WMU-Cooley’s Innocence Project director turns to undergrads for help
By Molly M. Fleming
The Daily Record Newswire
OKLAHOMA CITY – Joyce Mayer spends a lot of her time helping Malcolm Scott and De’Marchoe Carpenter get acquainted with life in 2016. In 1994, the men were convicted of murdering Tulsa resident Karen Summers and were sent to prison.
The Innocence Project at the Oklahoma City University School of Law took their case and worked to free them. Now, the law school is helping them with life outside prison because there are few options.
“If you’re still under the Department of Corrections umbrella, you have access to services and re-acclimation services,” said Mayer, the legal assistant for the Innocence Project. “Because (Scott and Carpenter) were found innocent, they are not under DOC resources.”
Executive Director Vicki Behenna said the organization’s donors have provided medical care and are helping the men find employment.
Scott and Carpenter will not receive any compensation from the state for their more than 20 years in prison. Even if they did, the state maxes out the amount at $175,000. After 21.8 years, they would receive about $8,300 per year they served.
Oklahoma isn’t the only state with a lack of services for exonerees. At the Western Michigan University Cooley School of Law, Innocence Project Director Marla Mitchell-Cichon said her staff had to help the three men it has freed, as well. Michigan does not have a compensation law. She said that in 2015 there were a record number of exonerations nationwide.
“It’s important for the community to understand that the individuals did not do something wrong,” she said. “The need for services is the next phase of this work.”
OCU’s Innocence Project isn’t done getting people out of prison, so the need for exonerate services will grow. In the first two days after Carpenter and Scott’s exoneration was announced, Mayer said she could hardly keep up with the phone calls. She received emails from people in the global Innocence Project network. She also had correspondence with a woman from a Catholic parish, who said the 1,700 congregants prayed 24 hours for the case.
“We, of course, have gotten an influx of mail,” she said. “Some of it is from cases we’re currently reviewing. We’ve also received a lot of new mail from people that said, 'We didn’t realize Oklahoma had its own (Innocence Project). We really want you to help us. Can you please review our case?'”
The Innocence Project has 125 cases that are ready to have more investigation. Another 175 cases have made it past the first level of filtering and are seen as something the project could tackle.
But picking up more cases requires more money, said Christina Green, legal director. Scott's and Carpenter’s cases were on the low ends of cost, she said, since they did not require expert or DNA analysis. She estimated their cases cost about $40,000 to $50,000 each. But the three cases in investigation – meaning almost filing in court – and the other case in litigation status will be more expensive, ranging from $75,000 to more than $100,000 each.
“We wish we could bang out cases like (Carpenter and Scott) every month,” she said. “We need those monetary supporters in order for that to happen.”
Mayer is working on getting a volunteer coordinator so the Innocence Project can use volunteers to sort through the casework.
At Cooley, Mitchell-Cichon said she turned to undergraduate students to help with the work. Last summer, she started offering a six-student internship. The undergraduate students sort through the cases, which frees up the law students to prepare others for trial.
“As you become more successful, and you figure out how to develop cases, it just has to do with locating the information,” she said. “The way we responded to that was by incorporating undergraduates into our program.”
She said bringing in the undergrads also gave them a chance to educate them on the criminal justice system and train them on the system’s shortcomings.
Even if the money gets tight, Behenna said that won’t stop the Innocence Project from investigating its growing number of cases.
“We’ll do what’s necessary to do the work,” she said. “It’s too important not to do.”
