Project co-founder, high-profile Gold Coast criminal lawyer Chris Nyst, said Queensland was the first state to allow access to DNA evidence to be re-tested and described the move as a "landmark" development.

"This is the first time DNA innocence testing - outside of a pardon application - will take place in Queensland," Mr Nyst said. "In fact, it's the first time anywhere in Australia an attorney-general has personally intervened to allow such a process."

Read the full story here. (Courier Mail, 7/3/09)

Fourteen years ago this week, Ronald Cotton walked out of a North Carolina prison a free man for the first time in more than a decade. In two trials in 1985 and 1987, Cotton was convicted of rape and burglary largely based on the victim's misidentification. In May 1995, DNA testing finally proved Cotton's innocence.

After his release, Cotton worked hard to rebuild his life. He took on two jobs to get himself back on his feet. He got married and has a daughter, who today is 10 years old. But Cotton's remarkable post-exoneration success story did not end there.

Two years after his exoneration, Cotton met face to face with the victim in the case, Jennifer Thompson-Cannino, who had misidentified him as her attacker. According to an MSNBC article, Thompson-Cannino recalled telling Cotton when they first met that "if she atoned every day for the rest of her life, it would not be enough to make up for the years [he] had lost." Cotton responded by telling Thompson-Cannino that he had already forgiven her. In a recent interview on the Today Show, Cotton explained his response, saying "I couldn't carry on serving my time in the prison system holding grudges and thinking about retaliating against a person that made an honest mistake. I had to proceed on in life regardless."

Since that first meeting, the two have become close friends and today they have joined together to fight against injustice. They give speeches about their experiences, advocate for reform, and have worked to expose the causes of wrongful conviction. They focus, in particular, on pursuing reforms to eyewitness identification procedures - urging states to mandate changes that are proven to reduce misidentifications. Their advocacy has contributed to successful reforms across the country, including their home state of North Carolina.

Most recently, Cotton and Thompson-Cannino worked with author Erin Torneo to write "Picking Cotton," a best-selling memoir written about their experiences and the need for criminal justice reform. In the book, which was released earlier this year, Cotton and Thompson-Cannino tell their stories in their own words, discuss the need for improved police procedures, and demonstrate the importance of forgiveness.

Buy your copy of "Picking Cotton" at Amazon.com through this link and a portion of proceeds will benefit the Innocence Project.

Other Anniversaries This Week:

Thursday: Dennis Williams, Illinois (Served 17.5 Years, Exonerated 7/2/96)
Thursday: Kenneth Adams, Illinois (Served 17.5 Years, Exonerated 7/2/96)
Thursday: Willie Rainge, Illinois (Served 17.5 Years, Exonerated 7/2/96)

The legal challenges are "a first for us," says Randall Morse, an assistant county attorney who is representing (dog handler Keith) Pikett. He says the hounds have worked about 2,000 cases across the country, including the search for Olympic Park bomber Eric Rudolph.

Defense lawyers say the (scent lineup) technique smacks of forensic voodoo and casts further suspicion on the broader use of scent dog evidence.

"It's a fraud on so many levels," says Jeffrey Weiner, former president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

Read the full story here. (USA Today, 06/30/09)

Unvalidated forensic science such as dog scent evidence has been involved in about half of the 240 wrongful convictions overturned to date in the United States. A National Academy of Sciences report released this year calls for the creation of a federal agency to support and oversee forensics to prevent wrongful convictions and ensure public safety .

The Innocence Project supports the creation of the National Institute of Forensic Science
and thousands of people have joined the campaign by signing the Just Science Coalition's petition calling for federal forensic oversight. Add your name now.

Read more about the three men who were wrongfully convicted based in part on dog scent evidence and then exonerated by DNA testing:

Wilton Dedge, Florida
William Dillon, Florida
James Ochoa, California

"We have sufficient evidence, we believe, to show that Troy Anthony Davis is innocent," said Prince Jackson, president of the NAACP's Savannah branch. "We are asking that he be given a chance. After all, his life is at stake."

Read the full story here. (Macon Journal, 06/29/09)

LDF: Can one draw any meaning out of these numbers and what they say about racial disparities in the criminal justice system?

Neufeld: In many ways, the numbers speak for themselves. It's impossible to look at the racial breakdown of the people who have been exonerated through DNA testing and not see that our criminal justice system disproportionately impacts people of color. Digging deeper, most of the DNA exonerations are people of color who were wrongfully convicted of sexually assaulting white people. Two-thirds of the exoneration cases are cross-race sexual assaults, while the Department of Justice says that less than 15% of all rapes are cross-race. There's a long history of the American criminal justice system treating the rape of a white woman by a black man as a particularly vile crime. One consequence of treating such crimes with particular zeal is that people of color will be wrongfully convicted more frequently.

The DNA exoneration cases also illustrate the intersection of race and class. In case after case, defendants could not afford top-quality lawyers to challenge prosecutors who often over-stepped the line to secure a conviction - and in the vast majority of cases, the defendants were people of color. Years later, when they are exonerated through DNA testing, they are released without adequate financial compensation and little or no services from the state.

Read the full post at The Defenders Online.

Glyn Vincent wrote on Huffington Post that the five men exonerated after serving years in the Central Park jogger case are the "forgotten victims."

Editorials and op-ed articles continued to run around the country this week disagreeing with the Supreme Court's decision last week to deny DNA testing to Innocence Project client William Osborne. Opinion pieces ran in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Scripps Newswire, the San Francisco Chronicle and Delaware Online and other publications.

Human Rights Watch researcher Sarah Tofte wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle about the injustice of thousands of untested rape kits in California.

Reporter Maurice Possley wrote on The Crime Report about new medical research in shaken baby cases that could call countless convictions into question.

A decision is expected Monday from the U.S. Supreme Court on a habeas corpus petition from Troy Davis, who has spent two decades on Georgia's death row for a murder he says he didn't commit.

"I go find a job and just live my life finally, after all these years, with my children, my grandchildren and my family," a tearful Smith said during an interview at the Lorain office of her attorney, Jack Bradley.

Read the full story. (Chronicle-Telegram, 06/25/09)

"This was a piece of much needed legislation that will bring Ohio up to speed with the best practices in the country," said Mark Godsey, a UC professor of law and faculty director of the Ohio Innocence Project.

Read more on yesterday's vote.

"It's wonderful, and I'd like to thank God and my family and my attorney for this opportunity," Springsteen said in a news conference outside the courthouse Wednesday afternoon.

Read more about their case here. (KXAN, 06/24/09)

"This is an important decision that will help defendants expose faulty evidence at trial, but it doesn't resolve serious underlying problems with forensic science. Too often, our criminal justice system relies on evidence that is not rooted in solid science, which is why Congress needs to create a National Institute of Forensic Science.

"Earlier this year, the National Academy of Sciences called on Congress to create an independent, science-based agency to stimulate research and set and enforce standards long before forensic evidence reaches court. Today's ruling underscores the need for Congress to take action.

Read Neufeld's complete statement.

Thirteen years ago today, Verneal Jimerson was exonerated of all charges surrounding his alleged involvement in what has become known as The Ford Heights Four Case. In 1985, Jimerson had been found guilty of committing a rape and double murder in Ford Heights, Illinois. He served nearly 11 years on death row before his release.

Five defendants spent a combined 75 years in prison for the murders before DNA testing proved their innocence. Several of the most prominent causes of wrongful conviction were involved: including false confessions, unvalidated forensic science, bad lawyering and more. The group was finally freed in 1996. Read a summary of the cases here.

One of Jimerson's first stops as a free man was to visit the graves of his parents, both of whom had died while he was in prison. Moreover, because he had been in jail so long, Jimerson hardly knew his three grown daughters and had never met his five grandchildren. When asked how he felt about the time he had lost with members of family, Jimerson told the Chicago Tribune "Sure it hurts. It hurts a lot. But I've got to move on. Because by the grace of God I'm not going to let anger just eat me out." Upon his release, Jimerson was happy to be able to reconnect with some of his relatives and told the Chicago Sun-Times that he was determined to find a job and get a driver's license.

In 1999, Jimerson received about $9 million as part of a wrongful prosecution settlement between Cook County and the Ford Heights Four. At the time, it was the largest civil rights settlement in U.S. history.

Other Exoneration Anniversaries This Week:

Monday: David Gray, Illinois (Served 20Years, Exonerated 6/22/99)

In an already much-criticized decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 last week that Innocence Project client William Osborne could not use the federal civil rights law to obtain DNA testing for the purpose of proving his innocence of the rape for which he was convicted and sent to prison in 1994. The decision was disappointing and surprising given the broad national consensus about DNA testing's unprecedented capabilities to exonerate the innocent. But the court ultimately decided that principles of finality and deference to state law trumped fundamental fairness, even where scientific proof of actual innocence is concerned.

Read the full post at the ACS Blog.

-- Titusville attorney and former Brevard prosecutor Sam Bardwell, who encountered Preston in a 1981 rape case, says then-State Attorney Doug Cheshire ... as well as the Brevard Sheriff's Office and most law enforcement officers at the time knew Preston was a charlatan.

"I left the State Attorney's Office because I could not abide by the fabrication of evidence," Bardwell says.

-- Retired 18th Circuit and appellate Judge Gil Goshorn confirmed Cheshire relied heavily on Preston in a number of cases, along with questionable jailhouse snitches.

"Cheshire's office often relied on such evidence of dubious reliability," Goshorn said in a sworn affadavit in 2008.

Dedge, an Innocence Project client, was exonerated in 2004. Dillon, represented by the Innocence Project of Florida, was cleared last year. The Innocence Project of Florida is now working on the case of Gary Bennett, who was convicted of murder based in part on Preston's testimony. Preston, who testified in 60 cases in Brevard County and many more elsewhere in the U.S., is now deceased.

Read more about Bennett's case on the Innocence Project of Florida website. And set your DVR for a special report on Dillon's case from CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 - scheduled to air tomorrow (Wednesday) night at 10 p.m. ET.

Read the Florida Today investigative article and editorial.

The impact of yesterday's decision will be limited, however, because most prisoners obtain access to DNA testing at the state level. Osborne's case is an example of one in which DNA access at the state level is difficult, and Kenneth Reed's is another.

A prestigious group of DNA and legal experts filed a brief this week in a Louisiana appeals court backing a judge's decision to grant DNA testing in Reed's case. Reed, an Innocence Project client, was sentenced to life for a 1991 Louisiana rape he says he didn't commit and he is seeking DNA testing that could prove his innocence.

The Ohio Supreme Court will hear the case of a former Ohio police officer seeking DNA testing to prove his innocence.

A Missouri man convicted of a 2005 murder he says he didn't commit was denied a new trial this week.

The family of Texas exoneree Timothy Cole is hoping state legislators will return for a special session to review a bill allowing Gov. Rick Perry to issue Cole a posthumous pardon.

The Dallas Morning News crime blog ran a Q&A this week with public defender Michelle Moore, who has represented seven of 20 people cleared through DNA testing in Dallas.

A man who spent 17 years in prison in Japan for a murder evidence shows he didn't commit visited his hometown this week and received an apology from the police chief.

''I apologize from the bottom of my heart for imposing on you this hardship for such a long time,'' the chief told 62-year-old Toshikazu Sugaya.

Each one of us was convicted of serious felonies before DNA testing finally proved our innocence. We are from every part of New York State, and we served a combined 163.5 years - approximately 59,677 days - in prison before we were exonerated.

We are living, breathing proof that New York's criminal justice system has failed again and again. Our cases show how the system is falling short and how it can be fixed.

The injustice we endured is compounded by knowing that reforms have not been adopted to prevent this from happening to other people. You can change that. A series of common-sense reforms would make our justice system more fair, accurate and reliable. These reforms would help law enforcement identify and apprehend true perpetrators of crime, while protecting other innocent people from wrongful convictions.

Today's decision is deeply disappointing and flawed, but it will have a limited impact because most cases are resolved at the local or state level. One effect of the decision will be to bring new urgency to the movement to ensure that all prisoners in all states with valid claims of innocence have access to DNA testing that can prove their innocence.

Please take action today and sign the Innocence Project petition for DNA testing access.

Download the full Supreme Court brief and other materials from the Osborne case here, and read a sample of today's media coverage below.

New York Times: Justices Rule Inmates Don't Have Right to DNA Tests

CBS News Court Watch: Court Content to Follow, Not Lead, On DNA Testing

NPR: Court Rules Convicts Have No Right To DNA Tests

Associated Press: High Court Says Convicted Lack Right to DNA Testing

My father is my hero and an inspiration to so many people he met over the years. Not only did he survive a quarter-century in prison, he did it with a positive outlook on life. When he would tell me years ago that he was sure he'd be free someday, I would admire his optimism but take it with a grain of my own realism, knowing the odds were against him. Now I know that the truth can overcome the odds any time. Whenever I feel down about anything, I think about my dad's strength and his triumph.

This Father's Day, I'll be celebrating my dad's freedom and thinking of all of those other families who aren't so lucky. Please give to the Innocence Project today to help free the innocent from prison and grant a Father's Day wish for a daughter like myself.

"Reflecting on my votes at the Supreme Court, I realized that there is just so much error involved in these cases that it's not worth carrying out the death penalty," Diaz told WAPT in Jackson. "We have innocent people in Mississippi who have been sitting on death row for years."

Read the full story and watch a video interview with Diaz. (WAPT, 6/17/09)

One reason that such technologies are so alluring is that people tend to be poor judges of the quality of their memories. The circumstances in which eyewitnesses find themselves might render their recollections particularly untrustworthy, says Elizabeth Loftus, a professor of psychology at the University of California and a pioneer in the field of eyewitness research. "When it comes to brief episodes of memory, like in many criminal cases, poor lighting, passage of time, biased or suggestive questioning all can produce an erroneous memory," she says.

"We can tell surprisingly well what people are thinking from brain scans," says (Princeton Psychology Professor Ken) Norman. "But if you're going to convict someone, 'better than chance' is not good enough." (Standford Law Prof. Hank) Greely also believes that neuroscientific information may be unduly persuasive to people.

Read the full story here. (SEED Magazine, 6/13/09)

Other Exoneration Anniversaries This Week:

Monday: Jerry Frank Townsend, Florida (Served 21.5 Tears, Exonerated 6/15/01)

Wednesday: Kenneth Wyniemko, Wisconsin (Served 8.5 Years, Exonerated 6/17/03)

Saturday: Kevin Green, California (Served 15.5 Years, Exonerated 1996)

A Chicago man is seeking a new trial in a 1981 murder conviction, saying he didn't commit the crime and was coerced to confess by former Chicago Detective Jon Burge, who has been implicated in several wrongful convictions and is charged with lying under oath about his role in the torture of suspects during interrogations.

A New York man who has served eight years for a murder he says he didn't commit is seeking a new hearing based on new DNA evidence and alibi witnesses who put him hundreds of miles from the crime scene.

And a Missouri man is seeking DNA testing that he says will prove his innocence of a 1993 murder.

The Tucson, Arizona, Police Department is participating in a national field study on the effectiveness of eyewitness identification reforms, and the early results are positive.

Defense lawyer Adam Tebrugge wrote in a Florida op-ed this week about his experience trying a case involving bullet lead analysis and the need for "common-sense steps" to standardize forensic science.

Meanwhile, in New York, lawmakers are still considering innocence reforms and diverse voices from across the state continue to call for strong action this session to prevent wrongful convictions.

An editorial today in the Buffalo News recounted the exoneration of Anthony Capozzi and reminded readers that sending the wrong person to prison isn't just an injustice suffered by one person, it also compromises public safety.

It is encouraging that Paterson and legislators are talking about these issues. New Yorkers should let their representatives know they see this as a law enforcement issue. Ensuring that only the guilty are convicted is the right thing to do from all perspectives.

Take action today - send an email to leaders in Albany urging them to support these critical reforms this session.

One year ago today, Thomas McGowan was officially exonerated in Texas after serving 23 years in prison for a rape and burglary he didn't commit. The Innocence Project, which represented McGowan, obtained DNA testing in his case in 2008. The results proved that another person had committed the sexual assault for which McGowan had served more than two decades in prison.

Above, left to right, Texas exonerees James Giles, Thomas McGowan, James Waller and Charles Chatman.

After his release, McGowan spoke with CBS News about what it felt like to be a free man. He said: "It's the best high. It is. New life... It feels good to go down the street, I am not there at a place with barbed wire, and fences." He was amazed by how much had changed since he had gone to prison, and remarked that "everything is new, a whole new world."

In a blog he wrote on the Innocence Project's website after his exoneration, McGowan stated that he wanted to obtain a job because it would make him feel that "he had a full life." He said he hoped to get a position where he could help people, like at a nursing home or a hospital.

McGowan had also built close ties with fellow exonerees in Texas. He meets twice a month with others freed in Texas after serving years for crimes they didn't commit, to "hang out and talk" and provide support for one another.

Two weeks ago, McGowan and the rest of the group appeared at the courthouse to greet and offer assistance to the newest Dallas county exoneree, Jerry Lee Evans.

Right now, Gov. David Paterson and leaders in the state Legislature are deciding whether to make our justice system more fair, accurate and reliable so that law enforcement can identify the guilty and protect the innocent. The current legislative session ends later this month, and our elected officials can adopt critical reforms before then to prevent wrongful convictions that devastate individuals' lives, families and entire communities.

Steven is one of 24 people in New York wrongfully convicted and then exonerated with DNA testing. These cases are just the tip of the iceberg, since DNA testing is possible in just a tiny fraction of cases. But the exonerations show how our criminal justice system has failed, and how it can be fixed.

Read her full column here. (Syracuse Post-Standard, 06/07/09)

And individuals across the state are writing to state leaders urging them to take action on these reforms during this session. If you're in New York, please write to your lawmakers now.