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Life After Innocence
A new program housed in IL at a University Law School there works to address a welcome problem: helping those who are now exonerated re-start their lives in the free world where they belong.
A year and a half ago, some law students and I founded Life After Innocence. We were inspired by the powerful work of those who commit their careers to setting free the wrongly convicted. And we saw an area of opportunity to help in the space between the time of exoneration and the success of being able to live once again the functional lives they deserved.
The project is based in Chicago at Loyola University School of Law. My students and I work with individual exonerees trying to address any post-exoneration legal issues they have. This can include trying to help them find jobs, build up to date technology skills, acquire additional legal support for non-criminal case needs, and other areas we can lend them aid in as they re-start their lives.
It's been an amazing project so far. I’ve been honored to work with the students that have helped begin this program as well as our early exonerees like Jerry Miller, Dean Cage, Ron Kitchen, Julie Harper, Marvin Reeve, and our first client, Jovan Mosley.
In so doing, I never lose sight of the fact that our program wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the innocence projects from which our program was spawned. These are made up of people who dedicate their careers to working every day to free innocent people. They put in hours, years, decades around the nation and the world to free those in prison for crimes they did not commit. Behind this innocence movement are people like Barry Scheck and Peter Nuefeld, who started the Innocence Project in New York and their director, Maddy deLeone. There are people like Rob Warden a former journalist and tireless innocence crusader at the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern’s Bluhm Legal Clinic. Karen Daniel, who is also at their CWC, was one of Julie Harper's lawyers. Steve Drizin who, among others, has represented the wonderful Alan Beaman, is also at Northwestern. Locke Bowman represented Ron Kitchen.
The people who fight these battles are individuals with names. Just like each exoneree is an individual with a name, and particular needs and detailed situations. That is what our program is about, and what we are learning, and why I am so excited that my students are able to take part in this new program at Loyola. It is becoming an extension of what the innocence projects are doing. We are continuing their fight for the rights of the wrongly convicted, one person at a time. And learning a little more each day exactly what that means in each situation and life.
Life After Innocence has had the honor to be has accepted to help support The Innocence Network, an organization of innocence projects around the world. And if you find yourself inspired to volunteer your time, efforts, or other resources, please consider one of these programs.
One of the students writes "This summer, I participated in Life After Innocence, a practicum at Loyola University Chicago School of Law which helps wrongfully convicted individuals to reestablish and rebuild their lives after exoneration. Throughout the summer, I met some of the program’s clients, truly awe-inspiring individuals. The class has been interesting on myriad levels, but perhaps of what I have been most surprised are the positive attitudes of the exonerees. I am truly humbled and motivated by these exonerees who exhibit such dignity and courage under the most challenging and adverse of circumstances. Although my involvement in the class concentrates on helping exonerees, I am confident they are helping me equally, if not more so." - Katherine Tresley
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