Innocent In Prison Project International

About Us

I. 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 is not here to judge anybody and we do not reject "not guilty" prisoners. However, we distinguish between "innocent", "not guilty" and self-defense on the IIPPI website.
We do not assist wrongfully convicted individuals!

II. Who is IIPPI?

We are an all volunteer organization of possibly innocent prisoners (not jail inmates!), their families, friends, human rights activists and abolitionists of the death penalty. Age, race, creed, gender, color, belief or economic status do not matter. Cooperation with other individuals or organizations is very important to us.

Our IIPPI Forum was set up to give the public a vital platform of communication, prison news and information. Feel free to join this forum for education and dialog.

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)

IV. Mission Statement

We have united to rebalance the scale of justice effectively through

Education of the people
Helping possibly innocent prisoners and their supporters to help themselves

The "Innocent In Prison Project International" (IIPPI) exists to campaign on behalf of all prisoners who might be able to prove their innocence in a retrial. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance. Make your voice heard and speak out against injustice!

V. Goals and Objectives

There are not only innocents on death row, there are innocents everywhere behind bars. We try to expose their false incarcerations. We join forces and attack criminal injustices together. Our objective is to free innocent inmates and to help expose the true criminals. Therefore, we request new trials for the possibly innocent people on this site.

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 defence 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, let alone death penalty cases. It does happen that for instance divorce or bankruptcy attorneys have to defend clients who are accused of murder. Needless to say that it is too much for those lawyers, although they definetely do their best.
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

An innocent prisoner is the "leader" of her/his own campaign - not the object! - and it is our pleasure to assist and guide them in their struggle for justice. Our close teamwork with the possible innocents and their supporters makes our project so special.

We inform the public of the destructive effects of false convictions by:

Making the world aware of the fact that as long as innocent individuals are imprisoned, the guilty ones are still out here and may commit more crimes.
Bringing the emotional pain and economic breakdown of the innocents' and their loved ones to the people's attention.

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 still out here.
Precious lifetime is literally killed.
The mental state of the innocent is affected.
The life among criminals is dangerous! Rapes behind bars are not rare, and thus the innocent individuals do not only suffer from an unjust punishment but they might also be infected with e.g. HIV or hepatitis.
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 pay 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 does employ a former prisoner?

We try to alert the unjust judicial and penal system by:

Expressing that injustices negatively influence public trust and confidence in the system.
Encouraging local involvement through education, political awareness and promotion of rehabilitation and proper health care instead of the obsolete "solution" punishment.
Coordinating letter campaigns
Organizing events
Gaining media coverage.

We give possibly innocent inmates a voice out here by:

Representing their interests
Searching for professional help
(We are a kind of "go-between")
Presenting them on the IIPPI website
Providing them with their own news forum on the internet
Helping them to help themselves

VI. Golden Rules

We support those convicted people, whose complete applications suggest that they can prove their innocence.
We are not penpals, but we try to keep in touch with the innocents on a regular basis.
All volunteers are bound to the rule not to forward any confidential data of a prisoner to a third party without extraordinary permission of the inmate.
Prisoners are loyal to us, and help us as much as they can to aid them.
All involved parties - prisoners, their supporters, and IIPPI volunteers - understand and agree that it is our all responsibility and interest to promote the goals and objectives of our project.
We must be ONE and also MANY!

"There is no crueler tyranny than that which is exercised under cover of law, and with the colors of justice …."

"The only thing needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing"

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

"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."

"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.”

"They [the system] are quick to convict but they are slow to correct their mistakes."

"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."

"No man should be condemned on a criminal charge in his innocence, because it is better to let the crime of a guilty person go unpunished than to condemn the innocent."

"No government is ever pure or wise enough to claim the power to kill."

"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."

"A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history."

If you have any question or comment, do not hesitate to contact us. *** 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! ***