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This is an opinion piece published in the Washington Post  by Samuel R. Gross, July 24, 2015. It is reproduced here for those who need this information and cannot afford their paywall; those who can should click here to go directly to it. Susan Mellen, left, is exonerated of murder by Superior Court Judge Mark Arnold in Torrance, Calif. At right, her attorney Deirdre O'Connor. (Brad Graverson/Associated Press) Samuel R. Gross, July 24, 2015 Samuel R. Gross, a law professor at the University of Michigan, is the editor of the National Registry of Exonerations. I do not own the copyright to this article or its included image. These are reproduced here for those who need this information and cannot afford their paywall; those who can should click here to go directly to this online article. Unlike that 2015 article, this one updates each of its links in 2025. Specifically, the links to the National Registry of Exoneration cases, which was still being hosted by the University of Michigan law school back when this was first published, but now has their own site: exonerationregistry.org . I edit the National Registry of Exonerations , which compiles stories and data about people who were convicted of crimes in the United States and later exonerated. The cases are fascinating and important, but they wear on me: So many of them are stories of destruction and defeat. Consider, for example, Rafael Suarez . In 1997 in Tucson, Suarez was convicted of a vicious felony assault for which another man had already pleaded guilty. Suarez's lawyer interviewed the woman who called 911 to report the incident as well as a second eyewitness. Both said that Suarez did not attack the victim and, in fact, had attempted to stop the assault. A third witness told the lawyer that he heard the victim say that he would lie in court to get Suarez convicted. None of these witnesses were called to testify at trial. Suarez was convicted and sentenced to five years. After these facts came to light in 2000, Suarez was released. He had lost his house and his job, and his plan to become a paralegal had been derailed. His wife had divorced him, and he had lost parental rights to their three children, including one born while he was locked up. Suarez sued his former lawyer, who by then had been disbarred. He got a $1 million judgment, but the lawyer had no assets and filed for bankruptcy. Barring a miracle, Suarez will never see a penny of that judgment. The most depressing thing about Suarez’s case is how comparatively lucky he was. He was exonerated, against all odds, because his otherwise irresponsible lawyer had actually talked to the critical witnesses and recorded those interviews despite failing later to call them at trial. Suarez served three years in prison for a crime he didn't commit. The average time served for the 1,625 exonerated individuals in the registry is more than nine years. Last year, three innocent murder defendants in Cle vel and were exonerated 39 years after they were convicted — they spent their entire adult lives in prison — and even they were lucky: We know without doubt that the vast majority of innocent defendants who are convicted of crimes are never identified and cleared. We know without doubt that the vast majority of innocent defendants who are convicted of crimes are never identified and cleared. The registry receives four or five letters a week from prisoners who claim to be innocent. They’re heartbreaking. Most of the writers are probably guilty, but some undoubtedly are not. We tell them that we can’t help; we are a research project only, we don’t represent clients or investigate claims of innocence. Fair enough, I guess, but some innocent prisoners who have been exonerated wrote hundreds of these letters before anybody took notice. How many innocent defendants have I ignored? Innocence projects do handle these cases, or at least some of them. They receive many times more letters than we do. I’ve spoken with lawyers who do this work, and who have successfully exonerated dozens of defendants. Most of them have clients who remain in prison despite powerful evidence of their innocence that no court will consider. And they all know that there are countless innocent defendants hidden in the piles of pleas for help that they will never have time to investigate. How many people are convicted of crimes they did not commit? Last year, a study I co-authored  on the issue was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It shows that 4.1 percent of defendants who are sentenced to death in the United States are later shown to be innocent: 1 in 25. Death sentences are uniquely well-documented. We don't know nearly enough about other kinds of criminal cases to estimate the rate of wrongful convictions for those. The rate could be lower than for capital murders, or it could be higher. Of course, in a country with millions of criminal convictions a year and more than 2 million people  behind bars, even 1 percent amounts to tens of thousands of tragic errors. The problem may be worst at the low end of the spectrum, in misdemeanor courts where almost everybody pleads guilty. For example, in July 2014 Wassillie Gregory  was charged with "harassment" of a police officer in Bethel, Alaska. The officer wrote in his report that Gregory was "clearly intoxicated" and that "I kindly tried to assist Gregory into my cruiser for protective custody when he pulled away and clawed at me with his hand." The next step in the case would normally be the last: Gregory pleaded guilty, without the benefit of a defense lawyer. But Gregory was exonerated a year later after a surveillance video surfaced showing the officer handcuffing him and then repeatedly slamming him onto the pavement. In the past year, 45 defendants were exonerated after pleading guilty to low-level drug crimes in Harris County, Tex. They were cleared months or years after conviction by lab tests that found no illegal drugs in the materials seized from them. Why then did they plead guilty? As best we can tell, most were held in jail because they couldn’t make bail. When they were brought to court for the first time, they were given a take-it-or-leave-it, for-today-only offer: Plead guilty and get probation or weeks to months in jail. If they refused, they’d wait in jail for months, if not a year or more, before they got to trial, and risk additional years in prison if they were convicted. That’s a high price to pay for a chance to prove one’s innocence. Police officers are supposed to be suspicious and proactive, to stop, question and arrest people who might have committed crimes, or who might be about to do so. Most officers are honest, and, I am sure, they are usually right. But “most” and “usually right” are not good enough for criminal convictions. Courts — judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, sometime juries — are supposed to decide criminal cases. Instead, most misdemeanor courts outsource deciding guilt or innocence to the police. It’s cheaper, but you get what you pay for. We can do better, of course — for misdemeanors, for death penalty cases and for everything in between — if we’re willing to foot the bill. It’ll cost money to achieve the quality of justice we claim to provide: to do more careful investigations, to take fewer quick guilty pleas and conduct more trials, and to make sure those trials are well done. But first we have to recognize that what we do now is not good enough. Estimated Rates of Wrongful Convictions in the U.S. I, Steph Turner, followed the academic literature trying to estimate the rate of wrongful convictions in the U.S. The earliest publications do not make much of a distinction between "legal innocence" on a procedural technicality and "actual innocence" of having no role in the reported incident. Most of the later articles do emphasize this distinction. Perhaps unsurprisingly, researchers with an invested interest in the status quo (i.e., who work within the criminal justice system, such as a judge) argue for lower rates than academicians with less of a vest interest (i.e., criminologists independent of the judicial system's status quo). This encapsulates the available findings as of 2021. More researched estimates have emerged since this was written. Click to open a PDF summarizing various estimated rates of wrongful conviction by researchers, including one authored by Gross and another co-authored by Gross. Besides the National Registry of Exonerations , other such listings exist. Innocents Database DNA Exonerations Database If you know of any other, please add them in the comments below. Thank you.

Need-response seeks to partner with any law school A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z The ABA warns of the erosion of the rule of law . What if that’s merely the tip of the iceberg?   Needs evolved first The new profession of need-response  has the answer:   Never put the role of law ahead of the inflexible needs   for which laws exist to serve.   No law can compel action at odds with the inflexible reality of our needs. Yet we keep trying. And we keep failing.   Need-response puts inflexible needs ahead of flexible laws. This new professional field emerges from the new social science of need, called anankelogy .   Learn about the needs that laws exist to serve Anankelogy provides illuminating insight into what fuels the necessity for laws. Consider this sample of anankelogical insight  that gets easily overlooked in the study of law. inflexible needs : While no one sits above the law, no law sits above the needs they exist to serve . The needs arrived first, as objective fact . They are inflexible and cannot be manipulated to serve laws. Attempts to acquiesce to social pressure readily results in psychological maladies. The law works best when opposing questionable behavior, and never to oppose the inflexible needs themselves. properly resolving needs : The legal system offers to the winning side in a court battle or ballot contest some relief from the pain of unmet needs. There is no such thing as pain apart from unresolved needs . Offering only relief from pain, while reinforcing the pain of the losing side, easily provokes more problems and conflicts. Only when all sides can fully resolve their needs without imposing on others can human flourishing emerge. While application of law can be necessary, its improper application can risk doing more harm than good. toxic legalism : Solzhenitsyn warned us that a society too focused on law undermines human flourishing . The adversarial legal system needlessly divides us, alienates us from each other, hinders our human potential for love . Instead of honoring the needs of others as we would have them honor our own, we slip into moral laziness and set ourselves up for repeated disappointment, and utter disillusionment . Other helpful insights include: objective morality , problem levels , symfunction capture , and law-fit. When you realize the law is not enough Need-response could offer a meaningful alternative for disillusioned lawyers  who seek a less confrontational approach to resolving conflicts. And for those disillusioned with lawyers , or disillusioned with the adversarial judicial system , who seek a better way to resolve their conflicts. Let’s partner to learn together. Alphabetical list of US law schools Anankelogy can learn much from the law. Likewise, the law can learn much from anankelogy. Let us learn from each other. A Akron Alabama Albany American Appalachian Arizona Arizona State Arkansas - Fayetteville Arkansas - Little Rock Atlanta's John Marshall Law School Ave Maria School of Law B Baltimore Barry University Baylor Belmont University Boston College Boston University Brigham Young Brooklyn Buffalo C California - Berkeley California - Davis California - San Francisco California - Irvine California - Los Angeles California Western Campbell Capital Case Western Reserve Catholic University of America Chapman Charleston Chicago Chicago-Kent Cincinnati City University of New York Cleveland State Colorado Columbia Connecticut Cooley Law School Cornell Creighton D Dayton Denver DePaul Detroit Mercy District of Columbia Drake Drexel Duke Duquesne E Elon Emory F Faulkner Florida   Florida Florida International Florida State Fordham G George Mason Georgetown George Washington Georgia Georgia State Golden Gate Gonzaga H Harvard Hawaii Hofstra Houston Howard I Idaho Illinois Chicago Illinois Indiana University - Bloomington Indiana University - Indianapolis Inter-American Iowa J Jacksonville Judge Advocate General's School K Kansas Kentucky L Liberty Lincoln Memorial Lewis and Clark Louisiana State Louisville Loyola - Chicago Loyola - Los Angeles Loyola - New Orleans M Maine Marquette Maryland Massachusetts McGeorge Memphis Mercer Miami Michigan State Michigan Minnesota Mississippi College Mississippi Missouri Missouri - Kansas City Mitchell Hamline Montana N Nebraska Nevada New England Law | Boston New Mexico New Hampshire (formerly Franklin Pierce) New York Law School New York University North Carolina North Carolina Central North Dakota Northeastern Northern Illinois Northern Kentucky Northwestern Notre Dame Nova Southeastern O Ohio Northern The Ohio State Oklahoma Oklahoma City Oregon P Pace Pennsylvania Penn State-Dickinson Law Pepperdine Pittsburgh Pontifical Catholic of Puerto Rico Puerto Rico Q Quinnipiac R Regent Richmond Roger Williams Rutgers S St. John's Saint Louis St. Mary's St. Thomas (Florida) St. Thomas (Minnesota) Samford San Diego San Francisco Santa Clara Seattle Seton Hall South Carolina South Dakota South Texas-Houston Southern University Southern California Southern Illinois Southern Methodist   Southwestern Stanford Stetson Suffolk Syracuse T Temple Tennessee Texas Texas A&M (formerly Texas Wesleyan) Texas Southern Texas Tech   Toledo Touro Tulane Tulsa U UNT Dallas Utah V Vanderbilt Vermont Villanova Virginia W Wake Forest Washburn Washington and Lee Washington Washington University Wayne State Western New England Western State West Virginia Widener-Delaware Widener-Commonwealth Willamette William And Mary Wilmington Wisconsin Wyoming X Xavier Law School Y Yale Yeshiva Z If you know of a law school missing from this list, then let us know in the comments below. Thank you.

Welcome to the complementary profession of need-response. Who watches the watchers? Executive Summary [TLDR] Need-response emerges as a new professional service to complement, or potentially compete with, the adversarial judicial system to serve the public’s justice needs. Only need-response emphasizes understanding the unresolved needs fueling conflicts, and how to more effectively respond to such needs. We invite everyone working within the judicial system to engage this fresh approach to serving one another’s underserved needs.   Thank you for your service Wherever you serve the public in helping us all to stay safe and orderly, we thank you for your service. We appreciate how challenging it can be to reach just outcomes amidst our human complexities. The Anankelogy Foundation  can provide you some helpful insight to unpack those complexities, with its new proposed professional service of need-response .   This visionary service seeks to support your efforts to address and resolve justice needs. We address the justice needs of the people based on this new social science of anankelogy , the disciplined study of need.   Every need persists as an objective fact Foundational to this new academic field is the empirically based assertion that core needs exist as objective fact . Need-response as applied anankelogy exists to serve such “ inflexible needs ”. Such needs can never bend to serve arbitrary laws  or the authorities that exist to address such needs.   Consider the implications of this vicious cycle. legalism cycle The more one suppresses their inflexible needs to appease authority, the less they can fully function. The less they can fully function, the less capable they can comply with every legal requirement. The less they comply with every legal code, the more easily targeted by law enforcement. The more targeted by law enforcement, the more prone to suppress their inflexible needs to appease that authority. Back to square one.   Trapping us in pain of our unresolved justice needs An ethical dilemma emerges. The more the impersonal approach of law enforcement elicits poor outcomes benefitting its practice, the more motivated reasoning can blind judicial officials from its own role in such poor outcomes. The more you benefit as an institution from the negative situations you arguably help to create, the less incentivized to produce just outcomes for the people.   We appreciate how police must take an adversarial stance when apprehending someone presenting a threat. After such a person gets placed in custody, we see less room to impose adversarial assumptions. But we recognize such adversarialism is built into the very structure of the judicial process. Need-response can complement law enforcement’s adversarialism, in ways not normally contemplated by ADR or arbitration options. It can illuminate the biases that adversarialism often impose. Moreover, it can potentially produce more just results by incentivizing those in a conflict to first exhaust all possible mutuality options.   We do not presume adjudicated individuals, either complainants or defendants, as oppositional. We first affirm their inflexible needs that cannot be changed. Then we address the improper ways they behaved to redress such needs.   We cast a broader net to explore both internal factors and external factors shaping their options. We stay clear of either extreme: victimhood (overemphasizing external factors) or hyper-responsibility (overemphasizing internal factors). We hold ourselves accountable to produce just outcomes, in ways rarely if ever seen in the judicial process.   No longer exclusive The high volume of unsolved crimes , along with underreported violence , countered by estimated high rates of wrongly convicted innocents ,  suggests you could use a fresh approach to serving our justice needs. One less tied to the imposing constraints of advers arialism , and less beholden to constructs of law not held accountable to empirically measurable outcomes. In other words, prioritizing substantive justice over procedural justice.   To serve this noble goal of resolving more justice needs, need-response asserts a radical claim:   Anyone in the adversarial judicial system has the   privilege and not the exclusive right to serve the justice needs of the people .     In the U.S. Declaration of Independence, Jefferson hints to this necessity for an alternative when a government slips into tyrannical tendencies, or worse.   "All experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."   In other words, creeping normalcy  coerces us to adjust to institutions creeping from their mission  to serve the people in a just democratic society. Without any other option, the people acclimate to the mounting pain of their unresolved justice needs. Consider the evolved dependence upon plea deals to avoid overwhelming the court docket. Consider how this avoids guaranteeing every accused defendant of their constitutional right to a fair trial. Then consider this as mission creep on steroids. As the sole institution available to the public to address their justice needs, the adversarial justice system receives little incentive to improve outcomes. True to the American adventure of competition, need-response now presents itself as the incentivizing market force to improve just outcomes.   Opening a new path to resolve persisting needs In contrast to Jefferson’s rhetoric, need-response does not seek to abolish the current forms of the judiciary, but instead to complement it, and where necessary to compete with it, to identify, address and resolve justice needs.   We invite you  to learn with us how to utilize need-response to better fulfill your mission to serve justice needs. You can partner with us, as we extend a warm welcome to support a client’s noble wellness goal . One client at a time. Status quo institution Need-response alternative Justice means procedural; process focused substantive; results focused Approach adversarial; win-lose approach mutuality; win-win approach Service serve flexible laws & powers serve inflexible needs Offer relieve pain of survivors remove pain by resolving needs Responsibility focus risk objectify individuals psychosocial balance Legitimacy ascribed; coax public trust earned; earn public trust Aim maintain social order improve overall wellness Perspective myopic; reductive to what’s manageable holistic; attentive to all Manifest outcomes toxic legalism; poor need orientations social love ; improved need orientations Or you can drag your feet, delay your response, resist our intent, and even oppose our efforts. All under color of law. But we must address inflexible justice needs, with you or without you. And let the people democratically decide which they prefer. But the reality of inflexible needs is never legitimately up for any vote or court opinion.   Let us help you resolve justice needs Resisting inflexible needs is never an option. Those who do under color of law become professionally and personally complicit  in the rising number of poor wellness outcomes, like major depression, severe anxiety, recurring addictions, and deaths of despair. Need-response offers such officials an off-ramp from such damaging objectification.   Instead of always processing a mounting pile of troubling cases, need-response can potentially reduce that load as it cultivates greater responsiveness to the inflexible needs spilling into violent incidents. Need-response aims to get to the source of our problems, which points to our persisting unresolved needs. You can either be a part of this fresh alternative, or see how it helps others improve their lives and their careers.   Any injustice in the name of justice We start with viable claims of innocence that can be independently verified. We investigate the biases of judicial officials, starting with prosecutors, who delay justice more for their own purposes than the public interest for a just society. We methodically explore limitations within the adversarial legal process, but not in an adversarial way. We invite the wrongly convicted with a viable innocence claim to correlate their case with those already exonerated. We calculate the degree of their likely innocence instead of imposing a black-and-white guilt or innocence category. In other words, we aim to improve identifying the wrongly convicted innocent with a more scientifically valid process.   In case their estimated innocence fails to provide a timely, just outcome, we offer them the opportunity to demonstrate their responsiveness to all involved in a conflict. We incentivize all to fulfill the purpose of law, which is prosocial behavior toward each other. That includes incentivizing questionable authorities to be equally prosocial. Inviting you to help shape this pioneering approach We are testing a radically fresh approach. We link you with a sample of those you impact, so you can improve your effectiveness in enabling them to resolve their justice needs. This provides you the opportunity to improve your legitimacy  to serve a wary public.   By offering you sponsorship opportunities, we help you nurture the public’s trust by helping you respond more effectively to their underserved justice needs. Much better than currently possible by applying the law alone.   Learn more… For a more informed decision, learn more at AnankelogyFoundation.org . Follow us on the Need-Response podcast  to keep informed how this new professional field of need-response is taking root and growing.   Let’s grow a better society together by holding each other accountably responsive to each other’s inflexible needs . Let’s incentivize each other to move past adversarial acrimony and impersonal alienation to make room for our untapped potential for more platonic love .   If we don’t, who will?   Respectfully,   The Anankelogy Foundation

Love as honoring the needs of others as one's own Which do you think is best? We must regard laws as the highest standard for our behavior. OR Love serves as a higher standard for our behavior over mere law. Anankelogy puts our needs under the microscope. And examines how we address our needs. Need-response as applied anankelogy looks at the results. It finds the motive of love more powerful and legitimizing than the lesser power of law. How you address needs predicts wellness outcomes. Consider these seven options. The last unleashes our potential to love one another more, to honor the needs of others as our own. Improperly relieving pain of unmet needs Properly relieving pain of unmet needs Improperly easing need s Properly easing needs Improperly resolving needs Properly resolving needs Bronze standard Silver standard Gold standard Platinum standard Love as the highest standard 1. Improperly relieving pain of unmet needs You can address your painful needs by chiefly relieving your pain in ways that impose upon the needs of others. By "improperly", we mean antisocial. If I attempt to relieve the pain of feeling insulted by you by hitting you in return, then I am "improperly relieving my pain". You may hit me back, which ensures I suffer more pain. Besides, my need to feel respected will persist unresolved. 2. Properly relieving pain of unmet needs You can address your painful needs by chiefly relieving your pain in ways that avoid imposing upon others. By "properly", we mean prosocial. You could drink plenty of alcohol to numb your emotional pain, for example, but stay home alone instead of venturing out to drive. You "properly relieve your pain" by not risking the safety of others in the process. But your pain persists. Whether improperly or properly relieving your pain, your wellness outcomes likely results in a level of dysfunction . You find you must prioritize relieving your pain of your unmet needs. You risk becoming addicted to "substitutes" that can only numb your pain. They do little to nothing to improve your wellbeing. Your ability to function remains compromised, leaving you trapped in perpetual pain. At least until you can resolve those needs. 3. Improperly easing needs You can seek to ease your needs in ways that in some way impose something on others. You partially resolve your needs, but in a way that impedes others from resolving their need. Fully resolving your needs could be out of reach for you. You indulge in pornography, for example, to placate your burning desire for intimacy. You ignore the fact that the young women in the video were obviously coerced into performing acts for your viewing pleasure. 4. Properly easing needs You seek to ease your needs in ways that do not impose on others. You partially resolve your need, but in a way that only negatively impacts yourself. Avoiding any harm to others is noble, but can trick you into rationalizing your doing alright. You consume plenty of junk food, for example, when you cannot make enough time to prepare a healthy meal. You force yourself to fulfill all of your social commitments, despite your declining level of energy. Whether improperly or properly easing your needs, your wellness outcomes likely results in a level of symfunction . You find you must prioritize easing your unmet needs. The more you rely on "alternatives" that partially eases your needs, the more you risk slipping into a symfunction trap . Which becomes for many a gateway into dysfunction. 5. Improperly resolving needs You can try to resolve your needs fully in a way that hinders others from resolving their needs. You momentarily get to restore yourself to full functioning, but at the involuntary expense of others. If I fully quench my thirst by stealing a bottle of water from you, then I am "improperly resolving my need" for water. Sure, I can get back to fully functioning. But at the cost of your ability to restore full wellness. 6. Properly resolving needs You can attempt to resolve your needs fully in a way that does not hinder others from resolving their needs. This serves as the best approach, the best way to address your needs. If I fully resolve a need I am experiencing, and my actions or inactions does not harm you in any way, then I am "properly resolving my need". This can be broken down into four degrees, each characterized by a prized metal. A . The bronze standard - Your actions to resolve your needs fully mildly inconveniences others. E.g., while at a restaurant, you carefully select and purchase only the food your body requires, which forces some to wait a little longer in line. B . The silver standard - Your actions to resolve your needs fully has no impact upon others. E.g., you invest your personal time staying in shape with healthy physical exercise. C . The gold standard - Your actions to resolve your needs fully actually helps others. E.g., you promptly shovel snow from your sidewalk after a snow storm, which allows passersby to not risk slipping on ice as they must walk past your house. D . The platinum standard - Your actions to resolve your needs fully helps everyone. E.g., you fully resolve your need for meaning in life when sacrificing it to save all life on earth from an impending disaster only you can stop. 7.   Love as the highest standard Need-response asserts the higher standard of properly resolving needs. The more you can prioritize respecting the inflexible needs of others as your own, the more you can inspire others to respect your inflexible needs. Not always, of course. But with sufficient skill and grace, such " social love " takes us much farther than typical modes of privileged selfishness. Need-response encourages and incentivizes the development of such love in us all. Whether improperly or properly resolving your needs fully, your wellness outcomes likely results in a level of peakfunction . You prioritize promptly resolving your needs fully. You enjoy access to "primary" resources that evolved to restore you to full functioning capacity. You do not need to be wealthy to reliably access such primary resources. But economic security correlates with sustainability of a peakfunction level. Without such a love-centered commitment to honor the needs of others as our own, we easily fall back on reliance upon laws to tell us how to behave. Authority enforcing laws relies blindly on external motives. Love nurtures sustainable internal motives. The internal motive of love can outlast the external motivation by laws or authority. Need-response nurtures our underutilized potential to be more loving to each other. The power of love transcends the supposed supremacy of law. Need-response can complement efforts by law enforcement authorities to improve our responsiveness to each other's vulnerable needs. Or need-response can compete with legal authorities by outperforming their legalis m . The more we can properly resolve needs with the power of love, the less we fall prey to legalistic tyranny. Need-response holds us all accountable to honoring each other's inflexible needs, including legal authorities. Need-response asserts this as the higher standard of love . And dares to challenge the legitimacy of any authority whose imposing actions correlate with poor wellness outcomes, such as anxiety and depression. Wherever law seeks to reign supreme, need-response challenges the results. And dares to assert the supremacy of love as a standard higher than law. Anankelogy asserts that there is no greater authority than resolving needs with love . Need-response lets our untapped love reign supreme. back-to-top

Optimize your online innocence narrative with these helpful criteria Apply these standards mostly to your Summary . But these also apply to your Synopsis and other elements of your Innocence Profile . Use these criteria to get the most out of your publicly available innocence narrative. A. Entice your viewers Grab attention . Keep the viewer engaged. Speak directly to obvious pain points. Find a way to motivate the reader to say to themselves, “Oh, I’ve gotta read the rest of this!” Twists . Use this popular device in movies. You take the reader down one path, then abruptly switch up. For example, you called the police to report a crime, then the police showed up to arrest you! This prompts the viewer to keep reading, to find out how this could be. Write in the 3rd person . Instead of saying “I” or “me”, use your name. Let your descriptions seem like they are from a neutral, less partial observer. Write concisely . Consider the short attention spans of your readers. Avoid giving them any reason not to scan your whole profile. Clarity . Avoid any confusion. Cover the who, what, where, when, why and how in as few of words you can. Replace anything that sounds even a little confusing.   B. Keep your viewers Check spelling and grammar . Use a free service like Grammarly to ensure your writing is free from simple mistakes. Read it aloud . Listen for mistakes you hadn’t noticed. Does it sound engaging? Does it flow naturally? Try improving it to sound like more like a natural conversation. Rewrite . Don’t settle on your first draft. Edit the weak spots. Replace passive verbs with an active verb. For example, replace “I was accused by my mom” to “My mom accused me.” Use descriptive language, that can provoke imagery in the reader’s mind. Avoid too many “is” and “are”. Replace them with more descriptive verbs. Avoid jargon . Don’t assume viewers know the abbreviations or less common terms you use. Keep the language accessible for anyone.   C. Respect your viewers Nonjudgmental . No accusations about corrupt DA or judges, even if they are corrupt. Simply describe what occurred and trust the viewer to judge for themselves. No anger . No ALL CAPS shouting at the reader. Trust the viewer to empathize with your plight. Defy stereotypes . Write with a language that exemplifies your innocence. No cussing. No defensiveness. No condescending rhetoric. Give no reason for others to doubt your integrity. No doxxing . Leave out any personal information about others that could expose their privacy. Don’t publish their address, as you wouldn’t want them to publish your private address. Transparency . Admit your shortcomings. Everyone is imperfect. Cultivate trust with being humble and upfront about your mistakes. Be specific . Don’t exaggerate. Without getting too wordy, give the viewer the essential details.   D. Inspire your viewers Suspense . Tease their curiosity. Leave out less important stuff that you can always share later. Entice their interest to know more, which can motivate them to follow you online. Appreciate the viewer . Be thankful they invest their precious time taking interest in your story. You could even thank them as you wrap up your narrative. CTA . Close with a call-to-action. Suggest a simple thing the viewer can do to help support your innocence. For example, “You can show your support by signing my petition below.”   Improving your innocence profile together Use examples that have been posted for a while. Let them model how you can improve your own innocence narrative.   Ask a friend to read your first draft. And second. Invite their feedback. If you go onto a public exoneration campaign, they may be among your first passionate supporters.   Share these criteria with them. Then ask them to rate your innocence narrative on each of these points. Of course, thank them for their help.   Improve your innocence narrative until you’re satisfied it’s ready for public viewing. But don’t wait for perfection. Get your story out there so people can see the injustice you daily endure.   Together, we can improve not only your innocence narrative, but this platform. To ultimately improve our chances for exonerating the wrongly convicted innocent like you.

Jun 06 2023 Jamie Weissmann This replicates verbatim the news release posted at the California Innocence Project, which has since been renamed as the California Western Innocence and Justice Project . Click here  to see its source. With the rapid ascension of Chat-GPT and other AI programs, we are witnessing what may be the most significant technological development in history. Here at California Western, we are already on the forefront of an AI-powered paradigm shift in the way lawyering is done, embracing the possibilities this technology offers to vastly improve our justice system. In November 2022, CWSL’s California Innocence Project (CIP) became a beta tester for CoCounsel, the company CaseText’s AI legal assistance application. CoCounsel is a generative Large Language Model (LLM) system designed by OpenAI and can “read, write, and understand texts at a post-graduate level.” CoCounsel can do legal research in a fraction of the time that a lawyer can, combing through case files, reviewing and summarizing documents, drafting correspondence, and more. In this interview, CIP’s managing attorney Michael Semanchik explains how he is using CoCounsel and why he thinks embracing AI is the best course of action for lawyers. What does CoCounsel free you up to do? In the past, it would take 15 minutes to draft a letter to a client. CoCounsel made it possible to get a first draft done in under a minute. Similarly, I’ve asked CoCounsel to summarize five pages of transcript on a complicated forensic science topic. It provided a five-bullet summary in plain English. The time saved using skills like these can certainly allow me to do more on my cases. As for the future, I imagine dropping 2,000 pages of transcripts into a system and getting a perfectly drafted “Statement of Facts” on the other side. That same system might know how to identify all the legal issues in the transcripts and highlight them as possible issues to raise on appeal or in a post-conviction world. We’re definitely getting close, but I would say still a few months to a year off from homing in on exactly what an attorney wants and needs. Does it make for better lawyering? As far as analyzing and responding to opposing counsel’s briefs, there’s no question it can make for better lawyering. I would argue that in the long-term, failure to embrace and utilize AI may result in a lawyer not being the best and most competent advocate for their client. Has it allowed you to take on more clients? I would say it’s probably too early to tell but I could certainly see a situation where we take on more clients. It’s likely that we will be able to home in on the most viable cases, meaning we’re spending our limited resources most efficiently. Might it lead to more exonerations? This is a definite possibility. Relying on humans to sift through thousands of pages of police reports and transcripts looking for a needle in a stack of needles is incredibly challenging, resource intensive, and likely not without some missteps or faults. By “outsourcing” this portion of our process to AI, we should be able to move through cases quicker and locate evidence of innocence that will ultimately lead us to exonerations. Have you run into any issues with unreliable information? I have seen blatant errors on ChatGPT. With CoCounsel, I have seen errors, though less so. This may be because the system is relying on the information you provide. Are there any downsides to using AI in this way? The only downside is that AI is in its infancy. We still need more lawyers using it every day so the AI and engineers can better craft the responses from the system. And we need additional skills built into the platform to cover all areas of law. As AI gets more intelligent and efficient, how do you see the field of law– and particularly of innocence projects– evolving? I would hope to see that getting an innocent person out of prison goes from an average of 16 years down to three or four. Perhaps we get to a point where AI can start to identify wrongful convictions as soon as they happen. I know it sounds odd, but putting innocence organizations out of work is our goal.

Need-response uses this downloadable tool to measure impacted wellness outcomes Need-response holds all accountable to positive wellness outcomes. Armed with the knowledge that organic needs are inflexible , need-response prioritizes wellness outcomes over social norms. Anankelogy recognizes how solving problems depends upon resolving needs. The less your needs can resolve, the greater your problem of diminished wellness. The more your needs resolve, the greater your wellness. Wellness efforts like Public Exoneration aims to improve wellness by solving stubborn problems. The closer the wrongly convicted innocent draws towards exoneration, the more well they measurably become. Need-response provides this free tool to gage wellness impacts on its wellness improving efforts. Click the button at the bottom to download your own copy. Using thorough and brief measures This tool utilizes thoroughly tested psychometric tests at the start and finish. But uses a simple test in between. This keeps it relatively easier to use. Such measures lack full reliability. Self-reporting tends to lack accuracy because of inherent biases. But this tool adequately serves its purpose to hold wellness efforts accountable to measurable results. The first page serves to display the results tracked in the pages below. The next three pages (in light green), along with the last three pages, check wellness using multi-item self-assessments. The middle pages (in light purple) simple asked how to self-assess the three measures. Three measures Many items could be assessed. Such as including one's sense of helplessness. Or the level of anger felt when wronged. But this tool aims to stay simple, for relatively easier use. At the risk of becoming too reductive, this tool seeks to capture how one is doing by assessing three simple wellness markers. Anxiety level . Self-assesses how anxious one is at the time of response. A persisting problem forces you to handle more than you're likely prepared to take on. And this can turn overwhelming. Depression level . Self-assesses how depressed one is at the time of response. Any persisting problem likely robs you of energy. Solving such a problem can help you get back on your feet. Addictiveness level . Self-assesses how addictive one is at the time of response. This moves beyond addiction itself. You could be repressing your addiction for junk food, and outward appear to be doing fine, but still be struggling with internal turmoil. Holistic wellness Need-response appreciate how the term "mental illness" serves as a kind of synecdoche. Which is a figure of speech that refers to something by referencing a part of it. For example, "boots on the ground" or a "hired hand". What we call "mental illness" involves cognition. But thinking is only a part of wellness. If offered only bad options, your wellness inevitably declines now matter how good your mental processes. Need-response involves more than the thinking you can control by addressing areas your thinking cannot control. It uniquely looks at the whole of a situation that reinforces a problem you face. It aims to address a problem at all of its levels . Page by page The image on the left shows you the empty tool. It includes a sample tab, which you can see here on the right. Page 1 The initial page is completely for show. No white fields to enter any data. The table and chart evolves as the data gets entered in the pages below. Page 2 The tool captures a baseline of your anxiety level. It uses the well established " GAD-7 " psychometric tool. That stands for General Anxiety Disorder - Seven. That means it only has seven items to answer. After filling in all the white fields, using the dropdown lists, it kicks out a number, which gets posted in the table on the first page. And moves the red line on the chart. It's okay if that number is relatively high. The higher that first number, the more significant the improvement you will see as we proceed into the program. The text below the Wellness update  heading also changes. This includes a line that states how your self-reported anxiety can be characterized in mental health terms. For example, if your number is significantly high at this point, then you present yourself with "severe anxiety". NOTE: This data qualifies as personal health information protected by law. We are prohibited from sharing it without your permission. However, you agree by your participation in this program to allow us to share it publicly without any links to your identity, as permitted by law, to enable us to demonstrate the program's effectiveness. Page 3 The tool also captures a baseline of your level of depression. It uses the well established " PHQ-9 " psychometric tool. That stands for Patient Depression Questionnaire - Nine. In addition to its nine items is a tenth item to consider if this amounts to major depression. After filling in all the white fields, using the dropdown lists, it kicks out a number, which gets posted in the table on the first page. And moves the blue line on the chart. The text below the Wellness update  heading also changes. Page 4 Finally, the tool captures a baseline of your addictiveness. I could not find a freely available psychometric test for this one. Using my academic skills, I crafted my own, based on key symptoms of addictiveness. The text below Wellness update explains how "addictiveness" is distinct from addiction itself. You can suppress your addictions and still present addictiveness. For example, you can stop indulging in viewing porn but remain obsessed with the imagery in your imagination. Gaging your level of cravings points to how you struggle to cope while burdened with an unsolved problem. As need-response helps you solve that problem, we anticipate your obsessive cravings will naturally decrease. Page 5 After the baseline measures at the start of the program, you wait until directed to move onto these purple page simple measures. You will be informed when you hit a program milestone and when it is time to check how your wellness has improved or not. Once the need-responsive program proceeds, you simply respond to a single item for each of these three wellness markers. You rate how much each affects your life at the moment. It's overwhelming my life It's consuming my focus It's a concerning problem It's at a manageable level I don't feel it all We expect these to improve significantly after the program helps you develop your need-response orientations . After responding to all three items, you get a percentage number that gets reproduced in the table and chart on the first page. And the text below informs you how the current levels compare to your last self-reported levels for each. Page 6 Each of these purple pages covers two milestone measures. When informed you hit the next milestone, simply answer in the same way. After responding to all three items, the same kind of results appear as before. Scroll to top page to see how the graph moves. Page 7 When indicated, you continue to assess your level of anxiety, depression, and addictiveness. When you scroll back to the chart on the first page, you may find midway through the program that your wellness seems to regress. No need for alarm. This is natural. A few steps forward often includes a momentary step back. Page 8 As you wrap up the program, we anticipate your wellness significantly improves. As you draw closer to solving the problem, you naturally have less reason to feel intensely anxious or depressed. As you suffer less emotional pain, your addictiveness can decrease. You may continue to still suffer some anxiety, depression and addictiveness for other causes. But your overall levels drop as this major problem finally gets properly addressed. Page 9 When drawing the program to a close, you return to answering the same items as given in the baseline measures. The text below, under Addressing your wellness needs , speaks to how solving your problem should improve your wellness. For example, as we increase your chances for exoneration from a wrongful conviction, you would naturally feel less anxious, less depressed, and less addictive. Page 10 Just as you did with the baseline measures, you answer these ten items the same time you rate your anxiety. This time, the score you get after selecting the last dropdown list level should be significantly lower than your number from the baseline score. If not, the program may not be working for you. Or you are burdened with other problems that require your attention. Page 11 You wrap up your self-assessment by answering these same five items as before. If you can honestly self-report a significant drop in your addictiveness, then the program can be rated as a success! Below the header Addressing your wellness needs , the text changes to a final report. You see your baseline scores compared to your final self-abasement for these psychometric tests. Scroll back to the top and see how this gets illustrated in the chart. If the program helped you to solve your problem, all three wellness levels should steadily decline. Not necessarily in a direct linear path. Some ups and downs can be expected. For example, if you are a wrongly convicted innocent and now receive broad support to be exonerated, or you are now exonerated officially, you naturally feel euphoric. Little if any anxiety or depression remains. Your addictiveness fades away. Life is now much better! Sharing the credit As you improve, you share the credit with your sponsors. They demonstrably helped you to solve your problem. They earned legitimacy through demonstrably helping to improve your wellness levels. You helped your team gain more meaning in their lives. They developed new skills and new understanding. They improved their need-response orientations to help you, which ultimately helps themselves and their other relations. Most importantly for you, you are now better off than you were when the program started. If not, then perhaps another program is needed to address whatever problem hinders your full wellness. Download your own well check tool Need-response honors the widespread belief that individuals should be able to improve their wellness on their own. But sometimes that is not enough. We all face problems beyond our individual control. Some of those problems involve people in positions of authority. And you can find yourself trapped in social norms that get in the way of solving your problem. That is what need-response is for. If you are in a need-response program now to solve a problem to improve your wellness, then you can download a copy of the well check right here. If you need a paper copy to send to someone without free access to a computer, such as an incarcerated wrongly convicted innocent, then you can download this PDF version, print it out, and send it to them. When working in unison with a need-response program, like Public Exoneration , we continue to mutually resolve needs to solve problems. Then trust our wellness levels to measurably improve as a result. This tool helps keep us all accountable, including those in powerful positions. Together, let us improve everyone's wellness by supporting everyone to resolve their needs. In other words, let's honor the needs of others as our own. Let's accountably love one another into greater wellbeing.

A helpful glimpse into the GOAL phase Not much to see yet The Public Exoneration program continues to be fleshed out. As we develop it, content will begin to emerge here. Until then, you can follow developments on the NR podcast . Check out more on the Public Exoneration  page. Learn more from the Exoneration Services  page.

A helpful glimpse into the GROW phase Not much to see yet The Public Exoneration program continues to be fleshed out. As we develop it, content will begin to emerge here. Until then, you can follow developments on the NR podcast . Check out more on the Public Exoneration  page. Learn more from the Exoneration Services  page.

A helpful glimpse into the TEAM phase Not much to see yet The Public Exoneration program continues to be fleshed out. As we develop it, content will begin to emerge here. Until then, you can follow developments on the NR podcast . Check out more on the Public Exoneration  page. Learn more from the Exoneration Services  page.

A helpful glimpse into the BASE phase Not much to see yet The Public Exoneration program continues to be fleshed out. As we develop it, content will begin to emerge here. Until then, you can follow developments on the NR podcast . Check out more on the Public Exoneration  page. Learn more from the Exoneration Services  page.

A helpful glimpse into the FIT preliminary phase Not much to see yet The Public Exoneration program continues to be fleshed out. As we develop it, content will begin to emerge here. Until then, you can follow developments on the NR podcast . Check out more on the Public Exoneration page. Learn more from the Exoneration Services page.