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.

My Story

On Jan. 24, 2019, Huwe Burton was exonerated after spending 19 years in prison for a murder he did not commit.

At 16 years old, Mr. Burton was convicted of the 1989 murder of his mother, who had been found stabbed to death in their New York City home. His conviction was largely based on a false confession that had been coerced by detectives.

A joint reinvestigation between the Innocence Project and the Bronx District Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit uncovered that detectives from New York’s 47th precinct had coerced Mr. Burton into falsely confessing. Furthermore, additional new evidence surfaced about an alternate person who committed the crime. Ultimately, Mr. Burton carried his wrongful conviction for nearly 28 years before he was exonerated.

Justin Chan is the Innocence Project’s editorial director, where he oversees the organization’s website and collaborates with the senior leadership team and programmatic staff on institutional messaging. 

Justin joined the organization in 2021 and comes with more than a decade of experience in journalism, having written for Law.com, Mic, Forbes, HuffPost, Time Out New York, Entrepreneur.com, and Yahoo. His work frequently touches on issues impacting marginalized communities, including racism, immigration, and economic disparities. He holds a master’s degree in magazine journalism from Columbia Journalism School and a bachelor’s degree in political science and English from Macaulay Honors College. Justin also holds a certificate in digital marketing from Columbia Business School Executive Education. He previously volunteered at Reading Partners, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping at-risk youth improve their literacy.

On Dec. 19, 2002, Korey Wise — a member of the Exonerated Five — had his conviction overturned in New York after wrongly serving 11.5 years for a rape he did not commit in Central Park in 1989.

Mr. Wise, along with Yusef Salaam, Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, and Raymond Santana, was wrongly convicted in 1990 based on false confessions and the misapplication of forensic science. At the time of their arrest, they were between 14 and 16 years old. In 2002, the actual attacker, who had already been serving a sentence for a series of rapes, murder, and robbery, confessed that he alone had committed the 1989 rape. DNA testing was then conducted on the crime scene evidence and corroborated the attacker’s confession.

Twenty years after Mr. Wise’s exoneration, the entrance to Central Park where he and the other members of the Exonerated Five had entered on the night of the attack was renamed the Gate of the Exonerated in their honor.

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.

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.

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.