A task force assembled by the Wisconsin Innocence Project, a program run through the University of Wisconsin Law School, approved measures this month to introduce legislation addressing possible reforms in the criminal justice system.
The Avery Task Force recommended the creation and use of eyewitness identification procedures, procedures for post-conviction DNA testing, as well as policies that insure custodial interrogations are recorded electronically.
The task force is named after Steven Avery. Avery was convicted of rape and attempted murder in 1985, but was released in 2003 when WIP found DNA evidence he did not have any involvement in the crime. Avery’s exoneration after his 18-year stay in prison led to the creation of the Avery Task Force. The group is responsible for examining cases of wrongful conviction and has made several recommendations to legislators, WIP co-director Keith Findley said.
“Because of Steven Avery’s exoneration,” John Pray, co-director of WIP, said, “there are many reforms and eyewitness identification reforms that we are trying to implement and having a fair amount of success getting implementation of new laws and new training for eyewitness procedures.”
The task force — made up of a bipartisan pool of legislators, judges, prosecutors, academics, a victim advocate and law enforcement officers — is appointed by state Rep. Mark Gundrum, R-New Berlin, has at least four pending pieces of legislation and continues to review possibilities for justice system reforms.
However, for his 18 years in prison, Avery was given $25,000 in compensation by the state, an amount Findley calls “paltry.”
Avery is currently seeking an unspecified larger sum in a federal lawsuit against Manitowoc County.
The WIP is constantly working to free innocent inmates and according to WIP co-director Keith Findley, the project screens as many as 500 inmates a year as possible candidates for review.
“Most of those are screened out because they don’t meet our criteria,” Findley noted.
The first complete exoneration WIP accomplished was for Chris Ochoa, a 22-year-old convicted of murder in 1998. In 2000, WIP overturned Ochoa’s original verdict through DNA evidence. Ochoa now attends UW Law School.
The Innocence Project, first established in 1992, aims to overturn wrongful convictions, oftentimes through the use of modern means not available during the time of the original trial.
Findley added cases can last a long time, with a number of cases taking several years to find any result. According to Pray, there is an immense amount of luck involved especially cases involving DNA evidence.
“There’s some bittersweetness to it because you realize there are many other people who are innocent who are imprisoned and don’t have some of the luck that it takes,” Pray said, “You realize that there are many more of your clients who you probably aren’t going to be able to get off because of the bad luck that they threw away the DNA.”
