Innocence Project Progresses | Dan Zwirn "Interested"

If you haven't chanced upon Dan Zwirn on Facebook, then you wouldn't know that one of his interests is the Innocence Project.  The project, which flies somewhat under the radar in terms of the amount of publicity it receives, is gaining momentum and making a bigger impact each and every year.  Taken from their website, "The Innocence Project is 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."  The project's mission is more clearly stated through the oversimplified statistic presented in the upper right corner of the Project's homepage (lower right portion of header), "March 12, 2012: 289 Exonerated".

The Innocence Project is a non-profit legal clinic affiliated with the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University.  From having less than a dozen post-conviction DNA exonerations between 1989 and its "official" birth in 1992, the Innocence project has since been averaging between 15 and 20 exonerations annually over the last decade.  Remarkably, they have earned exonerations in 35 states and Washington, D.C., making their mark nationally despite their prime ops taking place in NYC.  Being a NYC native himself, Dan Zwirn is somewhat of a supportive neighbor of the Innocence Project.

Although the program is performing exceptionally and their success gives reason for celebration, it is obvious that the work must weigh heavy on the hearts of those involved.  Recall the movie, "The Hurricane"- The story of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, a boxer wrongly imprisoned for murder, and the people who aided in his fight to prove his innocence (IMDB.com).  While his exoneration was triumphant and left viewers with a small feeling of comfort at the end, it was nearly impossible to avoid having a stronger feeling of sadness and anger as a result of the countless number of years that Rubin Carter wrongfully spent behind bars while the life and promise of success he once knew was stripped away.  

Through the work of the Innocence Project, we learn the following:

• Seventeen people had been sentenced to death before DNA proved their innocence and led to their release.
• The average sentence served by DNA exonerees has been 13 years.
• About 70 percent of those exonerated by DNA testing are members of minority groups.
• In almost 40 percent of DNA exoneration cases, the actual perpetrator has been identified by DNA testing.

It is evident that the work of the Innocence Project is helping to fix some of the wrong decisions that were made by the Justice system.  At the same time, it is also evident that there is still a lot of work to be done and a greater amount of support that the non-profit operation could use to handle more cases.  If one organization can find point out 289 wrong decision over just 2 decades, the daunting statistic becomes the exponentially higher number of cases that exist that have yet to surface and, therefore, the coinciding devastation that innocent people have suffered (and continue to suffer) having been wrongfully accused of a crime they did not commit.  To help, you can make a donation to the Innocence Project.