John —

I know there are still five more months left in 2021, but the Innocence Project’s policy team has been hard at work this year. And I wanted to give you an update on some of the many wins we’ve had so far.

In 2021 alone, we’ve worked with partner organizations, including members of the Innocence Network, to enact 20 state-based reforms in 16 states across the country. This legislation will help advance police accountability, improve compensation, fight prosecutorial misconduct, and more. Here’s a breakdown of where we are as the legislative sessions come to a close:

Reforming police practices

Ohio and Washington passed laws requiring police to record interrogations.

Delaware passed a similar law and is awaiting signature from the governor.

Illinois became the first state in the nation to ban police deception of juveniles.

Oregon closely followed with their own ban on police deception during interrogations of young people.

Revealing innocence

Virginia passed a law to make closed criminal investigatory files publicly available.

West Virginia passed a law creating a statutory mechanism for people to seek relief from their convictions when science has evolved or when experts repudiate past testimony.

New Hampshire made several positive changes to their existing post-conviction DNA testing law.

Compensating exonerees

Montana and Maryland passed new compensation laws that will give exonerees more money for each year of wrongful incarceration.

Idaho became the 36th state to pass a compensation law, offering $62,000 per year of wrongful incarceration or $75,000 for each year on death row, and $25,000 for each year on parole or the sex offender registry.

Rhode Island passed its first-ever compensation law, establishing a payment of $50,000 per year of wrongful incarceration.

Holding prosecutors accountable

Minnesota passed a law to track and regulate the use of jailhouse informants.

Oregon passed a law to improve the discovery framework and Connecticut made significant improvements to its discovery framework through the courts.

Regulating forensic genetic genealogy

Maryland became the very first state to implement a complete regulation of the use of non-suspect DNA in criminal investigations.

Advancing accountability

New Mexico abolished qualified immunity, which will allow New Mexicans to recover damages from the government when their rights are violated by government employees, like police officers.

Michigan established a Task Force on Forensic Science through an Executive Order.

Maryland passed a statute to make police disciplinary records publicly available.

Repealing the death penalty

Virginia became the first southern state to abolish the death penalty.

I know that was a long list, but that’s the point! We’ve been able to get so much done this year, and that’s because of the support from people like you.

So I want to say thank you to everyone who’s donated, contacted their lawmakers, or shared a post on social media. Without this community chipping in whatever they can, whenever they can, this work doesn’t happen — especially not at this scale.

But the year isn’t over yet, and we’ve got more work to do. So will you make a donation right now to help us pass more legislation that will make our criminal legal system more just?

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Thank you so much for all of your support,

Rebecca

Rebecca Brown
Director of Policy
Innocence Project

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Started in 1992 as a legal clinic at Cardozo School of Law, the Innocence Project is now an independent nonprofit, affiliated with Cardozo, that exonerates the wrongly convicted through DNA testing and reforms the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice.

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