Friday Roundup: Spreading the Word

Our friends around the web were helping us spread the word this week about wrongful convictions. Hundreds of new members

joined the Innocence Project online community

to get email newsletters, action alerts and breaking news updates and they are inviting hundreds more to join them.

You can invite a friend here

.

Meanwhile,

the Overbrook Foundation

, an Innocence Project supporter, was blogging about our upcoming case before the Supreme Court. And our community is growing on

Facebook

and

Twitter

. Come join us.

Now on to the news of the week:

The Mississippi State House of Representatives

passed a bill

that would allow death row prisoners the right to post-conviction DNA testing. The bill now moves on to the State Senate.

On our homepage today is the story of Betty Anne Waters, who put herself through college and law school to fight for her brother’s exoneration. A feature film starring Hillary Swank as Betty Anne is currently in production.

Read more

.

Rick Casey

wrote in the Houston Chronicle

that the forensic science report expected soon from the

National Academy of Sciences

could show that the rest of the country suffers from the crime lab problems Houston experienced over the last decade. “Crime labs too often produce not science but science fiction,” Casey wrote, adding that he hopes the report will spark reform on the ground in Texas.

This week was the 22nd anniversary of the murder of Peggy Hettrick in Colorado, a crime for which Tim Masters was wrongfully convicted and spent nearly a decade in prison. The Fort Collins Coloradan this week obtained the transcripts of interviews conducted with former prosecutors by regulators who would eventually discipline them. Former Prosecutor Terence Gilmore

said he believes the murder will never be solved

.

Boston Phoenix reporter David S. Bernstein

was named the New England Press Association Journalist of the Year

and won another award for his investigative work on the wrongful conviction of Stephan Cowans in Boston.

And North Carolina Exoneree Darryl Hunt

spoke to students at Campbell University Law School

.