until proven guilty

innocent
Innocent until proven guilty works, except
when it still leads to a wrongful conviction.
Several UNC-CH law students work with
the Innocence Project to free inmates who
never should have ended up in prison.
by lindsay britt• photos by hannah taylor
• design by faye fang & kelly giles

20 April 2008
d
WAYNE ALLEN DAIL spent 18
years in prison for a crime he
didn’t commit. The court, which
wrongfully convicted him of first-
degree rape, first-degree sexual
offense, first-degree burglary and
indecent liberties with a minor, sentenced him
to life in prison. With unending support from
the N.C. Center on Actual Innocence and the
Innocence Project, Dail was freed. On Aug. 28,
2007, he left his prison cell behind to someone
much more deserving.
“It was the Innocence Project that was paramount
to my exoneration,” Dail said. “Many students
looked through my case through the years, and it
ended up at the N.C. Center on Actual Innocence.
Had it not been for the Innocence Project and the
Center, I would most likely still be in prison today
instead of on the sandy beaches of South Florida.”
WHAT IS THE INNOCENCE PROJECT?
The UNC-Chapel Hill Law School Innocence
Project works in conjunction with Duke University
Law School and five other law schools in the state.
The project works under the direct supervision
of its umbrella organization, the N.C. Center on
Actual Innocence, which is funded by the Z. Smith
Reynolds Foundation, Interest on Lawyers Trust
Accounts and the N.C. Bar Foundation. The law
students work pro bono, reviewing hundreds of
innocence claims from inmates and tackling those
cases that match the center’s criteria. Most cases
chosen for further review are felony cases that
hold years of jail time. In most circumstances, the
inmates have no legal representation.
“We want to help the people who are in the most
need of help,” said Christine Mumma, director for
the N.C. Center on Actual Innocence.
Rich Rosen, professor of criminal law and
criminal procedure at the UNC-CH School of
Law, first founded the UNC-CH Law School
Innocence Project in the late 1990s. It soon
became apparent that the Duke and UNC-CH
projects were duplicating each other’s work and
wasting resources. Now the center, located in
Durham, delegates the cases to the separate law
schools to ensure that the student volunteer efforts
are used as efficiently as possible.
IN STUDENTS’ HANDS
“I read a book by John Grisham called ‘The
Innocent Man’ before I started law school, so I
knew that when I got here the Innocence Project
is what I wanted to get involved in,” said Nicholas
Farr, a first-year law student from Greenville, S.C.
Whether they are inspired by a Grisham novel
or an in-depth investigative journalism class taken
during their undergraduate years, approximately
40 UNC-CH law students currently work with
the project. Student volunteers gain investigative
experience that extends beyond the classroom
setting, and they feel that working with the project
is well worth their time.
Students sift through approximately 1,500 letters
from inmates across the country who have the
same stories: They are innocent. Certain red flags
for possible innocence include cases in which
conviction is based primarily on identification,
cases in which defendants turned down a plea
bargain and letters that proclaim complete
innocence.
“We look for people who say that the crime didn’t
happen or they were not the one who committed
the crime,” said Kellie Mannette, a second-year law
student from Wake Forest and co-president of the
UNC-CH Law Innocence Project. “That’s one of
the biggest criteria.”
After the center assigns a case to UNC-CH’s
Innocence Project, the student volunteers study
the trial transcripts to look for links, such as new
evidence, that were missing from the original trial.
“We usually tell the students that their goal is
to find things in the case that were not available
to our trial that we can bring back into court,”
Mannette said.
According to Farr and his case partner, Jonathan
Jones, a first-year law student from Zionsville, Ill.,
project members are currently reviewing a trial they
were assigned at the beginning of the year. The
transcript, documented in 700 pages, is one of the
shorter ones the project has been assigned.
“We are just looking for avenues in our case that
we may be able to find that would show whether
or not this person is truly innocent of the crime for
which he has been convicted,” Jones said. “Even if
it ends up being something where you can’t find
what you need to help that person, you have at
least given their case another set of eyes.”
A CALL FOR CHANGE
Mumma realized that though the center’s work
was helping to correct judicial errors, it was time
to be proactive. She worked with the N.C. General
Assembly to write three criminal justice procedure
bills, two of which became effective on March
1, 2008. Had these three bills — the Eyewitness
Identification Reform Act, the Electronic
Recording of Interrogations Bill and the updated
DNA Testing and Preservation Bill — been in
effect when Dail’s case began, it is likely he would
not have been convicted, and he would not have
missed spending 18 years with his son.
“The great thing about the exoneration cases
is if you can say that there is a silver lining at all
for anybody who has been wrongfully convicted,
it’s that they do provide examples for why these
changes are important,” Mumma said.
The Eyewitness Identification Reform Act
formalizes procedures taught in basic law
enforcement training. Rather than doing a
simultaneous photographic line-up of possible
suspects, the witness now sees them one at a time.
21
That eliminates the possibility of the witness
www.unc.edu/bw
 “Had it not been for the
Innocence Project and the
Center, I would most likely
still be in prison today instead
of on the sandy beaches of
South Florida.”
-Dwayne Allen Dail
exercising relative judgment when choosing which
suspect better matches his or her memory.
“More important are the independent administrators,”
Mumma said. “The person who is running the line-up
doesn’t know who the suspect is. This way they can’t
inadvertently, or in rare circumstances advertently, give
cues such as coughing to the witness.”
Also included in the act is a concept that has been
implemented in scientific experiments for years. The
line-up is conducted as a double-blind test. Neither
the witness nor the administrator knows whether the
suspect is even included in the line-up. This relieves
unnecessary pressure for witnesses since they aren’t
required to identify someone.
“We are trying to take what scientists have learned
about memory and put it into practice in the law,”
Mumma said.
Dail believes a guided misidentification played a
major role in his wrongful conviction, along with
tunnel vision from law enforcement and the district
attorney’s office.
“All the way through the appeals courts, the crimes
that I was convicted of were so horrific that a person
really does not get the same look that other cases may
get,” Dail said. “Nobody wants to overturn a child sex
22 April 2008
charge without concrete evidence, much more concrete
than what is used when they convict.”
The second bill, which allows interrogations in
homicide cases to be recorded, is an important baby
step, Mumma said. In the past, sometimes investigators
just recorded the confessions, but now the entire
interrogation must now be on file. Eventually, Mumma
would like for all violent felony interrogations to be
recorded.
The updated DNA Testing and Preservation Bill
revamps an existing bill that has been in effect since
2001. Rather than just applying to law enforcement
officers, anyone who has custody of evidence is
responsible for preserving it until the convict and others
associated with the case are released from incarceration.
“We have numerous cases at the center where people
are claiming evidence,” Mumma said. “If we could get
access to that evidence, we would be able to resolve that
question of innocence or confirm their guilt.”
In Dail’s case, evidence that was assumed destroyed
was found in a misplaced box years later. This single
piece of evidence contained enough DNA to prove his
innocence. If it had been properly stored, as required by
the updated bill, an injustice could have been avoided.
“It’s not just about protecting the innocent, it’s about
getting the guilty,” Mumma said. “Gaining public
confidence in the justice system — that is what all
the bills are for. Every time someone is wrongfully
convicted, there is the other on the streets committing
more crime.” &