Group Uses DNA to free innocent from prison
By Bill Rankin, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Staff Writer
[ The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: 9/11/02 ]

Word travels fast through Georgia's prison system when the news might mean a key to the jailhouse door.

Letters from state inmates are now pouring in to the new Georgia Innocence Project, which will use DNA evidence to exonerate wrongly incarcerated people. So far, about 100 prisoners have asked their cases be reviewed.

Most of the handwritten letters are filled with grammatical errors, poor spelling and desperate pleas for help, said Aimee Maxwell, the project's executive director.

The Georgia project, which will soon move into new office space in Midtown, is one of almost three dozen such projects operating nationwide. They were inspired by the successes of the Innocence Project at New York's Benjamin Cardozo School of Law. Over the past decade, 110 people have been exonerated because of DNA evidence.

The list includes Calvin Johnson Jr., cleared three years ago after serving 16 years in prison for a Clayton County rape he didn't commit. Johnson, who was sentenced to life in prison, now sits on the Georgia Innocence Project's board of directors.

Atlanta lawyer Jack Martin, another board member, said he believes Georgia's project will find more cases of innocent people who were wrongly convicted.

"The worst nightmare of a democratic society is to convict and punish an innocent person," he said. "We know these horrors exist and hope to do what we can to find justice for those who've been denied justice."

On Monday, Martin spoke to Emory University law school students, asking them to volunteer their time on the project.

There was a time when it seemed like the Georgia Innocence Project would never get off the ground.
Its genesis began in a Georgia State University law school classroom three years ago when law professor Randy Rich mentioned the idea to Jill Polster and September Guy. The two students then took it upon themselves to start one here.

"We had a lot of people who wished us luck, but not many people took us seriously," said Polster, now a member of the Fulton County Public Defender's Office. "But we were determined. I just never realized it'd take three years to get it going."

The two students persuaded the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers to give them a $2,000 grant, which they used to visit the Innocence Project in New York. On that trip, they met Christopher Ochoa, a Texas man cleared by DNA tests of murder after he spent 12 years in prison.

In an emotional address to the Benjamin Cardozo law school students who worked on his case, Ochoa, who'd been sentenced to life in prison, thanked them for all they had done for him.

"It was wonderful," recalled Guy, 26, now a defense lawyer in Rossville. "We were so inspired by his story, we came back and worked so much harder to get it done."

Both Polster and Guy hoped to find a home for Georgia's project at Georgia State. But they were told it wasn't going to happen.

"That was a dark day -- and, unfortunately, there were many," said Polster, a Sandy Springs native who quit her job as a Rich's buying officer four years ago to become a 32-year-old law student.

The two students eventually secured a $25,000 challenge grant from the Georgia Bar Foundation. The Georgia Indigent Defense Council then matched it. An anonymous donation of $50,000 followed, and they were finally on their way.

The project gained even more credibility when some of Georgia's most prominent defense attorneys agreed to serve on its board of directors.

"It is the paramount duty of the legal system and of lawyers to eliminate injustices," board member Ed Garland said. "It is fundamental to the American concept of freedom."

The project will soon move into space donated by ChoicePoint, an Alpharetta-based technology firm and parent of a DNA testing lab.

Letters from inmates initially will be screened by law students who will pass them on to board members. Cases determined worthy of pursuing will be litigated by lawyers throughout the state who will also file motions to retrieve evidence and obtain permission for DNA testing.

Peter Neufeld, who with former O.J. Simpson lawyer Barry Scheck founded New York's Innocence Project, said Georgia needs to enact legislation to allow post-conviction DNA testing without an inmate requiring permission from prosecutors to do so. So far, 27 other states have passed like laws.

Neufeld said his New York office has other Georgia cases in the pipeline and is already working in tandem with the new project in Atlanta. "There's no question that dozens of innocent people are now languishing in Georgia prisons," he said.