Innocent In Prison Project International

About IIPPI

I. What is IIPPI?

The Innocent In Prison Project International (IIPPI) is a medium, which supports errors of justice awareness. Errors of justice concern anyone. When innocent individuals are imprisoned, the guilty ones are at large and may commit more crimes. IIPPI illustrates cases of possibly false or wrongful convictions. Public documents, audio and video files enrich this website beyond detailed analysis. IIPPI has been an informative and inspiring source to students, journalists, governmental officials, activists and others since 2004.

II. Definition: "Innocent"

"Morally free from guilt, guiltless, free from the guilt of a particular crime or offense, a man [person] is innocent of the crime charged."
(Source: Webster's 1913 Dictionary)

Self Defense:
"Force likely to cause death or great bodily harm is justified in self-defense only if a person reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent death or great bodily harm."
(Source: Lectric Law Library's Lexicon)

"Not guilty": the person may have been present at the crime scene, but was neither the perpetrator nor an accomplice. A person is "innocent", when s/he is not only "not guilty", but not involved in any form or fashion at all.

IIPPI distinguishes between "innocent", "not guilty" and self-defense. Cases of prisoners, whose argumentation is based on legal technicalities only, are not published on this site. The laws change, but actual innocence remains the same.

III. Introduction

In a constitutional state, presumption of innocence is effective in criminal law, i.e. someone is innocent until proven guilty.

Since we are all human, we may make mistakes. Something that was considered right in the past, may be found wrong nowadays. Questionable facts may or may not be true. This may or may not be recognized. The following four possibilities result from these two sources of error:

Someone is guilty and there is proof (correct charge and conviction)
Someone is guilty, but there is no evidence (correct charge, not provable)
Someone is innocent and the evidence wrongfully leads to the convicted person (wrong charge and conviction)
Someone is innocent and the guilt can not be proven (wrong charge, no evidence, convincing conviction is impossible)

"I had my legal business listed on the IIPPI website for several months. IIPPI is one of the most proactive innocent projects, in that it reaches around the globe. As a direct result of being listed on the IIPPI website, I have received numerous calls from individuals seeking my services. As the number of innocent persons in prison escalates, IIPPI's presence will continue to grow. I am grateful to IIPPI for the work they do. I look forward to being associated with them for the next 30 years."
Brad Holbrook, Oregon, U.S.A.

"I have been advertising on the IIPPI website for several years, and have found my ad to be profitable in several ways. First, it's an honor to be associated with a medium like IIPPI. Secondly, the ad has attracted many people to my website who would otherwise probably never have been aware of it. Finally, because of contacts made through IIPPI's website, I have had the privilege of conducting polygraph tests on prisoners who may have been wrongly incarcerated for years. Hopefully, my test results will help to rectify some horrible injustices."
Louis Rovner, Ph.D., California, U.S.A.
www.PolygraphWest.com

IV. In A Nutshell

There are not only innocents on death row, there are innocents everywhere behind bars. Unfortunately, not every conviction can be vindicated through the technology of DNA evidence. Various falsely incarcerated persons suffer from injustices afflicted by bogus witnesses, unlawful police, court appointed defense attorneys, prosecutors and judges! One or more of the following factors typically contribute to a false conviction:

Erroneous identification by the victim(s)/ witness(es)
Fabrication of evidence by police or crime lab technicians
Overzealous prosecutors who are concerned with winning instead of serving justice
Court appointed defense attorneys are not always experienced in criminal law, or even capital crime cases. It does happen that for instance divorce or bankruptcy attorneys have to defend clients who are accused of murder.
Lack of proper police investigation
False confessions that were physically or psychologically coerced
Perjury by prosecution witnesses
"Snitches"/ Informants/ Co-defendants (state witnesses) being allowed to testify in court and making "deals" with the prosecutor
Uncritical and untrained jurors. They are not aware of the "games" that are being played.
Exclusion of other suspects
Rulings of the judge who favors the prosecution
Unethical news reporters who deliberately only tell half of the "story". They put pressure on the state to prosecute, convict and sometimes execute someone.
Crucial evidence disappears, is destroyed or withheld from the defense
Lack of resources prevents the defendant from hiring investigators and experts. However, thanks to the tax payers, the prosecutor has all the resources needed to win a conviction.
Prejudice against a defendant's ethnity, race, religion, nationality, political or personal ideas
Coerced plea bargains by the prosecutor's piling on of charges that would result in a much longer sentence or even the death penalty
The prosecutor's, law enforcement's and witnesses' immunity from suit allows them to get away with perjury and other felonies without being prosecuted and punished themselves

There were always unjustly convicted women and men, and - unfortunately - there will always be. The higher the prison population rate (per 100,000 of national population), the more likely innocent inmates are confined. See the trend by country and other criteria at www.prisonstudies.org. International Centre for Prison Studies (ICPS), King's College London/ University of London, England

Consequences of "errors of justice" may be, but are not limited to:

More crimes, because the true perpetrator is free.
Precious lifetime is literally killed.
The mental state of the innocent is affected.
The life among criminals is dangerous! Rapes, beatings and stabbings behind bars are not rare, and thus the innocent individuals may not only suffer from an unjust punishment but also injuries and later HIV or Hepatitis C.
Diseases may be spreaded in the free world.
Marriages, family bonds and friendships break up.
Children suffer from the separation.
A prisoner's family and loved ones are discriminated against and excluded by their fellow human beings.
In particular children learn that the truth does not appear to matter.
Families are threatened with financial ruin, because they do not only have to retain an attorney, but they also lose one worker and therefore one salary (frequently the salary of the breadwinner!).
Misery points the way for a new generation of criminals.
Even the exoneration of an innocent cannot cure the harm that was done to her/his reputation, because there are always doubters and rumours everywhere.
Disenfranchisement (loss of the right to vote, registration as a sex offender)
Who employs a former prisoner?

"There is no crueler tyranny than that which is exercised under cover of law, and with the colors of justice …."
United States vs Jannottie, 673 F.2d 578, 614 (ed Cir. 1982)

"The only thing needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing"
Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)

"When a cause comes along and you know in your bones that it is just, yet refuse to defend it - at that moment you begin to die. And I have never seen so many corpses walking around talking about justice."
Mumia Abu-Jamal (journalist on death row)

"If you're innocent in prison, you suffer for it because it means you can't get parole because you won't say you're guilty. When people like that year after year continue to maintain they are innocent, then those people are the people we have to listen to.”
Rubin "Hurricane" Carter (freed innocent prisoner and activist)

"They [the system] are quick to convict but they are slow to correct their mistakes."
Alton Logan (freed innocent prisoner after 26 years)

"There needs to be legislation to get rid of time limitations for actual innocence. There's no time limit on murder; there should be no time limitations on actual innocence."
Sherry Swiney (activist and wife of a framed police officer)

"No government is ever pure or wise enough to claim the power to kill."
Albert Camus (1913-1960)

"Each time a person stands up for an ideal or acts to improve the lot of others....they send forth a ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centres of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."
Robert F. Kennedy (1925-1968)

"A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history."
Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

*** Before you contact us on behalf of a prisoner who claims to have been falsely convicted, we request from her/ him to submit the complete application. Thank you! ***