Editor’s note: This story includes mention of sexual violence or assault. Resources are available here.
The Indiana Innocence Project is in the process of becoming an official chapter of the national organization the Innocence Project and aims to fight wrongful convictions for Hoosiers across the state.
INIP serves to provide legal representation for innocent prisoners who have been wrongfully incarcerated in court. Their goal is to advocate for freedom while being part of a larger criminal justice movement.
Marla Sandys is an associate professor in the IU Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice and a founding board member of INIP.
“It's hard to hear the stories of people who have spent decades of their lives behind bars for crimes they did not commit,” Sandys said. “So when there's a wrong like that, you want to do what you can to right it and to prevent others from having to experience that same injustice.”
Sandys works alongside Valena Beety, the Robert H. McKinney Professor of Law at IU’s Maurer School of Law, on the INIP board, which has seven members.
As of 2023, 47 people have been wrongfully convicted in Indiana, 47% of whom are Black.
“One of (our board members) is an exonerated person who is a Black man from Northwest Indiana and who knows deeply about those issues in that part of our state,” Beety said.
INIP board member Roosevelt Glenn was wrongfully convicted of rape in 1993 and served 17 years in prison before he was released on parole. Frances Watson, a former IU McKinney School of Law professor and president and founder of INIP, took on Glenn’s case in 2000 and continued to fight for him until his charges were dismissed in 2017, eight years after he had been released.
After his exoneration, Glenn began advocating for other wrongfully convicted people in order for them to get the same support he received with Watson’s help.
“I became an advocate for justice, and in the process of becoming an advocate for justice, I also feel like I became a voice for the voiceless,” Glenn said.
Glenn shared his story and joined the movement to help Indiana become the 34th state to compensate wrongfully convicted people in 2019.
Glenn said Watson reached out to him to become a board member because of his experience and background.
“I was already out advocating and doing everything I could to spread the word, and I (had) even been with her on different occasions to speak to her students when she was teaching at IU Indianapolis,” said Glenn.
Glenn said he is motivated to sustain INIP because he hopes it can support people who are wrongfully convicted and do not have any support.
“I can give a perspective from being locked in a cage for all (that time) for nothing, and how it affects a person,” Glenn said. “I met several law students that came out and questioned me and visited me, and that gave me new life, and so the Innocence Project itself brings new life to a person that's in that suffering situation. And I believe the Innocence Project is going to be so great for Indiana, because now help is on the way, so to speak.”
To take on wrongful convictions cases and provide support to people wrongfully incarcerated , the INIP team is first working to establish an efficient case screening process. Beety said INIP has set up a database to track applications from prisoners to be able to respond appropriately and promptly.
“This is particularly important because there are timelines for when people can file for post-conviction relief,” Beety said. “The last thing we want is someone to write us asking for help, and they're waiting on a response from us, and they tick through their own clock and run out of time to be able to file for relief.”
By setting up this system, they aim to be diligent when evaluating applications, so that their reviews are thorough, efficient and effective.
Beety said this process is the first step on INIP’s path of representing and litigating on behalf of those wrongfully convicted.
With many applications to review already, an obstacle the team at INIP has encountered is some in the justice system denying the possibility of wrongful convictions occurring at all, despite historical precedent.
“Our system is run by humans. It's not surprising to make mistakes. What needs to happen is to learn from those mistakes, so that we don't continue to perpetuate patterns of behavior that wrongfully convict people,” Beety said. “There are all these important changes in our system that can come from knowing that someone has been wrongfully convicted. But, we still continue to have a number of prosecutors and also judges who are innocence deniers.”
Glenn added that outdated scientific methods, witness identification and jailhouse informants contribute strongly to wrongful convictions, as they did in his trial.
Glenn was convicted based on biological evidence and testimony that the head hair found in evidence was similar to Glenn’s, but DNA technology at that time was new and inconclusive in linking him to the crime. Glenn said jailhouse informants contributed to his conviction by alleging he confessed to them while in county jail.
During re-investigation in 2000, secondary DNA testing on the hair concluded it did not belong to Glenn and in 2015, testing on the biological evidence confirmed it did not link to Glenn either.
With DNA identification technology advancements and projects like INIP underway today, Glenn said he believes this initiative has the power to help prevent these flaws in the criminal justice system.
“[INIP is] getting the word out that's first and foremost, and going out and educating people is what we all try to do,” Glenn said. "That's a part of this innocence movement.”
Over a year ago, the INIP board members received a grant from the Herbert Simon Family Foundation to start the Indiana Innocence Project. According to a Maurer School of Law blog post, as a statewide foundation, INIP also has partnerships with the State Public Defender’s Office, the University of Notre Dame Law School, the IU McKinney Law School and the Maurer School of Law, with the IU campus law schools leading the initiative.
The board also features exoneree Krissy Bunch who served 17 years for her wrongful conviction, as well as Indiana attorneys Scott Montross and James H. Voyles Jr.
Together, they launched INIP officially in August and are now working to keep the project growing by meeting with volunteers and students interested in supporting the organization.
Additionally, they have worked to hire full-time litigators and an executive director, as Beety and Sandys have a full-time obligation as professors. They also plan to collaborate with students who can actively support and work on their future docket of cases while receiving course credit for their work.
Promoting education in the community is also an integral aspect of INIP. In honor of National Wrongful Convictions Day, which takes place annually Oct. 2, INIP and Maurer School hosted Glenn to talk about his experience and spread awareness about wrongful convictions. In December, they plan to host a training course for lawyers to raise more awareness about the causes of wrongful convictions.
“From my perspective, we're always trying to provide students with meaningful, engaged opportunities to give back and to learn,” Sandys said. "(INIP is) another opportunity, initiative and way in which students can get involved, whether it's volunteering their time or working in a research project or helping with other aspects of it.”
Glenn hopes educating law students about these wrongful convictions is also a way for them to be the ones creating change in the future.
“I met so many students (who are) getting this education now, they're being made aware, and they're going into fields to have that type of power now, like prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges,” Glenn said. “And these are the young people coming up now, and that's what's going to make a big difference, because the old ways are still going to be the old ways, but they're fading.”
Beety also said that she hopes INIP can reform the justice system both through education and by demonstrating how to learn from past wrongful convictions.
“How can we change how trials proceed? How can we change how plea bargains happen? Right now, roughly 95% of people nationally plead guilty. They don't get a trial. And yet, prosecutors don't have to disclose exculpatory information until the time of trial,” Beety said. “So often, people are sadly coerced into taking pleas because even though they say, ‘I didn't do this.’”
According to Beety, one solution to this is requiring prosecutors to disclose exculpatory evidence pre-plea, which is evidence favorable to the defendant provided before their trial. This was something Beety was able to accomplish when she previously founded and directed the West Virginia chapter of the Innocence Project.
Similarly, Glenn hopes to see changes in legislation because of INIP.
“The Innocence Project is playing a big role in getting legislation done as well, and they're being listened to,” Glenn said. “When I went down and spoke at the Senate committee with Professor Watson a policy advocate from New York was down there and they heard us out.”
He hopes new legislation and changes to the criminal justice system can help prevent the issues that kept him incarcerated despite countless appeals.
Loopholes in Indiana’s DNA statute regarding post-conviction DNA testing prevented Glenn from having his appeals approved when fighting his case. Glenn said in 2007, DNA evidence that had previously led to his incarceration was proven false, but due to it not being presented in a timely manner, he was not exonerated.
Because of this, he continues to be a public voice for change with INIP.
“So with the Innocence [Network] spreading this word like it is and actually helping people, it's all over the country now, well really all over the world. You see people get freed every day, just about for wrongful convictions,” Glenn said. “There’s so much attention on it now, it's like the new hope.”
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