08 January 2010
Time again for our Website of the Week, when we showcase interesting and innovative online destinations.
More than 7 million people are locked up in U.S. prisons or otherwise under the supervision of the criminal justice system. Despite the right to a lawyer and other protections, some of those men and women are serving time for crimes they didn't commit. At our Website of the Week, you can learn about a group that's using science in the cause of justice.
"InnocenceProject.org is the website of the Innocence Project, which is a non-profit organization. We work to overturn wrongful convictions through DNA testing and also to reform the criminal justice system based on the lessons we learn from those exonerations," says Matt Kelley.
He is is Online Communications Manager for the Innocence Project, where science and law join in an effort to overturn the convictions of people wrongfully found guilty and sentenced to prison.
Michael Blair served 13 years on a Texas murder charge based in part on a supposed similarity in hair samples.
Raymond Santana of New York served five years on a rape charge based in part on a bogus confession.
An Arizona court convicted Larry Youngblood in a sexual assault on a child, and he served nine years based on the boy's mistaken testimony.
In those and other cases, DNA evidence proved the innocence of the person convicted, and in many cases pointed to the actual perpetrator.
"While most of our cases are people who've been in prison for many years and were convicted before the era of DNA, there are still people being convicted in cases where DNA testing should be available and isn't conducted."
The Innocence Project is based in New York and focuses on wrongful convictions throughout the United States, but Matt Kelley says visitors from some 75 countries came to its website last year, and so the group's reach is global.
"The website has become a resource for lawyers around the world to dig into forensic issues, DNA reforms, and criminal appellate representation based on trying to overturn wrongful convictions," said Kelley
You can learn about the 249 people wrongfully convicted and then exonerated through DNA evidence at InnocenceProject.org, or visit our site, VOAnews.com, for the link to this and hundreds of other Websites of the Week.