Georgia Innocence Project
The Georgia Innocence Project is a non-profit corporation based in Decatur, Georgia, United States. Its mission "is to free the wrongly prosecuted through DNA testing, to advance practices that minimize the chances that others suffer the same fate, to educate the public that wrongful convictions are not rare or isolated events, and to help the exonerated rebuild their lives."[1]
It was founded in August 2002 by September Guy and Jill Polster, and is headed by Executive Director Aimee Maxwell. Cases that are accepted are assigned to a team of a volunteer lawyer and two interns. Four people have been exonerated by the organization's efforts, the first two being Clarence Harrison in August, 2004, and Robert Clark in December, 2005.
On January 22, 2007, a third Georgia Innocence Project client, Pete Williams, was freed after spending 21 years in prison. In 1985, a jury convicted Williams for the rape of a Sandy Springs woman. Williams was exonerated based upon DNA evidence.[2] The organization's fourth successful case is that of John White, now 48, who was released from Macon State Prison on December 10, 2007, after twenty-eight years in prison. Through the efforts of the Georgia Innocence Project, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) performed DNA testing that proves Mr. White is innocent of the August 1979 rape, aggravated assault, burglary and robbery for an attack on an elderly woman in Meriwether County.[3]
The current president of the Georgia Innocence Project is Emory University School of Law Professor Julie Seaman.[4]