A UW-Madison law school program that has effectively released 15 wrongly convicted prisoners in the last 12 years has been saved from being forced to make major cutbacks after it received two federal grants totaling $1 million in the past three weeks.
The program, called the Wisconsin Innocence Project, received the grants from the U.S. Department of Justice, allowing the program to continue providing legal assistance to inmates by preserving the number of students and attorneys involved.
Co-director John Pray said the program is critical for wrongly convicted prisoners.
""The difference...for these people could be the difference between...being released and living life in prison for something [they] didn't do,"" Pray said.
Pray remembers the first exoneration the program handled, which was of a man who confessed to a murder he did not commit.
""We got testing on him that proved he didn't [commit the murder] and proved who did do it,"" said Pray. ""He was released and came to law school at UW and has gone on to become a productive citizen as a lawyer.""
Without the grants, the program would have been forced to cut student enrollment in half and lay off three of five staff attorneys, rendering it unable to provide legal services to inmates
The grants will not only save the program from cutting students and faculty, but also will allow the program to increase student enrollment.
""[The grant] allows us to expand our proactive program that looks for significant DNA testing, do more work that doesn't involve DNA testing, take double the number of students and places a new attorney in the state public defender office,"" co-director of WIP Keith Findley said.
According to Findley, the program allows students to handle real cases and represent clients under faculty supervision.
