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Hello and welcome to the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project’s new blog! My name is Shawn Armbrust, executive director of MAIP. I will be authoring and updating this blog along with several other members of our staff and board of directors. In case you aren’t too familiar with our organization, here is a quick breakdown of our organization and our goals:
- We are a non-profit organization that provides investigative and legal assistance to incarcerated people who have been wrongly convicted of crimes.
- Our mission is to seek the exoneration and release of persons who have been convicted of crimes that they did not commit in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia.
- Because certain aspects of the judicial system make this so difficult, another part of our mission is educating judges, lawmakers, and the public about the causes of wrongful convictions. Through improved laws, an educated judiciary, and an informed public, we believe that the number of wrongful convictions can be decreased.
- Our organization is run by a permanent staff of just two people: we rely on a network of law student volunteers and pro bono lawyers, who investigate and litigate claims of innocence.
We are embarking upon a new Web strategy in order to spread our message of innocence to the greater public. In this blog, we will give you organization news and updates, fundraising information, and discussion of relevant legal topics in the news. We hope to create an online dialogue that brings together capable lawyers, students, and volunteers; people who have been affected by wrongful imprisonment; and anyone interested in the current condition of our country’s legal system. Please join us in an online conversation and share with us your views and thoughts! We welcome feedback and are excited to hear from visitors to our new website!
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November 20th, 2006 at 3:11 pm
I want to join Shawn Armbrust in welcoming others to the new Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project website and to our new blog. I am the president of the board of the Project and I’m also a lawyer currently representing an innocent inmate who is serving a life sentence in Virginia for a crime he and his three co-defendants did not commit.
So both from the perspective of a MAIP board member and a lawyer working on a wrongful convicton case, I am really excited about the move MAIP had just made into the 21st century of technology. I am convinced that our new website and this blog will become dynamic vehicles for furthering our mission and for helping lawyers, law students and others share information about cases they are working on, problems they are facing, and current issues relevant to our work.
So welcome, and please share your thoughts, comments, and concerns with us on this blog.
Don Salzman
November 22nd, 2006 at 12:44 pm
If you’re interested in getting involved in MAIP, let me suggest the Lawyer’s committee, at least as a place to start. The Committee is responsible for recruiting lawyers to participate in MAIP’s work, and building a community in which to share resources and ideas. This blog will be a particularly valuable resource for the Committee.
I’m writing now to bring people’s attention to a decision last month by Maryland’s Court of Appeals (the state’s highest court). In Blake v. State, the Court ruled that a prisoner seeking post-conviction DNA testing is not entitled to counsel appointed by the state. However, it also held that where the state claims DNA evidence no longer exists, the state bears the burden of proving as much. The Court suggested that even a sworn representation that an evidence locker does not contain the evidence may be insufficient. Noting that the 1999 NIJ report on DNA testing identified a number of places, other than evidence lockers, where DNA evidence might be found, the Blake Court held that "when an inmate files a petition for postconviction DNA testing, the State should make an extensive search for the evidence." (Emphasis added).
The Blake Court also held that a prisoner is entitled to notice of the state’s motion to dismiss the petition on the ground that the evidence doesn’t exist, and an opportunity to respond to the motion. That might seem obvious, but it wasn’t to the trial judge.
The full text of the opinion can be found at pub.bna.com/cl/882005.pdf.