WAYNE ALLEN DAIL
spent 18years in prison for a crime hedidn’t commit. The court, which wrongfully convicted him of first-degree rape, first-degree sexualoffense, first-degree burglary andindecent liberties with a minor, sentenced himto life in prison. With unending support fromthe N.C. Center on Actual Innocence and theInnocence Project, Dail was freed. On Aug. 28,2007, he left his prison cell behind to someonemuch more deserving.“It was the Innocence Project that was paramountto my exoneration,” Dail said. “Many studentslooked through my case through the years, and itended up at the N.C. Center on Actual Innocence.Had it not been for the Innocence Project and theCenter, I would most likely still be in prison today instead of on the sandy beaches of South Florida.”
WHAT IS THE INNOCENCE PROJECT?
The UNC-Chapel Hill Law School InnocenceProject works in conjunction with Duke University Law School and five other law schools in the state.The project works under the direct supervisionof its umbrella organization, the N.C. Center on Actual Innocence, which is funded by the Z. SmithReynolds Foundation, Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts and the N.C. Bar Foundation. The law students work pro bono, reviewing hundreds of innocence claims from inmates and tackling thosecases that match the center’s criteria. Most caseschosen for further review are felony cases thathold years of jail time. In most circumstances, theinmates have no legal representation.“We want to help the people who are in the mostneed of help,” said Christine Mumma, director forthe N.C. Center on Actual Innocence.Rich Rosen, professor of criminal law andcriminal procedure at the UNC-CH School of Law, first founded the UNC-CH Law SchoolInnocence Project in the late 1990s. It soonbecame apparent that the Duke and UNC-CHprojects were duplicating each other’s work and wasting resources. Now the center, located inDurham, delegates the cases to the separate law schools to ensure that the student volunteer effortsare used as efficiently as possible.
IN STUDENTS’ HANDS
“I read a book by John Grisham called ‘TheInnocent Man’ before I started law school, so Iknew that when I got here the Innocence Projectis what I wanted to get involved in,” said NicholasFarr, a first-year law student from Greenville, S.C. Whether they are inspired by a Grisham novelor an in-depth investigative journalism class takenduring their undergraduate years, approximately 40 UNC-CH law students currently work withthe project. Student volunteers gain investigativeexperience that extends beyond the classroomsetting, and they feel that working with the projectis well worth their time.Students sift through approximately 1,500 lettersfrom inmates across the country who have thesame stories: They are innocent. Certain red flagsfor possible innocence include cases in whichconviction is based primarily on identification,cases in which defendants turned down a pleabargain and letters that proclaim completeinnocence.“We look for people who say that the crime didn’thappen or they were not the one who committedthe crime,” said Kellie Mannette, a second-year law student from Wake Forest and co-president of theUNC-CH Law Innocence Project. “That’s one of the biggest criteria.” After the center assigns a case to UNC-CH’sInnocence Project, the student volunteers study the trial transcripts to look for links, such as new evidence, that were missing from the original trial.“We usually tell the students that their goal isto find things in the case that were not availableto our trial that we can bring back into court,”Mannette said. According to Farr and his case partner, Jonathan Jones, a first-year law student from Zionsville, Ill.,project members are currently reviewing a trial they were assigned at the beginning of the year. Thetranscript, documented in 700 pages, is one of theshorter ones the project has been assigned.“We are just looking for avenues in our case that we may be able to find that would show whetheror not this person is truly innocent of the crime for which he has been convicted,” Jones said. “Even if it ends up being something where you can’t find what you need to help that person, you have atleast given their case another set of eyes.”
A CALL FOR CHANGE
Mumma realized that though the center’s work was helping to correct judicial errors, it was timeto be proactive. She worked with the N.C. General Assembly to write three criminal justice procedurebills, two of which became effective on March1, 2008. Had these three bills — the EyewitnessIdentification Reform Act, the ElectronicRecording of Interrogations Bill and the updatedDNA Testing and Preservation Bill — been ineffect when Dail’s case began, it is likely he wouldnot have been convicted, and he would not havemissed spending 18 years with his son.“The great thing about the exoneration casesis if you can say that there is a silver lining at allfor anybody who has been wrongfully convicted,it’s that they do provide examples for why thesechanges are important,” Mumma said.The Eyewitness Identification Reform Actformalizes procedures taught in basic law enforcement training. Rather than doing asimultaneous photographic line-up of possiblesuspects, the witness now sees them one at a time.That eliminates the possibility of the witness
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