Law School Innocence Project helps exonerate inmate

A Manitowoc County judge ruled Wednesday that DNA evidence conclusively proves the innocence of Steven Avery, a man convicted in 1985 of the brutal attack of a woman jogging on a beach near Two Rivers, Wis.

Avery will be released from the Stanley Prison in northwestern Wisconsin sometime on the morning of Thursday, Sept. 11, after serving 18 years of a 32-year sentence. Avery’s is the first exoneration under Wisconsin’s new post-conviction DNA-testing statute, which was signed into law in 2001. His case is the 137th DNA exoneration nationwide and the third DNA exoneration in Wisconsin overall.

During Avery’s 1985 trial in Manitowoc County Circuit Court, 16 witnesses, including Avery’s family and friends, a cement contractor, and clerks at Shopko, along with store receipts from Shopko, corroborated Avery’s description of what he had done that day. Nevertheless, he was convicted based almost entirely on the eyewitness identification testimony of a single witness.

Avery has maintained his innocence throughout the last 18 years.

For the last two years, law students and their supervising attorneys worked diligently on Avery’s case as part of their studies at the Wisconsin Innocence Project. The Innocence Project is a program within the Frank J. Remington Center at the UW Law School.

Eventually, they obtained a court order to allow DNA testing of hairs left at the scene of the crime. The tests, conducted by the Wisconsin State Crime Laboratory, proved that Avery was not the perpetrator. They also revealed that the DNA matched that of another man who is serving a 60-year sentence for a similar crime committed after the 1985 assault for which Avery was convicted.

Keith Findley, professor of law and lead attorney on the case, worked with John Pray, professor of law, and former Innocence Project attorney Wendy Paul.

“This case highlights, once again, that the criminal justice system in this country, and in this state, is a flawed system, capable of making grievous mistakes,” Findley says. “This case should serve as a call to this state to examine seriously the causes of this error, and other errors in the criminal justice system, to see if we can learn from this mistake, to minimize the risks that such errors will occur again.”

Students from the Innocence Project worked with current Manitowoc County District Attorney Mark Rohrer, Assistant District Attorney Mike Griesbach, and Judge Fred Hazlewood, who presided over Avery’s case in 1985, to obtain the post-conviction DNA testing and eventual release of Avery.

Avery, now 43 years old, lived in Mishicot, Wis., at the time of his arrest. He has five children, including twin boys who were 6 days old when he was arrested.

“Steven Avery’s long-awaited release is a positive event for Avery and the Wisconsin criminal justice system,” Findley says. “However, it is also a tragic story of wrongful incarceration. Due to failures in the criminal justice system, Avery lost 18 years of his life that he will never be able to recover.”

Though Avery is the first individual in Wisconsin to be released under Wisconsin’s new DNA statute, he is the third who has had his conviction vacated based on the work of the law students at the Wisconsin Innocence Project.

In 2001, a Texas inmate serving a life sentence for murder, Christopher Ochoa, was exonerated after serving 12 years when DNA testing proved that he and a codefendant were innocent of the murder, and another man was the actual perpetrator.

More recently, the Wisconsin Innocence Project was successful in convincing the Court of Appeals in August to order a new trial for Evan Zimmerman of Luck, Wis., who was convicted of the 2000 murder of Kathy Thompson in Eau Claire County.

The University of Wisconsin Law School’s Innocence Project was founded in 1998, and is directed by Findley and Pray. Approximately 20 students participate in the program each year.