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.