Saturday, August 13, 2011

Oklahoma Innocence Project Launches In August

The Oklahoma Innocence Project, an arm of Oklahoma City University School of Law, will officially begin work August 15th with the start of the fall semester.

The initial class of eight OCU LAW students will work alongside attorneys and the program’s director to identify and remedy wrongful conviction cases in Oklahoma.

The program recently changed its name from the Oklahoma Innocence Clinic to the Oklahoma Innocence Project (OIP) to represent its more comprehensive mission.

“The ‘Innocence Clinic’ is the class itself,” said OIP director Tiffany Murphy. “By contrast, the ‘project’ refers to the scope of activity that will take place outside of the class, including investigation, litigation and other work.”

And that work will get underway quickly. The Oklahoma Innocence Project already has received more than 100 requests from incarcerated individuals asking that their cases be reviewed.

The Oklahoma Innocence Project will only pursue cases in which there is credible evidence of actual innocence.

"This has been a very busy month setting up the Innocence Project," said Murphy. "Now the students are back on campus and we begin the daunting work of reviewing the requests and selecting cases. It can be overwhelming because we receive so many requests. But this is such an enormous opportunity for the students who get to work on the cases.”

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