Project for Informed Reform Clinic (YR)

There is currently a groundswell for criminal justice reform. At the same time, much is being written about the lack of hard facts and reliable data to inform these changes. This clinic aims to step into that void and take on collaborative projects to produce those hard facts and reliable data for all types of organizations in the criminal justice reform movement needing that information. Here is a brief description of just three of the many projects/problems we will be tackling this year: (1) A corrupt detective who served on the force for decades was ultimately prosecuted by the federal government and served over ten years in prison. What failed to happen was even more shocking: no one ever reviewed all the cases he investigated. The newly elected prosecutor has agreed to allow our clinic to conduct this investigation, an unprecedented partnership for a project like this. We will ultimately write a report identifying the wrongful convictions and innocence cases caused by this detective; meanwhile, we will create a data base of law firms and lawyers willing to serve as pro bono counsel for these individuals; (2) For a host of reasons, a known – and deceased – serial killer was never thoroughly investigated by law enforcement. Using thousands of federal, state and local law enforcement records already collected, our clinic will link him to unsolved crimes in over twenty states and in several other countries; (3) A local prosecutor brought a problem to our project. Jury venires in Charlottesville are racially imbalanced for a number of reasons, and it turns out this is a national problem as well. Because information related to jurors is often confidential, it is difficult to obtain data to identify the specific problems and create meaningful solutions. At the end of last year, we partnered with the pro bono section of a company that specializes in data collection. This fall, we will create a methodology for analyzing the data and create remedies. Some students may have to travel to review files on a weekday, so a car would be useful, although not essential. Also, having a full day with no classes would also be useful, but not essential. The goal is to produce white papers, research papers and/or testimony in support of legislation related to criminal justice reform. Clinic students should expect to devote a minimum of 12 – 15 hours to clinic work each week.