Title: Center on Wrongful Convictions

Source/Sponsoring Agency: Center on Wrongful Convictions; Northwestern University (Evanston, Ill.). School of Law. Bluhm Legal Clinic

URL: http://www.law.northwestern.edu/cwc/

Date Checked: 5/24/2012      Status: Active

Date Annotated: 2/21/2012

Topics: Criminal Law; Criminal Procedure; Evidence

Other keywords: Wrongful conviction; DNA evidence; Judicial error

Contents: The Center on Wrongful Convictions was founded in 1998 following the National Conference on Wrongful Convictions and the Death Penalty and is run by the Northwestern University School of Law. The Center’s faculty, staff, cooperating outside attorneys, and Bluhm Legal Clinic students investigate possible wrongful convictions and represent imprisoned clients with claims of actual innocence. The website for The Center on Wrongful Convictions is very clearly laid out and focuses on the work done by the clinic in exonerating the wrongly accused or convicted. The center of the page is dedicated to cases and events the Center has been involved in and the work it has done. This includes links to recent stories about the Center and concise overviews of some of the cases in which they have been involved. Along the left side of the screen is where the researcher will find useful resources on this topic. This includes a glossary of terms, and a “resources” link that provides a collection of websites doing work in this area. This includes links to other innocence projects, death penalty websites, and websites for criminal justice organizations. Although limited in scope, a researcher may also find the “The Innocence Network Amicus Brief Bank” and the “Readings” links useful as starting places for conducting research in this area of law. The Brief Bank is organized by subject, making it very easy to browse. Like the Brief Bank, the Readings page is a useful starting point for research in this area of the law. However, the Center only provides the books’ titles without any summary of the content of the book. As such, it is difficult to determine with any specificity the exact subject matter of the book. Furthermore, the books are not freely available, while the rest of the material on the site is accessible to the user at no cost. A unique feature of this site is the section entitled “Meet the Exonerated.” Here you find a brief narrative about the first wrongful murder conviction case in the United States, the United States’ first DNA death row exoneration and a listing of exonerations in all states. In the state by state listing you will find the names of those who have been exonerated, some of which provide hyperlinks to a more detailed summary of the case. Some summaries include a case chronology, and case data. See the summary of Francis M. Carroll from Maine, as an example.

Author of Annotation: C. Hepler