BJA FY 12 Wrongful Conviction Review Program

The purpose of the Wrongful Conviction Review Program is to provide high quality and efficient representation for potentially wrongfully convicted defendants in post-conviction claims of innocence. This program is funded under the FY12 BJA Wrongful Conviction Review Program, Pub. L. No. 112-55, 125 Stat. 552, 615. Post-conviction innocence claims are likely to include complex challenges to the reliability or accuracy of evidence presented at trial which fall mainly into three categories: eyewitness identification evidence; confession evidence; and forensic evidence. The goals of this initiative are to: provide quality representation to those who may have been wrongfully convicted; alleviate burdens placed on the criminal justice system through costly and prolonged post-conviction litigation; and identify, whenever possible, the actual perpetrator of the crime.

The Alaska Innocence Project will utilize the FY 2012 Wrongful Conviction award to represent and exonerate wrongfully convicted inmates. The Project recently expanded to include three volunteers, and grant funds will be used to augment this new organization by hiring a half-time Executive Assistant, continuing to pay one half of the Attorney/Executive Director's salary, and financing investigations by hiring contract investigators to collect necessary evidence and interviews to move cases forward. The goal is to continue to provide high quality, efficient representation to the otherwise unserved population of the wrongfully convicted in Alaska. CA/NCF