EXI is proud to announce that we recently received a $100,000 grant from the Guggenheim Foundation. We have also received a $10,000 donation from the Vital Projects Fund. Most not-for-profits are struggling and many are folding, but our resilience and successes have certainly paid off. We are extremely enthusiastic about our organization's future, and see an opportunity to acquire additional funding needed to process our growing caseload and sustain our mission of exonerating the actually innocent.

Valance has served more than 23 years in prison for a homicide he did not commit. This injustice has continued despite a judge's finding in 2003 that he was "probably innocent," because Cole failed to meet technical legal requirements that had nothing to do with guilt or innocence. Since then, EXI has found the true killer, Denzil Smith, who EXI's investigation has shown to be the same person that was named as the killer by five eyewitnesses in 2003. Smith has made multiple, detailed confessions to the 1985 Brooklyn homicide for which Cole was convicted, and his photograph was identified by an eyewitness to the shooting. In addition, unlike Cole, Smith matches every eyewitness description of the shooter ever provided, including the description provided by the prosecution's key witness.

EXI filed a motion to exonerate Cole based on this new evidence of innocence on February 2, 2011. Final arguments on the case are expected to take place in September, followed by a ruling this fall.