Rethinking Innocence Projects in England and Wales: Lessons for the Future
| Published date | 01 December 2021 |
| Author | HOLLY GREENWOOD |
| Date | 01 December 2021 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/hojo.12416 |
The Howard Journal Vol60 No 4. December 2021 DOI: 10.1111/hojo.12416
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 459–492
Rethinking Innocence Projects in
England and Wales: Lessons for the
Future
HOLLY GREENWOOD
Lecturer, School of Law and Politics, Cardiff University and Assistant
Director, Cardiff University Innocence Project
Abstract: This article draws on original empirical research to explore the rise and fall
of innocence projects across England and Wales. Innocence projectsare university-based
projects which seek to educate students, to assist the wrongly convicted and to contribute
to research and reform within criminal justice. Thirty-six projects were established be-
tween 2004 and 2014 under Innocence Network UK, but following the network’s clo-
sure, projects appear to be gradually disappearing. Drawing on empirical evidence from
key actors, this article argues that the decline of innocence projects resulted from both
emerging tensions within the innocence project movement itself and through the external
constraints of operating within a restrictive criminal appeal system. It will conclude by
rethinking how surviving projects might play a valuable role in addressing miscarriages
of justice in the current climate.
Keywords: criminal appeals; innocence projects; miscarriages of justice;
wrongful conviction
Typically, an innocence project is a pro bono scheme dedicated to assist-
ing individuals claiming wrongful conviction. Innocence projects were ini-
tially established in the US, with the first being set up at the Benjamin
Cardozo Law School at Yeshiva University in New York in 1992 (The In-
nocence Project New York).1Following this, innocence projects spread
across the US, leading to the establishment of the Innocence Network
in 2004 to represent an ‘affiliation of organizations’ with shared aims of
‘providing pro bono legal and investigative services to individuals seek-
ing to prove innocence of crimes for which they have been convicted’
and ‘working to redress the causes of wrongful convictions and support-
ing the exonerated after they are freed’ (see Innocence Network web-
site at https://innocencenetwork.org/about/ (accessed 8 April 2021)). Innocence
projects across the US have helped to overturn numerous convictions and
have had a ‘profound impact’ in criminal justice reform (Weathered 2003,
p.77). As of December 2020, the Innocence Project (New York) website
459
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2021 The Authors. The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice published by Howard League
and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which per-
mits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
The Howard Journal Vol60 No 4. December 2021
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 459–492
stipulates that 375 people have been exonerated due to post-conviction
DNA testing alone,2with The National Registry of Exonerations (2021)
documenting 2,708 exonerations since 1989 (January 2021). Their success
in the US has led to innocence projects being described as ‘the civil rights
movement of the twenty-first century’ (Medwed 2008, p.1550), or as an
‘innocence revolution’ (Findley 2014, p.3). Innocence projects have since
spread internationally to countries including Australia, Canada, China,
New Zealand, Argentina, South Africa, Ireland, the UK, the Netherlands,
Italy and France. The Innocence Network now has approximately 67 mem-
ber projects including international members. Other networks have also
begun to emerge such as RedInocente in Latin America and the European
Innocence Network. However, despite the growing presence of innocence
projects in the international context, innocence projects in the UK appear
to have already undergone a rise and fall.
Innocence projects were first introduced to the UK following the es-
tablishment of the Innocence Network UK (INUK) in 2004,3which was
presided over by Dr Michael Naughton, an academic in the School of Law
at the University of Bristol. INUK operated as a membership organisation,
which aided with setting up an innocence project; hosted student and staff
training; and supplied member projects with cases from a central database.
During its operational period from 2004 to 2014, INUK assisted in the es-
tablishment of 36 innocence projects across the UK.4Innocence projects
in the UK almost exclusively operated as university clinics (predominantly
within law departments, but sometimes in journalism and criminology de-
partments) where students were recruited to assist in the investigation of
a potential miscarriage of justice. Despite appearing to have a solid basis
in the UK, innocence projects have gradually declined in number over
the last six years. The turning point coincided with the decision to fold
INUK as a membership organisation in the summer of 2014. Several rea-
sons were given for this decision including funding constraints; problems
with member projects not acting in accordance with INUK protocols; a lack
of student and staff engagement with INUK; and a diminishing number
of eligible cases.5Although INUK initially sought to continue operating
independently at the University of Bristol, this flagship organisation was
eventually closed in July 2015.6At the time of the INUK fold in 2014,
there were still 25 projects listed as members and others already operat-
ing independently of the network. While it currently cannot be said with
certainty how many universities are still operating an innocence project or
other type of Miscarriage of Justice Project (notably, many former inno-
cence projects changed their name following the collapse of INUK, and
so ‘Miscarriage of Justice Project’ will be used as an all-encompassing term
for similar projects in the post-INUK era),7there appears to have been a
continuing decline in numbers, with the last figure of 23 projects8now con-
sidered to have declined further,with only around eleven projects thought
to be active.9
Significantly, the decline of innocence projects and Miscarriage of Jus-
tice Projects in the UK is in paradox with concerns that there is an in-
creased risk of miscarriages of justice in England and Wales (Westminster
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2021 The Authors. The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice published by Howard League
and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
The Howard Journal Vol60 No 4. December 2021
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 459–492
Commission on Miscarriages of Justice 2021, p.11). Years of ‘underinvest-
ment and neglect’ have left the criminal justice system ‘on the brink of
collapse’ (Law Society 2019) and continuous cuts to criminal legal aid since
the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 have
left defendants vulnerable to wrongful conviction (Ellis 2020; House of
Commons Justice Committee 2018a). Further factors contributing to an
increased risk of miscarriages of justice have been identified as successive
acts of parliament curtailing suspects’ rights (George 2018); the outsourc-
ing of forensic science to private bodies (McCartney and Roberts 2012); and
fundamental failings within prosecution disclosure (Greenwood and Eady
2019; McCartney and Shorter 2019). This latter issue garnered widespread
attention through the acquittal of Liam Allan,10 which prompted official re-
views into the disclosure process within the police, the Crown Prosecution
Service (CPS), and the government (HM Crown Prosecution Service In-
spectorate 2017; House of Commons Justice Committee 2018b). Further
public awareness of the problems plaguing the criminal justice system has
begun to grow through work by The Secret Barrister (2018) whose first
book Stories of the Law and How It’s Broken became the Sunday Times No.
1 Bestseller in 2018. Thus, there is growing recognition that the criminal
justice system in England and Wales is in crisis.
The danger of wrongful conviction is further exacerbated by a dearth of
funding for legal assistance post-conviction (Appeal 2019;11 Hoyle and Sato
2019, p.310) and an appellate framework that is difficult to navigate. Once
a defendant is convicted by a jury in the Crown Court, they have an initial
28 days to apply for leave (or permission) to appeal to the Criminal Division
of the Court of Appeal (CACD). Applicants must typically demonstrate a
serious error in law or procedure or some fresh evidence which has the po-
tential to render their conviction ‘unsafe’ (Section 2(1)(a), Criminal Appeal
Act 1995). Applications for leave to appeal are considered by a Single Judge
in the CACD, with a decision-making process that has been described as
‘haphazard’ and inconsistent (Campbell, Ashworth and Redmayne 2019,
p.389). Where leave is refused by the Single Judge, appellants can renew
their application for consideration by the full court of three CACD judges,
but where such a challenge is deemed unmeritorious, the CACD can order
that time served by the appellant prior to the appeal hearing will not count
towards their sentence (Rv.Gray&Ors[2014] EWCA Crim 2372). As will
be discussed later, restrictive legal aid funding for criminal appeals makes
it difficult for appellants to get legal assistance at this stage (Criminal Ap-
peal Lawyers Association 2015), yet the chances of mounting a successful
appeal without legal assistance are slim. Once leave to appeal is rejected, or
the appeal is heard but refused, the only route back to the CACD is through
application to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC). The CCRC
was established in 1995 following recommendations from the Royal Com-
mission on Criminal Justice in 1991. The CCRC is an independent body
which reviews potential miscarriages of justice and refers appropriate cases
to the CACD. The CCRC has been described as the CACD’s ‘gatekeeper’
(Naughton and Tan 2010) as their statutory test stipulates, they may only
refer a case where there is a ‘real possibility’ that the CACD will not uphold
461
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2021 The Authors. The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice published by Howard
League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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