John,

Every day, our team works not only to exonerate and free as many innocent people as possible, but also to pass laws that help reveal, rectify, and prevent wrongful convictions.

Here at the Innocence Project, our policy team fights for laws that support a fair, equitable, and just legal framework at the federal and state levels. I’m proud to say that since last July we’ve passed 13 laws in nine states, in collaboration with the Innocence Network and other key partners.

This work is critical in stopping wrongful convictions from happening, and we have so much more to do. We’re continuing to fight for police accountability, fair compensation laws, and more — and we need your support to do it.

That’s why I’m emailing you right now. I’m here to ask you to renew your support for this critical policy work so that we can continue to transform our criminal legal system together. Please, make a donation to support the Innocence Project before our end-of-year fundraising deadline.

We worked on several reforms this year to prevent wrongful conviction, including seeking bans on law enforcement deception during interrogations. According to the National Registry of Exonerations, of the 268 exonerees who were wrongly convicted as children, 34% falsely confessed — and this often happens after they are lied to or misled during interrogation. Young people are more vulnerable to falsely confessing when subjected to such deception because the parts of the brain that are responsible for future planning, judgment, and decision-making are not fully developed yet. And while young people are particularly vulnerable to wrongful conviction, perfectly mentally capable adults confess to crimes they did not commit.

That’s why we’ve been fighting to ban deceptive police tactics during custodial interrogations — deceptive interrogation methods during juvenile interrogations are now banned in Illinois, Oregon, Utah, California, and Delaware. We also worked with partner organizations in Delaware to pass a law to mandate the recording of custodial interrogations to help prevent wrongful convictions based on false confessions.

Among the many factors that contribute to wrongful convictions, police misconduct is a major factor. According to a recent report by the National Registry of Exonerations, 37% of exoneration cases since 1989 have involved police misconduct. That’s why this past year we pushed to pass reforms that promote the transparency of police disciplinary records and law enforcement accountability in both Oregon and New Jersey.

Our work doesn’t stop once someone is freed. Far too many states have either inadequate compensation laws or no laws at all to fairly compensate wrongly convicted people. Our team worked to pass improvements in compensation laws in Indiana and Virginia and fought for Oregon to pass their first ever compensation law, bringing the total number of states that compensate the wrongfully convicted to 38 (plus D.C.).

I’m so proud of all we accomplished together this past year, and we truly could not have done it without your support — so thank you.

We’ve got some big goals for our policy work in 2023. Will you help make sure we have the resources we need to come out swinging in the new year? Please, chip in a donation before Dec. 31 — every dollar makes a big impact on our work.

Thank you so much for all of your support. Can’t wait to see what we do together in 2023.

Rebecca Brown
Director of Policy
Innocence Project