Bringing the Innocence Project as the aspect of studying Investigative Journalism, as mentioned in my previous posts since 2005, universities across England, Wales and Scotland have established innocence projects to investigate cases of alleged wrongful convictions. (Ref.4)
“We have now about 30 innocence projects in the UK of which more than 20 are members of the innocence Network UK (INUK). Innocence project movement emerged in response to growing concerns that the criminal justice systems cannot guarantee innocent victims of wrongful conviction will be able to have their convictions overturned. “ (Ref.4)
“INUk’ innocence projects do not offer campaigning or victim-support services, they undertake free, impartial casework investigations to alleged factually innocent victims of wrongful conviction who exhausted the normal appeals process.” (Ref.4)
“ To date, the INUK and its network of member innocence projects are collectively working on over 80 cases of alleged wrongful convictions. Most of these cases involve prisoner serving life long term sentences for serious offences, over half of whom have already been refused by the CCRC” (ref.4)
“ The investigations undertaken by the innocence projects generally involve going through all available unused material, conducting research on forms of evidence and areas of law relevant to the case, following up on any leads that could assist in the case, interviewing witnesses and finding new methods such us forensic science technologies that could help to establish whether a claim of innocence is valid. “(Ref.4)
There are currently 8 cases under review by the CCRC and 1 case under review at the SCCRC that were referred to a member innocence projects. (Ref.4) The Innocence Project http://www.innocenceproject.org/
An idea of supporting wrongly convicted prisoners has started from one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in the British law. The times that have been famously remembered that have exercised the legal system investigating miscarriages of justice are shown in a short film called: Reeling in the Years 1974-3, which shows two of the cases that I would like to talk about. The case of The Birmingham Six and the case of The Guilford Four:
(Ref.1)
In 1974, in Ireland, The Guildford four was wrongly accused and imprisoned for many years for the crime they did not commit. Gerry Carole, Paddy Hill, Padd Armstrong and Carole Richardson, their conviction has come to the history of British law as one of the worst miscarriages of Justice.
The Guildford four: “In the name of the father final scene” (Ref.2)
And here is the real footage from youtube of Gerry Conlon who had been to be released after spending 15 years in prison:
They were released in 2005, after they had spent 14 years in prison, even British Prime Minister, Tony Blair apologised to them.
Then, after other cases like The Birmingham six, in seventies
See more in my article: Investigative Journalism & article on Miscarriages of Justice - Birmingham Six and Guildford Four.
After the course of miscarriages of justice in seventies the Government created The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), formally established in 1st January 1997 to review cases with possible grounds to appeal.
Innocence Project steps in when mistakes are being made in the process to appeal, and when the process for rectifying them is flawed. The idea of The Innocence Project stands on side of wrongly imprisoned people giving them their last chance for appeal. As its name indicates, Innocence Project concentrates on prisoners maintaining innocence, and its leading idea is to work towards gathering new evidence that could allow for an appeal. INUK is university based initiative and was launched in 2014.
INUK founder and creator, Michael Naughton says that “it may as well be called the guilty projects” as it is often that the project have to communicate to the client that their claim of innocence is wrong and that they are in fact guilty as there are numerous occasions that the clients need to be made aware of their guilt and explained of why they are guilty in light of Criminal law.
For group of students it is as successful to discover either factual guilt or even better - factual innocence, as that will take the student’s re-investigation to its end and make it easier in the process of reconciliation and acceptance of the cause of verdict way to improve as a human being.
Even if the client is found factually guilty at the end of the student’s re-investigation, the idea of promoting the idea of questioning and having a hunger for justice and helping people not even mentioning investigative skills which will definitely help in journalistic/law/medical profession. It will all benefit all the students involved, strengthen the character and develop their personality in any different areas.
Winchester University has joined the Innocence Network and BA Journalism students at The University of Winchester are now working within the Innocence Network UK and have undertaken reexamining of couple of cases.
Journalists “have the curiosity and persistence, a strong sense of purpose, a feeling of outage about wrongdoing and a moral conviction to find the truth.” (Sparks, D.1999)
One of the core functions that Winchester journalism students have taken upon themselves by joining the Innocence Project is undertaking a “full investigations into alleged cases of wrongful conviction that meet the eligibility criteria, seeking to determine whether claims of innocence are valid and overturn convictions given to factually innocent people.” (http://www.innocencenetwork.org.uk/)
Innocence Project gets involved when legally guilty people claim their factual innocence. After careful consideration, if the decision is that there are possible grounds for appeal, and this is when universities get involved. The case is passed over to a member university, which then will be working towards “gathering new evidence that will allow convicted criminal’s cases to be taken to appeal”. (Kenyon J.)
And therefore, students of Journalism will be working either towards proving factual innocence of our clients and try their best to reach beyond reasonable doubt of our clients’ conviction to either prove their factual innocence or prove the legal system right and make the client aware why was the verdict right, both factually and legally.
As one of our students rightly emphasized, “despite limited law background a journalist is used to researching unfamiliar subjects and being placed outside our comfort zones”. (Kenyon J.) Skills of an investigative journalist serve very well in searching for new evidence, witnesses and searching through the case files for the millionth time to find something that could have potentially been missed out on or misunderstood.
Journalists have the confidence “to pick up the phone and ask questions where others might not” (Kenyon J.) and our student journalists will certainly get to the bottom of the case to find the missing link.
Other responsibilities as members of INUK that journalism students from Winchester will have to fulfil, as stated in the INUK’s core functions are to conduct and facilitate research into, among other related things like ” the cause of wrongful conviction of the innocent; the barriers to attempt to overturn these convictions that are presented by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) and the respective courts appeal; the associated harmful consequences of wrongful conviction on victims, their families, friends and society as a whole. ” (http://www.innocencenetwork.org.uk/)
What is also essential is communication, informing “the public debates about wrongful conviction and imprisonment of factually innocent people, the INUK will communicate the findings from research and the practical work of its member innocence projects with the objective of improving the criminal justice system and preventing future wrongful convictions.” (http://www.innocencenetwork.org.uk/)
References:
Ref.1) Reeling in years 1974-3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_OFo7Crigs&NR=1&feature=fvwp
Ref.2) The Guilford Four, In the name of the father : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgUWn0gVpq0&feature=related
Ref.3) http://www.innocencenetwork.org.uk/
Ref.4) Claims of Innocence, An Introduction to wrongful convictions and how they might be challenged by Michael Naughton with Gabe Tan (2010)
