Naked City

Christopher Ochoa was released from prison thanks to the work of the Wisconsin Innocence Project. (Photo By Jana Birchum)

There was plenty of thanks to go around when Christopher Ochoa walked out of an Austin courtroom last month a free man, after serving 12 years of a life sentence for a murder he did not commit. Ochoa -- who had confessed to the crime because police convinced him it was the only way to avoid execution -- owes his freedom to a jailhouse post-conversion confession by the real murderer, DNA evidence, the Austin Police Department's willingness to re-open the investigation, the pro bono work of some dedicated local attorneys -- and the folks who initially put all this together, professors and students from the University of Wisconsin's Innocence Project.

The Wisconsin program is one of an expanding list of such programs around the country; the first was founded in 1992 by Barry Scheck (of O.J. Simpson fame) at Cardozo School of Law in New York, which is working to build additional programs across the country. The Projects provide legal defense to inmates who have persuasive claims that they were wrongly convicted, and also give law students an opportunity to work with attorneys in a clinical program that addresses a cutting-edge aspect of the law: innocence cases of the wrongly convicted.

Still, a couple of obvious questions were left hanging in the Ochoa story: Why did it take a group from Wisconsin to spring him? Are there no Innocence Projects underway in Texas?

Well, yes and no. Professor David Dow, who teaches at the University of Houston Law Center and has worked on many capital cases, says that at a Houston meeting last spring of the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, there was considerable sentiment to get an Innocence Project going here. With the idea hanging in the air, Dow took it upon himself simply to send out an e-mail to U of H law students announcing his homemade "Texas Innocence Project" -- and the response was impressive. "There are maybe 450 or so advanced law students eligible to work on something like this, and there were 30 or 40 students, or close to 10%, eager to work on the project." Dow collected his several hundred letters from prisoners claiming innocence, and the group set to work reviewing, screening, investigating, and finally acting upon various cases.

"After eight or nine months," Dow said, "we've got about 40 active cases, and maybe another 20 or 30 in the pipeline." He said his students were able to contribute significant exculpatory material in a capital case working its way through the federal appeals process, that of Max Soffer, a condemned Texas inmate.

Right now Dow is financing the whole project through his own research budget, but says the Law Center dean is "totally committed" to the project, and he hopes to establish something more permanent soon. He noted that the South Texas College of Law (also in Houston) is said to be developing a similar program, and perhaps the Thurgood Marshall School of Law at Texas Southern University.

And UT-Austin? Attorney Bill Allison was the local counsel on the Ochoa case and has taught a clinic in criminal defense at the UT School of Law for 26 years. He's working on getting something started here. "Students are eager to work on this," Allison told the Chronicle, "because it offers an opportunity not only to do good work, but to actually make new law -- demonstrating innocence with the use of DNA evidence." Allison said he and fellow faculty member Susan Klein approached Law School dean William Powers last fall with a proposal to start a DNA-based clinic here. Powers was skeptical about the expense, suggesting the school would need to raise a $1 to $1.5 million endowment to generate the proposed $100,000 annual budget. "If we offered it at UT," said Allison, "we'd have 250 students clamoring for 12 spots ... The idea of post-conviction innocence has never existed in the U.S. The law and the courts are only accustomed to considering 'guilty or not guilty.' The availability of DNA evidence has changed everything." Asked about the apparent standoff, Powers responded, "I'm waiting for Susan and Bill to come back to me with some ideas for fundraising. It sounds to me like a worthwhile project, and if our faculty are interested in it, it's something I'll be happy to support."