Kirk Bloodsworth, Darryl Hunt, Chris Ochoa And You

I know three men who are just like you. Three men who were living their lives, enjoying their families and planning for their futures.

All three were then arrested, falsely accused and wrongly convicted because of clear and present flaws in our criminal justice system. These men are just three of the hundreds of wrongly convicted who languished for years in prisons across our country for crimes they did not commit.

During the time Kirk, Darryl and Chris were wrongly imprisoned (for murder and other crimes in Maryland, North Carolina and Texas, respectively), their livelihoods were destroyed, and they suffered the loss of family members, friends and homes. To make matters worse, while they were in jail and their cases 'closed,' someone else literally had gotten away with murder, and was free to potentially harm again.

To promote solutions to the problem of wrongful convictions, The Justice Project has constructed a national program of initiatives designed to increase the fairness and accuracy of the criminal justice system. Research into exonerations of innocent people over the past decade has yielded much information on the primary causes of wrongful convictions and has identified a number of common, preventable errors.

The Justice Project works to implement meaningful substantive reforms that address the legacy of wrongful conviction in this country by enhancing protections for innocent people accused of crimes. These reforms include eight major initiatives including the expansion of Post-Conviction DNA Testing to Improving Eyewitness Identification Procedures. Please see our website for the rest of our initiatives.

You also might enjoy this piece I recently wrote for the National Law Journal.

Sadly, Kirk, Darryl's and Chris's stories are not unique. All around the country, there are innocent men and women behind bars -- while the guilty remain free. We're not going to stop working until just the opposite is true.