Realizing the need for a New York-based organization dedicated to representing the wrongfully convicted whose cases lack DNA evidence, especially after the closure of The Second Program, a prolific non-DNA Innocence Project at Brooklyn Law School, Glenn A. Garber applied his 20 years of experience as a criminal defense attorney to create and direct EXI. He brought together a diverse team of attorneys, law students and premier New York City law firms to fight for the forgotten innocent inmates languishing in prison without a voice.
The Exoneration Initiative has its roots in the overwhelming response to the article, Actual-Innocence Policy, Non-DNA Innocence Claims, co-authored by Glenn A. Garber and Angharad Vaughan and published in the New York Law Journal in April 2008. In the days and weeks following publication of that article, Mr. Garber received hundreds of letters from inmates urging him and Ms. Vaughan to review actual innocence claims in non-DNA cases. They also received calls from the bar at large to assist with post-conviction litigation.
EXI started as a self-funded pro bono component of the law firm of Glenn A. Garber, P.C. with the pro bono assistance of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrision LLP, and Skadden, Arps, Meagher, Slate & Flom, LLP.
The Initiative was incorporated in December 2008 and achieved its tax exempt 501(c)(3) status in March 2009.
10 April 2012
In-depth factual investigations are essential to proving innocence without DNA evidence. Our investigations are painstaking, costly and time consuming because they frequently relate to events which occurred decades ago, before the advent of electronic records. In the intervening years, witnesses have relocated; names have changed; memories have faded; and documents have been lost or destroyed. But that isn't going to stop us.
Check out some of the cases we're investigating
09 April 2012
Valance Cole 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, and the District Attorney opposed the motion almost entirely on procedural grounds. We are currently awaiting a decision from the Honorable William E. Garnett.
