Georgia Innocence Project Holds Field Day

The Georgia Innocence Project (GIP) hosted its’ third annual Legal Field Day in June for the summer interns and associates from local law firms.

The associates milled around kegs and gobbled Varsity catering under the covered area at Brook Run Park as the humidity filled air signaled the ending of a brief summer storm.

"Please, I know you’re all law students," said Georgia Innocence Project Communications Director Lisa George, "but please, play nice and have fun. Make it so my volunteers want to come back."

The event, moved from Piedmont Park because of drought regulations, puts law students back in elementary school and according to GIP intern Erin Mason, can get pretty competitive.

"I mean, we’re all law students and lawyers." Mason said. "By nature, we’re very competitive."

Events like softball toss-inspired Gavel Toss have young law students donning judge’s robes and competing for the first place trophy (won this year by the interns from the ACLU). This year, the event raised over $2,500 for GIP.

According to George, GIP operates on less than $200,000 and claims over 100 volunteer attorneys. George said the project employs two full time staff members, including herself. A lot of casework is completed thanks to the GIP’s intern staff, the inspiration for Legal Field Day.

"Legal Field Day is a fundraiser to get to know Atlanta’s lawyers of tomorrow and to let them get to know us," George said. "It also helps young lawyers get to know fellow law students at public defender’s offices in Atlanta."

Established in 2005 with the help of The Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, GIP works to free the wrongly prosecuted using DNA technology in Georgia and Alabama. Although each Innocence Project is independently operated, nationally, there have been 216 exonerations nationally using DNA technology.

The GIP has had 35,000 case review requests since 2005, but taken only 19 cases and cleared three. George said the process isn’t a matter of months, but rather, a pursuit that can span years as shelved evidence is collected.

Before 2003, if a Georgia defendant lost his or her last appeal, evidence could be thrown out. Now, the state mandates that everything must be kept for 10 years but doesn’t dictate how or where evidence should be stored, sending GIP interns on an evidential scavenger hunt, often ending in disappointment.

"The hardest part, the most heartbreaking part, is when the defendant has a compelling claim of innocence and we come across that the DNA was destroyed." George said.

But GIP interns are discouraged so easily. Often working literally on top of each other in their donated North Highland storefront, these unpaid law students are passionate about the service they’re providing Georgia’s wrongly incarcerated.

"Who wouldn’t want to be involved in something that’s giving people their lives back?" Intern Jocelyn Whitfield said.

The GIP only takes cases where DNA can prove innocence. Useful evidence can be anything from a few stray hairs to swabs from a rape kit.

George hopes Legal Field Day will help bolster the project’s efforts and raise awareness.

"We’re important to the whole state and to the state of Alabama," she said. "I’m sure we wouldn’t find a single person in the state who would think an innocent man should be serving time for a crime they didn’t commit."