Adnan Sultan, a senior staff attorney at the Innocence Project, litigates post-conviction cases nationwide to secure DNA testing and overturn wrongful convictions. He also teaches in the Innocence Project clinic at Cardozo.

Prior to joining the Innocence Project, Adnan worked as a staff attorney at The Bronx Defenders for five where he represented thousands of clients charged with misdemeanors and felony crimes from arraignments to trial. In addition, he was a member of the Bronx Defenders’ Forensic Practice Group where he consulted with attorneys and conducted trainings on DNA evidence. Before working at the Bronx Defenders, Adnan was a Prettyman Fellow at Georgetown Law School, where he both represented clients charged with misdemeanor and felony crimes in D.C. Superior Court and supervised third-year law students in Georgetown’s Criminal Justice Clinic. He graduated from American University’s Washington College of Law.

Christina Swarns is the executive director of the Innocence Project.

Prior to joining the Innocence Project, Christina served as the president and attorney-in-charge of the Office of the Appellate Defender, Inc., one of New York City’s oldest institutional providers of indigent appellate defense representation; as the litigation director for the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc., America’s premier legal organization fighting for racial justice; as a supervising assistant federal defender in the capital habeas corpus unit of the Philadelphia Community Defender Office; and as a staff attorney for the Legal Aid Society’s Criminal Defense division in New York.

Christina argued, and won, Buck v. Davis, a challenge to the introduction of explicitly racially biased evidence in a Texas death penalty case, in the United States Supreme Court. Christina was the only Black woman to argue in the 2016 Supreme Court term, and is one of the few Black women to have argued before the nation’s highest court. Christina earned a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and a B.A. from Howard University.

She previously served as the president and attorney-in-charge of the Office of the Appellate Defender, Inc. , one of New York City’s oldest institutional providers of indigent appellate defense representation; as the litigation director of the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc., America’s premier legal organization fighting for racial justice; as a supervising assistant federal defender in the capital habeas corpus unit of the Philadelphia Community Defender Office; and as a staff attorney for the Legal Aid Society’s criminal defense division in New York. Christina argued, and won, Buck v. Davis, a challenge to the introduction of explicitly racially biased evidence in a Texas death penalty case, in the United States Supreme Court. Christina was the only Black woman to argue in the 2016 Supreme Court term, and is one of the few Black women to have argued before the nation’s highest court. Christina earned a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and a B.A. from Howard University.

On April 4, 2011, Cornelius Dupree was exonerated after spending more than 30 years in prison for a 1979 rape and robbery he didn’t commit.

One week after the attack, Mr. Dupree, alongside Anthony Massingill, was stopped by police who claimed both men fit the general description of two other Black men who were suspected in a separate sexual assault case. After their photos were submitted for an identification lineup, Mr. Dupree and Mr. Massingill were misidentified as the attackers in the rape and robbery case. They were convicted in 1980, and Mr. Dupree was subsequently sentenced to 75 years in prison.

In 2010, DNA testing conclusively excluded both men as possible sources of DNA found on the survivor. The district attorney’s office agreed that the DNA evidence established Mr. Dupree’s evidence, and he was granted habeas corpus relief by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

On April 3, 2003, Eddie Lowery had his conviction vacated and his case dismissed after spending nine years in prison for a rape he did not commit.

In July 1981, a 74-year-old woman was attacked while sleeping in her home in Ogden, Kansas. Mr. Lowery was brought in for questioning and was interrogated all day without food so that police could procure a confession. Although he later recanted the statements, he was wrongly convicted in 1982 based on the confession and the misapplication of forensic science.

In 2002, Mr. Lowery was able to procure DNA testing on the biological evidence, and in September of that year, DNA test results confirmed his claim of innocence.

On April 23, 2007, Jerry Miller was exonerated after spending more than 24 years wrongly incarcerated for a rape that he did not commit in Illinois. He was wrongly convicted in 1982 of a rape he did not commit in Chicago largely based on eyewitness misidentification. In 2005, the Innocence Project took on Mr. Miller’s case and conducted DNA testing, which implicated another man in the case.

Mr. Miller is the 200th person in the U.S. exonerated through DNA evidence.

On April 8, 2016, Keith Allen Harward was granted a writ of actual innocence by the Virginia Supreme Court after wrongly spending more than 33 years of a life sentence for a rape and murder he did not commit.

Despite testifying and presenting evidence that he didn’t match the rape survivor’s description, Mr. Harward was wrongly convicted of capital murder in 1982 based on forensic dentists’ testimony that his teeth matched the bite marks on the survivor.

In 2015, the Innocence Project obtained a court order for DNA testing of physical evidence in Mr. Harward’s case, which definitively proved his innocence and pointed to another man as the actual attacker. He is one of eight people whose story is in the Innocence Project-inspired Netflix docuseries The Innocence Files.

On Aug. 21, 2002, Marvin Lamont Anderson became the 99th person in the U.S. to be exonerated as a result of post-conviction DNA testing. Mr. Anderson was only 18 years old when he was convicted in 1982 of robbery, sodomy, abduction, and rape in Virginia. His conviction largely rested on eyewitness misidentification, and he was sentenced to 210 years in prison.

In 2001, the Innocence Project, in partnership with the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project, won access to DNA testing, the results of which excluded Mr. Anderson as the attacker and instead matched two other individuals. In 2002, Virginia Gov. Mark Warner granted Mr. Anderson, who had spent 20 years in prison, a full pardon.

Following his exoneration, Mr. Anderson served as chief of the Hanover, Virginia Fire Department, where he oversaw a team of 30 people. He is currently on the Innocence Project’s board of directors.

On Sept. 12, 2014, Michelle Murphy was exonerated of the murder of her son after wrongly serving 20 years in prison.

Ms. Murphy was wrongly convicted in 1995 based on a coerced confession and misleading forensic evidence. In 2014, the Innocence Project joined her defense team and requested DNA testing, which revealed the DNA profile of an unknown male. Following that testing, the prosecution agreed to vacate her conviction and dismiss the charges.

Ms. Murphy is one of 15 women exonerated in the United States with the help of post-conviction DNA testing — and the first and only woman in Oklahoma to be exonerated by DNA testing.

Robyn Trent Jefferson is a senior paralegal at the Innocence Project. 

Prior to joining the Innocence Project, Robyn enjoyed a diverse career as a litigation and real estate paralegal for more than 34 years. A born advocate, she has always been passionate about effecting change for those who are and have been wronged and, in the last 10 years, has had more opportunities to dedicate more of her time in pursuit of much needed reform.

Stacey Anderson is the legal policy analyst with the Innocence Project. In this role, she is responsible for legal research to support advocacy campaigns across the country, including 50-state comparisons of key provisions in criminal justice statutes and case law.

Prior to joining the Innocence Project, Stacey was a Marciano Legal Fellow with the Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network, where she did legal research and legislation drafting focused on sexual violence response, Title IX, and constitutional law. Stacey is a proud graduate of Northeastern University, in Boston, and earned her J.D. from Widener University Delaware Law School. While in law school, Stacey served as the Mid-Atlantic Regional Chair of the National Black Law Students Association. Stacey is passionate about the Innocence Project’s mission and believes public policy is the root to manifest change.

Tebah Browne is the forensic science policy specialist for the Innocence Project. In this role, she assists the policy department with policy work that focuses on the reliability, validity, and regulation of forensic science techniques and technology.

Prior to joining the Innocence Project, Tebah worked at the Legal Aid Society in its DNA unit as the in-house scientist and DNA analyst. Tebah graduated from John Jay College with B.S. and M.S. degrees in forensic science, with concentrations in molecular biology and toxicology. Tebah is currently pursuing a PhD in forensic investigative sciences at Oklahoma State University, where her dissertation focuses on the implementation, regulation, and education of forensic science in developing nations.

My Story

On Dec. 16, 2020, Termaine Hicks was freed from a Pennsylvania prison after his wrongful conviction for a 2001 rape was vacated.

In 2001, Mr. Hicks was walking home when he heard a woman screaming. He found her badly beaten and attempted to call 911 when the police arrived and mistook him for the attacker. Officers shot him three times in the back before they realized their mistake. They then conspired to cover it up and falsely testified that Mr. Hicks had lunged at them with a gun. Based on this testimony, Mr. Hicks was convicted in 2002 of rape, aggravated assault, possessing an instrument of crime, and terroristic threats.

In 2015, Mr. Hicks filed a petition for post-conviction DNA testing on the evidence. Separately, in 2018, his attorneys filed a petition for post-conviction relief, stating that pathology reports and other evidence revealed that he had been shot from behind three times. Two years later, the district attorney’s conviction integrity unit asked a court to vacate Mr. Hicks’ conviction.

Mr. Hicks, an aspiring playwright, is now a member of the Innocence Project’s Exoneree Advisory Council.