[Congressional Bills 110th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 5193 Introduced in House (IH)]







110th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                H. R. 5193

  To award a congressional gold medal to Barry C. Scheck and to Peter 
 Neufeld in recognition of their outstanding service to the Nation and 
  to justice as co-founders and co-directors of the Innocence Project.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            January 29, 2008

 Mr. Rush (for himself, Mrs. Maloney of New York, Mr. Blumenauer, Mr. 
Gutierrez, and Ms. Jackson-Lee of Texas) introduced the following bill; 
       which was referred to the Committee on Financial Services

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
  To award a congressional gold medal to Barry C. Scheck and to Peter 
 Neufeld in recognition of their outstanding service to the Nation and 
  to justice as co-founders and co-directors of the Innocence Project.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. FINDINGS.

    The Congress finds as follows:
            (1) To date, 212 innocent people have been exonerated 
        nationwide through DNA testing and the Innocence Project has 
        worked on the vast majority of those cases, with thousands 
        awaiting evaluation in their last hope for justice.
            (2) Fifteen people had been sentenced to death before 
        exoneration, and the average sentence served by DNA exonerees 
        has been 12 years.
            (3) Approximately 70 percent of those exonerated by DNA 
        testing are members of ethnic minority groups.
            (4) In over 35 percent of the cases the Innocence Project 
        has been involved with, the actual perpetrator has been 
        identified by DNA testing.
            (5) Exonerations have been won in 31 states and the 
        District of Columbia.
            (6) Since 1992, the Innocence Project has served as a 
        nonprofit legal clinic affiliated with the Benjamin N. Cardozo 
        School of Law at Yeshiva University, serving as a national 
        litigation and public policy organization dedicated to 
        exonerating wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing and 
        reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future 
        injustice.
            (7) Most clients are poor and have used up all legal 
        avenues for relief.
            (8) DNA testing has been a major factor in changing the 
        criminal justice system, opening a window to correct and 
        prevent wrongful convictions in cases involving everything from 
        home invasion to murder.
            (9) The Innocence Project has grown to become much more 
        than the ``court of last resort'' for inmates who have 
        exhausted their appeals and their mean; it has helped form the 
        Innocence Network: a group of law schools, journalism schools, 
        public defender offices, and other independent entities across 
        the country that assist inmates trying to prove their innocence 
        whether or not the cases involve biological evidence which can 
        be subjected to DNA testing.
            (10) Peter Neufeld authored the seminal work in criminal 
        law, ``The Near Irrelevance of Daubert to Criminal Justice and 
        Some Suggestions for Reform'' in the American Journal of Public 
        Health (Vol. 95, No. S1 2005).
            (11) The Innocence Project has analyzed the wrongful 
        convictions proven by DNA evidence in order to determine what 
        causes them--across all criminal cases, not just those where 
        DNA can prove innocence--and identify the reforms that can 
        prevent them while increasing the accuracy of the criminal 
        justice system. The lead causes include eyewitness 
        misidentification, problems with the analysis of forensic 
        evidence, and false ``confessions''.
            (12) With local advocates and partners, the Innocence 
        Project consults with legislators and law enforcement officials 
        on the Federal, State, and local levels, conduct research and 
        training, produce scholarship and propose a wide range of 
        remedies to prevent wrongful convictions while continuing to 
        work to free innocent inmates through the use of post-
        conviction DNA testing.
            (13) In addition to serving as co-founders and co-directors 
        of the Innocence Project, Barry C. Scheck and Peter Neufeld are 
        Commissioners on the New York State Commission of Forensic 
        Science.
            (14) Barry C. Scheck and Peter Neufeld, along with 
        Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Jim Dwyer, are the authors of 
        Actual Innocence: When Justice Goes Wrong and How to Make it 
        Right.
            (15) Additionally, Barry C. Scheck served on the board of 
        directors of the National Institute of Justice's Commission on 
        the Future of DNA Evidence, is co-chair of the DNA Task Force 
        of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and, in 
        1996, received that Association's prestigious Robert C. Heeney 
        Award for his contributions to the Association.
            (16) Barry C. Scheck is a graduate of Yale University and 
        University of California at Berkeley's Boalt School of Law.
            (17) Barry C. Scheck, before joining the faculty of Cardozo 
        Law School, worked for 3 years as a staff attorney at The Legal 
        Aid Society in New York City.
            (18) Peter Neufeld is a graduate of the University of 
        Wisconsin and New York University's School of Law.
            (19) Peter Neufeld, before joining Cardozo Law School, 
        taught trial advocacy at Fordham University Law School and was 
        a staff attorney with the Legal Aid Society of New York.

SEC. 2. CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL.

    (a) Presentation Authorized.--The Speaker of the House of 
Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate shall make 
appropriate arrangements for the presentation, on behalf of the 
Congress, to Barry C. Scheck and to Peter Neufeld a gold medal of 
appropriate design in recognition of their outstanding service to the 
Nation and to justice as co-founders and co-directors of the Innocence 
Project.
    (b) Design and Striking.--For the purpose of the presentation 
referred to in subsection (a), the Secretary of the Treasury (hereafter 
in this Act referred to as the ``Secretary'') shall strike 2 gold 
medals with suitable emblems, devices, and inscriptions, to be 
determined by the Secretary.

SEC. 3. DUPLICATE MEDALS.

    Under such regulations as the Secretary may prescribe, the 
Secretary may strike and sell duplicates in bronze of the gold medals 
struck under section 2 at a price sufficient to cover the costs of the 
medals, including labor, materials, dies, use of machinery, and 
overhead expenses.

SEC. 4. NATIONAL MEDALS.

    The medals struck under this Act are national medals for purposes 
of chapter 51 of title 31, United States Code.

SEC. 5. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS; PROCEEDS OF SALE.

    (a) Authorization of Appropriations.--There is hereby authorized to 
be charged against the United States Mint Public Enterprise Fund an 
amount not to exceed $30,000 to pay for the cost of each medal 
authorized under section 2.
    (b) Proceeds of Sale.--Amounts received from the sale of duplicate 
bronze medals under section 3 shall be deposited in the United States 
Mint Public Enterprise Fund.
                                 <all>