The Exoneration Initiative (EXI) is a pioneering organization that provides free legal assistance to wrongfully convicted persons in New York. We primarily focus on the most challenging cases, those that lack DNA evidence.
Our mission is simple: To exonerate the actually innocent.
Hundreds of DNA exonerations in the United States over the last 20 years have raised serious concerns about the criminal justice system's failure to protect the innocent from wrongful conviction. But the DNA exonerations are only the tip of the iceberg, representing a mere fraction of the wrongful convictions. However without DNA evidence, very few lawyers and organizations have the expertise and the resources to effectively handle these extremely difficult non-DNA cases. EXI was founded to take on this important work.
Expanding on the efforts of DNA-based organizations such as the Innocence Project, EXI is taking the Innocence Movement to the next level. When selecting our cases we apply the lessons learned from the DNA exonerations to non-DNA cases, focusing on the problems proven to cause wrongful conviction. We then approach prosecutors and Courts urging them to take a second look at convictions and undo injustices.
The Initiative comes at a time when Courts are becoming receptive to non-DNA cases. Confronted with the reality that intolerable numbers of innocent people are languishing in jail, Courts are now considering the merits of innocence claims, looking beyond overly formalistic barriers which have prevented review for decades.
EXI's staff of highly experienced lawyers and our alliances with law schools and premier New York law firms committed to pro bono innocence work, enable us to pool the legal talent and resources needed to sustain complex litigation and give the forgotten, non-DNA population the best chance of success for exoneration.
download our Case Evaluation Form14 July 2011
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.
14 July 2011
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.
