About Us

Identify, Investigate, and Litigate

The Center oversees law school innocence organizations at North Carolina law schools and provides legal services to indigent, unrepresented North Carolina and South Carolina inmates claiming factual innocence. Each year, the Center coordinates the review and investigation of cases by law student volunteers, allowing the students to:

• Work on real cases
• Learn from the past work of other attorneys
• Develop organizational, analytical, professional, and ethical skills
• Appreciate the value of providing pro bono services

Although we always attempt to collaborate with the prosecution when we identify a credible claim that is supported by new and reliable evidence of innocence, intensive litigation is typically required.

The Center reviews all inmate claims forwarded from law schools, journalists, defense attorneys, and others involved in the criminal justice system. Each inmate receives a response. If an inmate’s claim warrants further review but is not consistent with the Center’s mission, the Center refers him or her to the appropriate agency or resource.

Over 500 inmates submit innocence claims to the Center each year. Racial and ethnic minorities make up over two-thirds of applicants, and all applicants are indigent and unrepresented. Although wrongful convictions affect the impoverished, uneducated, and people of color more frequently than others, no one is exempt.

The Center staff screens inmate questionnaires without regard to race, ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic status. 

Educate and Reform

Exonerating an innocent person does not negate the injustice of his or her incarceration. In addition to investigating innocence claims, the Center is actively engaged in criminal justice reform which can increase the reliability of convictions and avoid miscarriages of justice from the beginning stages of the criminal investigation.

Center staff also participates in speaking and training opportunities throughout the country. These activities educate criminal justice system stakeholders and the public about the Center’s work and criminal justice reform. The following sections highlight some of those reforms.

Actual Innocence and Innocence Inquiry Commissions

In 2002, through the leadership of Chief Justice I. Beverly Lake, Jr. and the work of the Center’s Executive Director, Christine Mumma, North Carolina became the first state in the country to form an Actual Innocence Commission. The commission was established to study causation issues associated with wrongful convictions, identify emerging solutions to those issues, and make recommendations for systematic change to North Carolina’s criminal justice system in order to increase reliability of convictions and public confidence in outcomes.

Through the work of the Actual Innocence Commission, North Carolina became the first state in the country to establish statutory laws addressing the standardization of witness lineup procedures and one of the first to require the recording of interrogations. It also led to the establishment of the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission, making North Carolina the first state in the country to have a state agency with statutory powers tasked with investigating innocence claims.

Successful Legislative Reforms

Though we cannot give back lost time to those who walk to freedom, we can prevent future tragedies by learning from our mistakes to increase transparency, truth, and reliability in outcomes. The Center’s Executive Director has successfully advanced  reforms including:

• Proper preservation of biological evidence
• The Forensic Science Reform Act of 2011 which increased transparency, accuracy, and accountability of North Carolina’s forensic lab
• Increased compensation and support for exonerees
• Access to post-conviction DNA testing
• Expansion of the statutory requirements for recording of interrogation to all violent felonies and juvenile interrogations
• Recording of all jailhouse interviews by law enforcement
• Standardization of witness show-up procedures
• Updates to the Innocence Inquiry Commission process

All of these reforms not only reduce the risk of wrongful conviction, but greatly increase the efficiency and effectiveness of criminal investigations. We hope to have similar impact in South Carolina.

Successful Non-Legislative Reforms

In the area of non-legislative successes, the Center’s Executive Director helped establish North Carolina’s Association for Property and Evidence and provided training for its members. In this association, peers collaborate to:

• Develop and implement standards
• Educate stakeholders about the importance of professional evidence technicians
• Facilitate training to improve the knowledge and skills of those handling evidence