The Ford Foundation

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The Innocence & Justice Project at the University of New Mexico School of Law

1117 Stanford NE. Albuquerque, NM87131 Phone: 505-271-2671

The Innocence & Justice Project at the

UNM School of Law

Ford Foundation

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page

I. II. III. IV. IV.

INTRODUCTION......3 QUALIFICATIONS........4 HISTORY........5 PROGRAM PLAN IMPLICATIONS......6 BUDGET.........9

The Innocence & Justice Project at the

UNM School of Law

Ford Foundation

Introduction

The Innocence and Justice Project of the University Of New Mexico School Of Law, has worked as a public organization that is dedicated to reforming the criminal justice system and is exonerating wrongfully convicted individuals. Through DNA testing and any physical evidence, we are able to provide the necessary information that may have been overlooked prior to their conviction. In the past, all that was offered in the State of New Mexico to wrongfully convicted individuals were Public Defenders and a petition statement. Unfortunately this provides little to no help at all. With our organization, we emerge ourselves in seeking new data within the original evidence.

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UNM School of Law

Ford Foundation

The New Mexico Innocence and Justice Project began in 2000 as a student organization, and was reorganized in 2010. Currently Gordon Rahn, an attorney who has served as the head of the Kentucky Innocence and Project from January 2001, has now taken the lead position of the New Mexico Innocence and Justice Project. Along with Professor Rahn, is a team of research assistants and volunteers; however the team is small and does not have the needed resources that most IJP organizations requires in order to conduct the necessary steps to exonerate a wrongfully convicted individual. With five potential cases in the state of New Mexico, the Innocence and Justice Project has had to delay the DNA and legal steps for each case because funding is low and resources are unreachable.

In America alone, there are many individuals who seek our help because they have been wrongfully convicted of a crime. In New Mexico, the prison holds approximately 6,500 individuals, a percentage of them want our help. Since DNA Diagnostic Center and the Innocence and Justice Project, there have been over thousands of exonerated individuals.

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UNM School of Law

Ford Foundation

The New Mexico Innocence and Justice Project will greatly benefit through funding from the Ford Foundation. This funding will allow us to strengthen and create a more solid team; with an attorney who will be assisting alongside Rahn, paralegals, which will receive and research information about possible cases, and a private investigator, who will be able to relocate any eyewitnesses that may be able to re-testify. Innocence and Justice Project has become a haven for the wrongfully accused, it is a backbone to reframing the criminal justice system, and to create a more understanding and equal environment for America.

Qualifications

The Innocence Project is a national litigation and public policy organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted

individuals through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future injustices. The Innocence and Justice Project helps all wrongfully incarcerated individuals whose cases can be exonerated with the help of DNA testing. Since 2000, there have been over 300 exonerations; the first exoneration took place in 1986. By providing these individuals a second opportunity to prove their innocence, the DNA testing is their means to this end

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UNM School of Law

Ford Foundation

result. The Innocence and Justice Project is well qualified because they provide the means to a second opportunity. The staff attorneys and their paralegals work profoundly close to these individuals, seeking justice, and have been successful in more than 200 exonerations since they began. History of New Mexico Innocence and Justice Project In 2009, the New Mexico IJP received a huge boost when it received a $780,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice. The grant enabled the UNM law school to hire Gordon Rahn, who joined the faculty last fall as a research professor and IJP supervising attorney. Through his leadership, the law school now offers both a basic and advanced IJP seminar, which provides students with a unique law school experience. Gordon Rahn joined the University of New Mexico School of Laws Innocence and Justice Project after spending ten years with the Kentucky Innocence Project as its project coordinator. He helped establish the Kentucky Innocence Project (KIP) in the Department of Public Advocacy, Kentuckys statewide public defender office. He also developed partnerships with the University of Kentuckys College of Law, Chase College of Law at Northern Kentucky

The Innocence & Justice Project at the

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University, the University of Louisvilles Brandeis College of Law and the graduate program in Criminal Justice at Eastern Kentucky University, so that students could participate through externships in the program. As the Project Coordinator for KIP, he was responsible for the daily oversight of the project, including screening all applications, reviewing and recommending applications for investigation,

supervising the investigations of the cases by student externs from the law schools, and drafting of motions and appeals seeking relief for KIP clients as well as appearing in court on their behalf. In

addition, he was the lead instructor at the schools for the classroom component of the project. Ten men and women were released from prison or had their convictions vacated through the efforts of the Kentucky Innocence Project.

Experience You Can Trust

The Innocence and Justice Project has been around for more than a decade. All of the individuals that work with the cases have been qualified for the type of work they do. Rahn received his J.D. from the Nashville School of Law in 1995 and in Spring 2000 worked with Barry Scheck to establish the Kentucky Innocence Project. The

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DNA testing experts have successfully exonerated more than 300 individuals. Since 1989, there have been tens of thousands of cases where prime suspects were identified and pursueduntil DNA testing (prior to conviction) proved that they were wrongly accused.

Plan of Action

With Professor Gordon Rahns help, the Innocence and Justice Project at the UNM School of Law has been working on a double homicide case. Basic DNA testing has been done on two pieces of evidence in which one has excluded their client. The other piece of evidence came up as un-interpretable which means it fell below the labs baseline testing. The New Mexico Innocence and Justice Project will be seeking additional testing on the second piece of evidence by a private lab. The Innocence and Justice Project has been using a lab in Ohio for the DNA testing which gives a discounted price to all of the Innocence Projects in the country.

There are a few problems that the New Mexico Innocence and Justice Project have been running into. Other then a dwindling amount of funding, there are other setbacks. The destruction and/or loss of physical evidence are by far the largest setback that

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seems to be faced. Without this evidence, no DNA testing can be done and they hit a dead end. Hopefully, with the help of additional funding, non- DNA testing cases can be investigated.

New Mexico seems to have a history of not properly handling court documents and investigative files, as they should be. Many have been destroyed when they were seen as no longer needed or useless. Weak investigative skills by local law enforcement and proper handling of evidence have also become a major setback to the Innocence and Justice Project at UNM. There have been motions made by the Attorney General to make sure that there are measures being taken to discard these documents in the appropriate.

Funding the Innocence and Justice Project at UNM can make this constant issue disappear by informing those who are handling the documents that these files are still important and my possibly be used at a later date. Since strides are already in effect, funding the Innocence and Justice Project at UNM School of Law will make these strides much larger and show those who are handling the court files and evidence that they just may be used again or seen again and destroying them may lead to many innocent lives being

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unfairly treated. This issue needs to be stressed to everyone involved, not just the Attorney General, but those who work with the court documents and with the evidence. With funding, this will be possible.

Currently, the work space available to the New Mexico Innocence and Justice Project consists of a single file room, and a small workspace with two desks for students who are enrolled within Rahns current classes at the School of Law. As part of the Law School, one element that the Innocence and Justice Project at UNM currently has access to is the law schools research search engines as well as the library and the copy services.

This workspace for the amount of work that the Innocence and Justice Project does on a daily basis is almost completely dysfunctional. With the help of funding, the Innocence and Justice Project at UNM will be able to provide enough workspace to get the job done successfully. With a potentially larger staff, more workspace will be needed. With funding, this would be possible.

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Budget/ Costs

New Mexico Innocence Project Budget Breakdown

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Category DNA Testing

Cost $20,000.00

Explanation of Fund Use 5 cases @$4,000.00 per case

Staff Attorney & Supervising Attorney Investigator

$210,800.00

salary and benefits for two attorneys

$41,000.00

salary and benefits

Paralegal

$41,000.00

salary and benefits

Investigative costs Office supplies Total Cost

$20,000.00

20 cases @ $1,000/case; travel, cost of records, etc.

$ 3,000.00

printer/copier toner, paper, staples, envelopes stamps, paperclips, etc.

$335,800.00

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Budget Narrative The New Mexico Innocence Project requires $335,800.00 to serve up to five potentially wrongfully incarcerated inmates. The exoneration process can be very expensive, and it outside the realm of affordability for the incarcerated. The previously mentioned figure will provide personnel in the form of one staff attorney and one supervising attorney, one paralegal, and one investigator. Each case handled by the New Mexico Innocence Project requires investigation and possibly DNA testing.

Since the investigation occurs before the DNA testing, we require $20,000.00, for investigation of 20 cases at $1,000.00 a case, which is an average calculation of travel expenses, background investigations, and records retrieval for one (1) case. If the investigation proves fruitful, the next step in the exoneration process is DNA testing, which is done in highly specialized lab, at a cost of $4,000.00 per case. We are requesting $20,000.00 to cover the lab fee for testing for five (5) cases.

The New Mexico Innocence Project needs to produce and reproduce documents, which requires consumable office supplies. The

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supplies needed are toner for the printers and copiers, paper and miscellaneous supplies such as staples and paperclips.

Attorneys

The New Mexico Innocence Project requires $210,800.00 for salary and benefits for two attorneys; one supervising attorney and one staff attorney. Gordon Rahn Esq., who is the Supervising Attorney and served as the head of the Kentucky Innocence Project from January 2001, until taking the position with the New Mexico Innocence project in 2010 as Supervising Attorney. Working under Mr. Rahn will be a staff attorney. The roles of both attorneys include interviewing inmates, screening potential cases for validity, and navigating the complex legal system on behalf on the wrongfully convicted inmates.

Attorneys in private practice often charge hundreds of dollars per hour, prohibiting the incarcerated from obtaining competent representation and leading to an inequality in justice. Providing the requested funding will allow the New Mexico Innocence Project to successfully fight for the wrongfully incarcerated and obtain their freedom.

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DNA Testing

The New Mexico Innocence and Justice Project is requesting $20,000.00 for DNA testing of evidence it uncovers to the nationally recognized DNA Diagnostics Center (DDC) to analyze the DNA left by the actual perpetrators of the crimes. The DDC has every piece of evidence independently tested twice, to ensure accuracy and provide the quality that has made them nationally recognized.

DNA testing is a fairly new field of scientific testing, which makes it cost prohibitive. The DDC has relationship with Gordon Rahn from his time as director of the Kentucky Innocence Project. The rate of $4,000.00 per case is a reduced rate that the DDC offers to all Innocence Projects.

Paralegal

In order for the two attorneys at the New Mexico Innocence Project to effectively fight for the wrongfully incarcerated they need a strong support staff. The New Mexico Innocence Project requests

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$41,000.00 to provide salary and benefits to one staff paralegal. Paralegals are as essential to the legal process as nurses are to doctors, unfortunately most private law firms charge upward of $75.00 an hour for work done by paralegals, a rate that is unaffordable by most.

Paralegals do legal research, and draft legal documents for the attorney, in addition to providing other support to the attorneys. Providing the New Mexico Innocence Project with funding to hire a competent paralegal will enable the attorneys to operate efficiently and serve a larger population of wrongfully incarcerated inmates.

Private Investigator

The New Mexico Innocence Project requests $41,000.00 to provide salary and benefits to one private investigator. The private investigator is essential to the exoneration process due to their ability to seek out witnesses to the crime, in addition to verifying the story of the wrongfully incarcerated inmate. The private investigator helps the New Mexico Innocence Project operate in a fiscally responsible way by making sure the expense of DNA testing is only used in cases with a strong chance of exoneration.

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Investigative Costs

The New Mexico Innocence Project requests $20,000 to be used on the consumable items required for a proper investigation. These funds will help the investigation of twenty cases. The funds will be used on travel expenses for the investigator and for any copy fees for retrieval of records.

Office Supplies

The New Mexico Innocence Project requests $3,000.00 to be used on supplies necessary for the operation of a successful law office. These supplies include a printer and all associated consumables such as toner, drum units and of course paper. The New Mexico Innocence Project will also need supplies to bind and mail the paper documents, supplies including staples, paperclips, envelopes and stamps.

Conclusion

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In conclusion, with the help of funding, the Innocence and Justice Project at the UNM School of Law can be exponentially proactive in exonerating innocent victims from the crimes that they have been convicted for. This funding will help not only those working at the Innocence and Justice Project at UNM and those victims, but also the families and friends of the victims. The possibilities of this Innocence and Justice Project are certainly endless.

Thank you for your time and consideration. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact Gordon Rahn at the Innocence and Justice Project at the UNM School of Law at [email protected].

Thank you,

The Innocence and Justice Project at the UNM School of Law