The annual Benefit for Innocence is the main fundraiser for the year, and for the past fourteen years. They have been honored by the overwhelming commitment of the legal community to ensuring the Project’s sustainability and growth. Your benefit contributions go directly to the work of innocence, and to the ongoing work of making justice possible.
This year’s Benefit will take place on Thursday, November 10, from 5:00p.m. – 9:00p.m. at the Depot in Downtown Minneapolis. They expect a sold out crowd, primarily consisting of approximately 500 lawyers, criminal justice reform advocates, judges and legislators, with high-profile media coverage. This year, renowned death penalty and innocence advocate Sister Helen Prejean is the keynote speaker. Sister Helen has been instrumental in sparking national dialogue on the death penalty and helping to share the Catholic Church’s newly vigorous opposition to state executions. She is founder of the Ministry Against the Death Penalty, and divides her time between educating citizens about the death penalty and counseling individual death row prisoners.
Currently the Project is actively investigating over 30 cases for men in prison claiming they are actually innocence of the crime for which they are incarcerated. They also have three Minnesota cases in active litigation. All involve common causes of wrongful convictions: mistaken eye-witness identification, lying jailhouse informants, tainted and false confessions, and faulty forensic science. In each of these cases, the Project can prove their client’s innocence, but the justice system is relying on technicalities to keep these innocent men in prison.
To learn more about this event, please visit the 2016 Benefit for Innocence Website.
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