he had made contact with another human being in four or five years. He had no idea how he would fare on a crowded Greyhound bus for seven hours.

Davis recalls walking through the tunnel-like hallways of Tamms to a section of the prison he had never before visited. He walked through a waiting room and outside the prison walls and saw his father.

“We hugged, boy,” Richard Davis said. “I just told him, ‘At last. You’re free.’ ” And Andre Davis replied, “I’m free.”

In the end, the DNA evidence proved the most compelling factor in his successful appeal, and Stickel had been happy to pass on the heavy lifting after years on the case. Northwestern lawyers and students eventually were able to dig up all the documents Stickel had found, and more.

A week after he was released, Northwestern hosted a welcome home luncheon for Davis in a conference room overlooking Lake Michigan at the law school.

As Davis walked to the front of the room to take a seat beside the lectern, he looked out at a small crowd of friends and relatives, law students and fellow exonerated inmates. He took little notice of the slim blond woman seated in the front row until his lawyer announced her name: Judi Stickel.

Stickel had seen only Davis’ prison mug shot, and she had moved on from working on his case to pestering authorities in Champaign County to charge someone else in the case. As she listened to the speakers, Andre Davis became a real person in her mind for the first time.

“Listening to everyone talk I was thinking about what I’d done since I was 19,” she said, “all the things he had missed, all the things he didn’t get to do.”

Davis was speechless as Stickel rose and stepped toward him. He clasped her in a hug, and spoke softly in her ear.

“Thank you.”

]]> http://innocence.okcu.edu/index.php/2012/10/freed-after-almost-32-years-behind-bars/feed/ 0 Louisiana death-row inmate Damon Thibodeaux exonerated with DNA evidence http://innocence.okcu.edu/index.php/2012/10/louisiana-death-row-inmate-damon-thibodeaux-exonerated-with-dna-evidence/ http://innocence.okcu.edu/index.php/2012/10/louisiana-death-row-inmate-damon-thibodeaux-exonerated-with-dna-evidence/#comments Tue, 02 Oct 2012 14:59:10 +0000 bbarbeitman http://innocence.okcu.edu/?p=682 By Douglas A. Blackmon, Published: September 28
Click here for a link to the original article. 

NEW ORLEANS — A little after 4 a.m. on July 21, 1996, Damon Thibodeaux, a deckhand on a Mississippi River workboat, cracked at the end of a nine-hour interrogation and confessed to the brutal rape and murder of his 14-year-old step-cousin, Crystal Champagne.
“I didn’t know that I had done it,” Thibodeaux said at one point, according to a police transcript. “But I done it.”

Before that day was over, Thibodeaux had recanted his confession, telling his court-appointed lawyer that he told police what they wanted to hear in response to threats of death by lethal injection and his grief over the death of his cousin. Nonetheless, Thibodeaux was later convicted of both crimes and sentenced to die.

Now, after more than 15 years spending 23 hours a day in solitary confinement on death row at Louisiana’s Angola prison farm, Thibodeaux is free.

Judge Patrick McCabe — who presided over the original trial in 1997 — issued a sealed order on Thursday vacating the conviction. With Thibodeaux’s release Friday, he became the 300th wrongly convicted person and 18th death-row inmate exonerated in the United States substantially on the basis of DNA evidence, according to the New York-based Innocence Project, which provides legal counsel to prisoners it believes can be exonerated through DNA testing.

Friday’s release was authorized by Jefferson Parish District Attorney Paul Connick Jr. after an extraordinary five-year joint re­investigation with defense lawyers concluded that the murder confession was clearly false. Nearly every ostensible fact in the statement didn’t match the crime scene or other evidence. The inquiry found that the sexual assault to which Thibodeaux also confessed — making him eligible under Louisiana law for the death penalty — never occurred.

The Thibodeaux case marks a dramatic mathematical milestone in the use of DNA in law enforcement, but it also signals the opening of a new, more complex phase in the use of such material in attempts to right the course of justice.

When DNA testing was first introduced in the late 1980s, the revolutionary new techniques shattered a widely held view in law enforcement and the public that American courts rarely convicted the innocent. Since then, high-profile exonerations and the increasingly common reliance on such testing have led many to believe that DNA can resolve doubts about almost any questionable conviction.

It’s now clear, however, that there is no DNA evidence in the vast majority of cases. In the first 15 years of DNA testing, almost all exonerations fit a basic pattern in which the defendant was accused of rape, or both rape and murder — because sexual assaults are the crimes in which DNA is most likely to be recovered. Between 1989 and the end of 2007, a total of 214 people were cleared using DNA evidence. In all but 14 cases — more than 93 percent — the alleged crime involved a sexual assault of some kind, according to a review by The Washington Post.

In hindsight, those straightforward, obvious miscarriages of justice were the low-hanging fruit of DNA exonerations. Now their numbers are declining. In their place are convictions such as Thibodeaux’s, in which serious doubts have been raised but little clear DNA or other scientific forensic evidence exists to conclusively prove guilt or innocence. In Thibodeaux’s case, the absence of any incriminating DNA evidence became as powerful an argument for his innocence as any other element of the case.

Of 83 exonerations in the past five years, more than 15 percent didn’t involve rape. As many as a quarter of the cases involved a false confession, in which one or more defendants admitted to the crime under interrogation.Samuel Gross, an author of a report by the recently created National Registry of Exonerations at the University of Michigan, calculated that based on the proven rate of exonerations among death-row prisoners in the past two decades, U.S. courts appear to have an error rate in capital cases of between 2.5 percent and 4 percent. In June, researchers examining biological evidence from hundreds of Virginia rape convictions between 1973 and 1987 determined that new DNA testing appeared to exonerate convicted defendants in 8 percent to 15 percent of cases.
Applied against the approximately 140,000 prisoners on death row or serving life sentences in the United States, the findings suggest that many thousands of innocent individuals could be in prison for crimes they didn’t commit.But the odds that many of those convicts will ever be able to prove their innocence through the existing systems of appeals are remote, given the lack of DNA evidence in the majority of cases.That was largely true for Thibodeaux. In the hours after Champagne disappeared on July 19, 1996, there was no evidence to suspect Thibodeaux. The 14-year-old lived with her mother and other family members in an apartment complex on the frayed blue-collar edges of New Orleans. Her uncle had once been married to Damon Thibodeaux’s mother, making them what the families called “step-cousins.”In the initial investigation of Thibodeaux, police found no physical evidence linking him to the crime. Since the victim had in fact not been sexually assaulted, there was also none of the DNA typically associated with a rape.

The only strong evidence against Thibodeaux was his confession. He never asked for legal representation. Early in the questioning, a detective asked at least a dozen times whether he had been involved in the killing, according to partial transcripts. “No sir,” Thibodeaux said firmly each time. After denying any involvement in the crime for more than six hours, an almost catatonic Thibodeaux confessed to police just before dawn. Almost every factual assertion he made was plainly incorrect.

“At that point I was tired,” Thibodeaux said, in an interview minutes after his release Friday. “I was hungry. All I wanted to do was sleep, and I was willing to tell them anything they wanted me to tell them if it would get me out of that interrogation room.” He said investigators fed him details of the crime scene. His salvation was that many of those details were incorrect.

The lack of conclusive DNA evidence in Thibodeaux’s case was overcome only through the unusual joint investigation between the district attorney and defense lawyers — during which Thibodeaux, now 38, put his formal court appeals on hold.

The inquiry found glaring contradictions between the confession and physical evidence. New DNA testing conducted on clothing worn by Thibodeaux on the night of the killing and virtually every other piece of evidence established no links to the crime. A DNA profile was obtained from a tiny sample of blood on a piece of wire used to strangle the victim. It didn’t match Thibodeaux. The cost of the reinvestigation was more than $500,000, shared by the defense and prosecution, according to lawyers involved in the case.

Thibodeaux, who plans to move to Minnesota to restart his life, didn’t sound bitter after his release Friday, but rather relieved. “Right now, I’m just adjusting to being not behind bars,” he said, “and not being told where to go, what time to go. Getting used to not having chains on. That’s a novelty for me.”

 

]]> http://innocence.okcu.edu/index.php/2012/10/louisiana-death-row-inmate-damon-thibodeaux-exonerated-with-dna-evidence/feed/ 0 About the Oklahoma Innocence Project http://innocence.okcu.edu/index.php/2012/03/about-the-oklahoma-innocence-project/ http://innocence.okcu.edu/index.php/2012/03/about-the-oklahoma-innocence-project/#comments Wed, 07 Mar 2012 21:54:23 +0000 vnguyen http://oip.legalry.com/?p=487 WHAT IS IT?
Officially launched in August 2011, the Oklahoma Innocence Project (OIP) is dedicated to identifying and remedying cases of wrongful convictions. Bringing together OCU LAW students to work with attorneys and the director, the OIP pursues only cases in which there is credible evidence of factual innocence.

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
Prior to the OIP opening, there were already numerous cases in Oklahoma where innocent people were exonerated. While imprisoned for a crime they did not commit, Oklahoma exonerees spent from four to twenty years behind bars. Oklahoma ranks in the top 10 in the nation in terms of the number of known wrongful convictions of innocent people.

Our criminal justice system is among the finest in the world, but it is not immune to human error. Studies show a 1.6 percent error rate nationwide for capital cases and a 3 – 4 percent error rate for other cases. No one wants to see the wrong person convicted for a crime they did not commit. We all have an interest in correcting wrongful convictions when they occur, and pursuing the actual guilty party.

HOW WILL STUDENTS BENEFIT?
Innocence Projects have had a powerful impact on the lives of law students. The learning experience is valuable for future prosecutors, future criminal defense attorneys, and even future corporate attorneys.

QUICK FACTS ABOUT WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS

• There have been 273 post-conviction DNA exonerations in the U.S.

• Exonerations have been won in 34 states, including Oklahoma

• The average length of time served by exonerees is 13 years

• The average age of exonerees at the time of their wrongful conviction was 27

• The true suspects and/or perpetrators have been identified in 124 of the DNA exoneration cases

• Leading Causes of Wrongful Convictions: Eyewitness Misidentification Testimony, Unvalidated or Improper Forensic Science, False Confessions and Incriminating Statements, Informants

]]> http://innocence.okcu.edu/index.php/2012/03/about-the-oklahoma-innocence-project/feed/ 0 A Night for the Innocent http://innocence.okcu.edu/index.php/2012/03/a-night-for-the-innocent/ http://innocence.okcu.edu/index.php/2012/03/a-night-for-the-innocent/#comments Wed, 07 Mar 2012 21:20:26 +0000 vnguyen http://oip.legalry.com/?p=421

April 12, 2012

Reception – 6:00 PM     Dinner – 7:00 PM

 

 

Farmers Public Market

A few months ago, Oklahoma City University School of Law changed the landscape of the Oklahoma justice system when we launched the Oklahoma Innocence Project.  To raise funds for the Project and awareness of wrongful convictions, we hosted our inaugural gala last April: A Night for the Innocent.  Thanks to the generosity of many, we raised more than $200,000 in gifts and pledges for the Project, making the evening historic and securing its place as a “must-attend” event on the Oklahoma City philanthropic calendar.  But with potential cases flooding in by the day and a growing number of interested students, there is still much work to be done.

Join honorary co-chairs, Melvin & Jasmine Moran and Jerry & Jackie Bendorf, for a special evening of great food, fine wine, and a spirited live auction along with musical guests, Gladys Knight, to benefit the Oklahoma Innocence Project at Oklahoma City University School of Law.  We will also honor Drew Edmondson, Barry & Becky Switzer, and Dr. R. Cullen & Bonnie Thomas with the prestigious Beacon of Justice Award.

]]> http://innocence.okcu.edu/index.php/2012/03/a-night-for-the-innocent/feed/ 0 From the Innocence Blog http://innocence.okcu.edu/index.php/2012/03/from-the-innocence-blog/ http://innocence.okcu.edu/index.php/2012/03/from-the-innocence-blog/#comments Mon, 05 Mar 2012 23:15:35 +0000 vnguyen http://oip.legalry.com/?p=393 The latest news on innocence efforts and wrongful convictions nationwide from theInnocence Blog:

MORE HEADLINES:

Book Review – Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong by Brandon L. Garrett | New York Times, May 26, 2011

Innocence Clinic: Man needs new trial in case of 1986 rape | Detroit Free Press, 17 April 2011

The Prosecution Rests, but I Can’t | New York Times, 9 April 2011

Shaken-Baby Syndrome Faces New Questions in Court | New York Times, 2 February 2011

U-M Law Clinic: Records prove convicted killer Mark Craighead is innocent after all |Detroit Free Press, 3 February 2011

What merits a closer look at inmates’ claims of innocence? | Detroit Free Press, 3 February 2011

]]> http://innocence.okcu.edu/index.php/2012/03/from-the-innocence-blog/feed/ 0 Oklahoma Innocence Project To Start Work Next Week http://innocence.okcu.edu/index.php/2011/08/oklahoma-innocence-project-to-start-work-next-week-2/ http://innocence.okcu.edu/index.php/2011/08/oklahoma-innocence-project-to-start-work-next-week-2/#comments Mon, 15 Aug 2011 05:00:48 +0000 vnguyen http://oip.legalry.com/?p=484 Program will work to exonerate wrongly convicted

The Oklahoma Innocence Project, an arm of Oklahoma City University School of Law, will officially begin work Aug. 15 with the start of the fall semester. The initial class of eight OCU LAW students will work alongside attorneys and the program’s director to identify and remedy wrongful conviction cases in Oklahoma.

The program recently changed its name from the Oklahoma Innocence Clinic to the Oklahoma Innocence Project (OIP) to represent its more comprehensive mission.

“The ‘Innocence Clinic’ is the class itself,” said OIP director Tiffany Murphy “By contrast, the ‘project’ refers to the scope of activity that will take place outside of the class, including investigation, litigation and other work.”

 

And that work will get underway quickly. The Oklahoma Innocence Project already has received more than 100 requests from incarcerated individuals asking that their cases be reviewed. The Oklahoma Innocence Project will only pursue cases in which there is credible evidence of actual innocence.

“This has been a very busy month setting up the Innocence Project,” said Murphy.  “Now the students are back on campus and we begin the daunting work of reviewing the requests and selecting cases. It can be overwhelming because we receive so many requests.  But this is such an enormous opportunity for the students who get to work on the cases.”

OIP students selected for the program must have completed a prerequisite class, Wrongful Convictions. The course was offered over the summer session for the first group of OIP students.

The Oklahoma Innocence Project also has a new home. It is based on the OCU campus in a 1,888-square-foot building that previously housed the university’s rowing team.

Displayed in the OIP offices is a painting by renowned American Indian artist Benjamin Harjo Jr. and created to pay homage to the program.

“I thought about what innocent souls must feel like after many years of being incarcerated, to finally achieve their freedom. In this painting I depicted the spirit of freedom — floating, flying, breaking the chains,” Harjo said when the painting was unveiled last spring.

“It is my hope that this painting … becomes the symbol that inspires future law students of Oklahoma City University and their quest for justice for the innocent.”

OIP is part of the Innocence Network, an affiliation of similar projects throughout the nation. Network members are committed to using significant resources to secure exonerations of wrongful convictions. The flagship of the network is the Innocence Project at New York’s Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University.

Until OIP, Oklahoma had been one of only a handful of states without a standing organization to evaluate post-conviction claims of innocence. There have been hundreds of exonerations throughout the United States, including 18 in Oklahoma.

]]> http://innocence.okcu.edu/index.php/2011/08/oklahoma-innocence-project-to-start-work-next-week-2/feed/ 0 OCU LAW Dean Emeritus Lawrence K. Hellman Speaks to Tulsa News Station About the Oklahoma Innocence Project http://innocence.okcu.edu/index.php/2011/07/ocu-law-dean-emeritus-lawrence-k-hellman-speaks-to-tulsa-news-station-about-the-oklahoma-innocence-project-2/ http://innocence.okcu.edu/index.php/2011/07/ocu-law-dean-emeritus-lawrence-k-hellman-speaks-to-tulsa-news-station-about-the-oklahoma-innocence-project-2/#comments Wed, 13 Jul 2011 05:00:56 +0000 vnguyen http://oip.legalry.com/?p=475 Tulsa NBC affiliate KJRH aired an interview with OCU LAW Dean Emeritus Lawrence K. Hellman yesterday about theOklahoma Innocence Project, which will open in the fall. Anchor Russ McCaskey spoke with Hellman about the Project’s origins and goals. Hellman also serves as Innocence Project Executive Director.

The full story is available at the KJRH website

 

]]> http://innocence.okcu.edu/index.php/2011/07/ocu-law-dean-emeritus-lawrence-k-hellman-speaks-to-tulsa-news-station-about-the-oklahoma-innocence-project-2/feed/ 0 “Righteous Work:” Oklahoman Praises Innocence Clinic in Op-Ed http://innocence.okcu.edu/index.php/2011/05/righteous-work-oklahoman-praises-innocence-clinic-in-op-ed/ http://innocence.okcu.edu/index.php/2011/05/righteous-work-oklahoman-praises-innocence-clinic-in-op-ed/#comments Tue, 10 May 2011 05:00:01 +0000 vnguyen http://oip.legalry.com/?p=481 The editorial page of today’s Oklahoman features an op-ed piece discussing the work of the Oklahoma Innocence Clinic at OCU LAW, set to open this fall.

One would think that an Oklahoma City University project to examine the innocence claims of inmates wouldn’t be welcome here. One would be wrong. The OCU Law School Innocence Clinic has gotten an outpouring of support and donations. Law school students are eager to take part. Soon, the process of reviewing “credible claims” of innocence will commence.

Full text of the article is available at NewsOK.com.

OCU LAW raised more than $200,000 at its April 9 gala for the operation of The Oklahoma Innocence Clinic. As the most successful fundraiser ever for OCU LAW, “A Night for the Innocent” reflects the broad and overwhelming level of support for the program, which will launch in the fall.

The Oklahoma Innocence Clinic will bring together select law students, attorneys and the program director to identify and remedy cases of wrongful conviction. Only cases in which there is credible evidence of actual innocence will be pursued.

“We are very grateful for the many donors who have stepped forward to help make the Oklahoma Innocence Clinic a reality,” said OCU LAW Dean Lawrence K. Hellman. “As people learn that Oklahoma is one of the last states to have such a program, they want to help us fill this void. We have clearly touched the consciences of Oklahomans and institutions from every corner of our state and every sector of the economy. Hundreds of donors have stepped forward to demonstrate their commitment to justice and the rule of law. We are honored to have their support.”

“A Night for the Innocent” drew support from dozens of sponsors, led by presenting sponsor Chesapeake Energy Corp. and Champion-level sponsors Lawrence and Gay Hellman, Bill and Sherry Conger, Dr. R. Cullen and Bonnie Thomas, the Oklahoma City Thunder and Heritage Solutions. Honorary co-chairs for the evening were Barry and Becky Switzer and Jeanne Hoffman Smith.

]]> http://innocence.okcu.edu/index.php/2011/05/righteous-work-oklahoman-praises-innocence-clinic-in-op-ed/feed/ 0 “A Night for the Innocent” Gala Raises $200,000 For Oklahoma Innocence Clinic http://innocence.okcu.edu/index.php/2011/04/a-night-for-the-innocent-gala-raises-200000-for-oklahoma-innocence-clinic/ http://innocence.okcu.edu/index.php/2011/04/a-night-for-the-innocent-gala-raises-200000-for-oklahoma-innocence-clinic/#comments Wed, 13 Apr 2011 05:00:21 +0000 vnguyen http://oip.legalry.com/?p=470 OCU LAW raised more than $200,000 at its April 9 gala for the operation of The Oklahoma Innocence Clinic. As the most successful fundraiser ever for OCU LAW, “A Night for the Innocent” reflects the broad and overwhelming level of support for the program, which will launch in the fall.

The Oklahoma Innocence Clinic will bring together select law students, attorneys and the program director to identify and remedy cases of wrongful conviction. Only cases in which there is credible evidence of actual innocence will be pursued.

OCU LAW Dean Lawrence K. Hellman said the outpouring of support for the clinic has been extraordinary.

“We are very grateful for the many donors who have stepped forward to help make the Oklahoma Innocence Clinic a reality,” he said. “As people learn that Oklahoma is one of the last states to have such a program, they want to help us fill this void. We have clearly touched the consciences of Oklahomans and institutions from every corner of our state and every sector of the economy. Hundreds of donors have stepped forward to demonstrate their commitment to justice and the rule of law. We are honored to have their support.”

More than 450 guests and volunteers turned out for “A Night for the Innocent” at the Skirvin Hilton Hotel in downtown Oklahoma City. A special guest was Betty Anne Waters, whose inspiring personal story was depicted in the 2010 major motion picture, “Conviction.”

Beacon of Justice Awards were presented to Cliff and Leslie Hudson, Chesapeake Energy Corp. and Dean Hellman for their leadership in hastening the creation of the Innocence Clinic. B.C. Clark Jewelers donated the impressive awards.

“A Night for the Innocent” drew support from dozens of sponsors, led by presenting sponsor Chesapeake Energy Corp. and Champion-level sponsors Lawrence and Gay Hellman, Bill and Sherry Conger, Dr. R. Cullen and Bonnie Thomas, the Oklahoma City Thunder and Heritage Solutions. Honorary co-chairs for the evening were Barry and Becky Switzer and Jeanne Hoffman Smith.

]]> http://innocence.okcu.edu/index.php/2011/04/a-night-for-the-innocent-gala-raises-200000-for-oklahoma-innocence-clinic/feed/ 0 “A Conversation With Betty Anne Waters” draws local media attention http://innocence.okcu.edu/index.php/2011/04/a-conversation-with-betty-anne-waters-draws-local-media-attention-2/ http://innocence.okcu.edu/index.php/2011/04/a-conversation-with-betty-anne-waters-draws-local-media-attention-2/#comments Tue, 12 Apr 2011 05:00:34 +0000 vnguyen http://oip.legalry.com/?p=467 Over the weekend OCU LAW played host to special guest Betty Anne Waters, the woman whose search for justice inspired the film Conviction starring Hilary Swank and Sam Rockwell. Waters was a guest at Saturday night’s black-tie fundraiser “A Night for the Innocent,” which was presented by Chesapeake Energy Corp.

Waters also spoke at the law school on Sunday. In a forum open to the public, she told the story of her brother Kenneth Waters, who was convicted in Massachusetts of murder. Waters pursued a B.A. and earned a law degree in order to free her brother, who was released in 2001. Local ABC affiliate KOCO attended the event and interviewed Waters.

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