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Join the Need-Responder Community and become a professional need-responder. Three options for you to choose from Whether you prefer to follow along as you observe others create this pioneering service, or you prefer to be in the middle to help establish its footing, we have an option for you. Follower Follow  developments reported beyond the standard podcast episodes, if you’re curious about this new service and need others to vouch for its trustworthiness before you dare apply it to your life. Supporter Support  the development of the need-response service if you’re eager to try this new service once it gets off the ground, and you’re willing to let others know if they should trust it or not. Contributor Contribute  to the early development of the need-response service. Especially if you’re a disillusioned professional with a passion to serve others, and willing to take risks by becoming one of the first professional need-responders . Is this for you? Do you have a 'persisting problem' or 'stubborn problem' you’re unable to solve on our own? Do you support someone struggling with an unsolvable, persisting problem they're facing? - economic insecurity from predatory loans - insurance claim denial - medical debt - political polarization - source captured journalism - student loan debt - wrongly convicted innocent If struggling with such a problem, then need-response  exists for you. Have you tried other professional services, but none seem to help you solve this problem? - adversarial judicial process - arbitration - combative political process - complaint submitted to an ethics board - government agency - hiring a lawyer or receiving legal help pro bono - local official - psychiatry - psychotherapy We are developing the new professional service of need-response  to fill the gap. It can address your persisting problem  in ways these other options never can. Need-response starts on the foundation of understanding each other's needs, on a scientific level . It can start by serving you. We invite you to help us co-create it. ​ Join our  Need-Responder Community  to shape this new service to fit your particular needs. Choose one of three options, that best suits your needs. Each option welcomes you into this supportive community. You share a persisting need  and receive our encouraging warmth. And each option starts free, at least for a week. Need-response development Every new technology and every new service must create enough value to attract new users. Especially at the beginning, before that tech or service gets fully developed. This also applies to developing the first batch of professional providers of that tech or service. The NRC  seeks to develop both the demand for, and the supply of, the first available need-responders. ​ That could include you! Need-response adoption FOLLOWER Follow developments of this service as a FOLLOWER, for free. Prepare yourself to follow others using this new revolutionary service.   Early majority? SUPPORTER Support its development as a SUPPORTER, for only $5 a month. Become one of the 1st clients to benefit from this new revolutionary service. Early adopter? CONTRIBUTOR Contribute to its development as a CONTRIBUTOR, for $25 a month. Become a qualified need-responder either as a side gig or as a new career.   Innovator? FOLLOWER? A ‘follower’ membership is right for you if: You don’t need to solve your problem right now; it’s a low priority for you. But you’re curious about how this new service could perform better than other options. You prefer to see how this untested alternative works for others. You could benefit from regular updates for how this service could eventually serve you. You’re open to get to know others discovering this new service. You could use some encouragement to boldly face life’s challenges. SUPPORTER? A ‘supporter’ membership is right for you if: You need to solve your problem soon; it’s an emerging priority for you. You’re ready to shape this new service to fit your particular needs and problems. You would gladly share with others how this new service works, or fails, for you. You would benefit from personally shaping how this service could eventually serve you. You’re ready to work with others to respond better to each other’s inflexible needs. You personally gain meaning by encouraging others to overcome their life’s challenges. CONTRIBUTOR? A ‘contributor’ membership is right for you if: You need to solve your problem already; it’s a top priority for you. You’re ready to learn how to become a qualified need-responder. You willingly take risks on something new but could be a game-changer. You have the time to take online eCourses uniquely qualifying to solve problems. You’re eager to take the lead to co-create this unprecedented professional service. You seek a meaningful career helping others solve their problems by resolving needs. We begin to test the service with these pricing options. They mirror the options for a crowdfunded wellness campaign.  Become a member of the Need-Responder Community Join a community welcoming you into an environment of loving support. No matter what plan you choose.

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.   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

Welcome to need-response as an alternative to the limits of adversarial law . When the last line of hope offers little to no hope, where can the innocent turn? Executive Summary [TLDR] Many who are a wrongly convicted innocent, or whose loved one is a wrongly convicted innocent, appreciate the innocence movement. Many with viable claims of innocence are still getting passed over, and these are understandably more disillusioned with the innocence movement . Welcome to need-response and its exoneration services , as the next line of hope for the " unexonerated ".   Thank you for your dedication As a wrongly convicted innocent person, I am grateful for the innocence movement. I am thankful to you and to others for helping to keep hope alive.   However, my requests for help over time have been turned down at least four times. I was told at the time that they: 1.  Can only serve death row inmates. 2.  Can only serve lifers. 3.  Can only serve those serving long prison sentences. 4.  Cannot find a reasonable path in court to reverse conviction with untested DNA.   Consequently, I am an asexual trans person who remains stuck on the sex offender registry for life, for a crime that never occurred. Despite earning multiple degrees, I remain under-housed and underemployed. I am not alone in feeling disappointed and even discouraged by the lack of responsiveness from various innocence projects and conviction integrity units. Discouragement begets disillusionment . Which costs you legitimacy in the eyes of countless innocents in prison and beyond. Along with their devastated loved ones. You must realize how countless innocent persons in prison remain underserved by the legal process. Does innocence even matter? I place this distrust less on the people within the innocence movement dedicating their lives to right the wrongs, and not even necessarily on local prosecutors stalling on correcting these injustices, but squarely on the distorting effects of the adversarial process built into the judiciary.   In other words, wrongful convictions of the innocent stem mostly from a structural problem . The adversarial approach is most necessary for law enforcement to incapacitate a violent offender. Once disarmed and held in custody, the exclusive application of adversarialism fades.   When left in overdrive, it needlessly provokes all adjudicated parties into mutual defensiveness and diminished awareness of each other’s affected needs. Until those needs can resolve, problems persist. Instead of resolving our justice needs, and despite the best of intentions, an exclusively adversarial legal approach risks perpetuating injustice in the name of justice. Where justice costs much, injustice can run chea p .   Any injustice in name of justice is no justice at all.   This insight comes from anankelogy , the new social science for understanding our needs like never before. Anankelogy recognizes our laws flexibly exist  to serve our inflexible needs . Only by resolving our inflexible needs can we return to full functioning capacity and reliably respect laws for respecting each other’s needs. Need-response can help you to better serve the needs our laws exist to serve.   Need-response is a proposed new professional service to directly address, and eventually resolve, each other’s affected needs. The more our needs resolve, the less we suffer pain . The less pain suffered, the easier it is to sustain prosocial behavior. . Need-response raises the standard above myopic legalism and defensive-provoking adversarialism. It holds procedural justice empirically accountable to outcomes of substantive justice.   Need-response offers innocence claimants an attractive alternative to the opaque re-adjudication process  relied upon by trained lawyers. The wrongly convicted innocent can now prove their innocence without you.   First, they can download our case form  to identify factors correlating with exonerated cases. You can download your copy  for review. This exists as a grassroots project, to instill a level of accountability currently in the legal profession’s top-down systems. Second, if still dissatisfied with the failings of the adversarial process, they can pivot to our mutuality process . They can try our public exoneration process . They pursue both in parallel, to see which is the most responsive to their inflexible needs.   Lastly, they have the option to primarily pursue such a public exoneration process . They prioritize this mutual regard  alternative, and dare the adversarialists to keep up. If finally exonerated by a court of law, fine. But we can no longer wait: Justice delayed is justice denied. We must serve the inflexible needs of all, especially the vulnerable systemically overlooked by impersonal institutions. We must put their inflexible needs ahead of the flexible practices of such institutions, when they are found to misappropriate their authority to indulge themselves at the public’s expense.   For example, need-response assesses if any assertion of “conviction finality” accountably serves the public interest of securing closure for crime victims, or if it actually serves the institutions’ or prosecutor’s preference to evade dealing with, or correcting, its damaging errors. The same could be applied to legal fictions like “harmless error” divorced from measurably illicit results.   You are welcome to participate in this pioneering alternative. We already published an open letter to all judicial officials to transparently convey our good faith intent to properly resolve needs that laws ostensibly exist to serve. As we shift from adversarialism to mutual regard, we hold ourselvces to a higher standard. We stary by asking you what you may need from us. We seek to remain engaged. But will not allow a lack of engagement to slow us down to properly resolve needs .   We have a “with you or without you approach” that prioritizes inflexible needs over flexible laws. We put vulnerable people over unresponsive institutions. We prioritize wellness outcomes of all with intrinsic motivation over maintaining the social order with extrinsic motivators. Impacred wellness outcomes is our bottom line. We prioritize love over fear.   Learn more about these need-responsive “ exoneration services ” at the Anankelogy Foundation . Follow their development on our Need-Response podcast . Each Wednesday, hear how we apply this scientific understanding of needs to our underserved need for justice. And how you can play an active role in improving the lives of us all.   Respectfully.   Steph Turner Founder of anankelogy and founder of need-re sponse ADDENDA The content below sent in our open letter to all judicial officials may aptly apply to you. 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.   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 objectifying 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

You can use the Estimated Innocence Form to complement those forms required by innocence litigators. You can ask your local innocence project of conviction integrity unit if they’re open to utilizing this either in lieu of their own forms, or more likely in addition to their case forms. Or use it to set up our alternative process in case the adversarial legal process fails you again. You will need a working copy of Excel for this. This pilot version uses an Excel spreadsheet to test its viability. After filling out one those long paper forms to interest an innocence project in your case, you repeatedly get turned down. You know how they favor cases that they can more easily get a reversal in court. Yours simply was not one of those low hanging fruit they prefer. You’re understandably disillusioned with the innocence movement . You must already be disillusioned with the adversarial judicial process . And with lawyers . Perhaps you’ve met lawyers also disillusioned with lawyering . Welcome to this refreshing alternative. CONTENTS Click on an item to go instantly to it below. Click on that header below to return instantly to this table of contents. Click on "CONTENTS" to get to the EIF download button at the bottom. Prove your innocence without lawyers Let's showcase your innocence Helping the judicial system produce more just outcomes What if the claimant cannot freely access the Internet? Your spreadsheet tabs Page by page instructions General instructions <> NOVI - p1 COVI (sideways) - p2 Estimated Innocence Report - p3 to p7 A. Case information - p8 to p11 B. Documentation for verification - p12 to p16 C.1 Common factors in wrongful convictions - p17 to p19 C.2 Evidentiary factors - p20 to p21 C.3 Investigative factors - p22 to p23 C.4 Complicating factors - p24 to p25 C.5 Claimant's demonstrable innocence - p26 to p28 C.6 Claimant's innocence recognized by others - p29 to p30 C.7 Other - p31 C.8 Process - p32 D. Requests and responses for exoneration help - p33 E. Collateral consequences of wrongful conviction - p34 to p35 F. Claimant narrative - p36 to p37 G. Compensation - p38 H. You're not alone - p39 Using your estimated innocence Review your results Save this version To save as a PDF Need help completing this form, or how to use it? Give us your feedback Follow its development on our podcast This guide applies best on a desktop computer or laptop. Some of this may not work as well on a mobile device. You can enlarge each page image below by clicking on it. Prove your innocence without lawyers The more your case mirrors those already exonerated, the higher your viability score of actual innocence. You no longer have to wait for lawyers to appreciate the strength of your innocence claim.   As you fill in the items calculating how much your case matches those already exonerated, you see your viability score increase on the right. Weak claim : If you get a raw score of 19 or less, this alternative may not help you much. Poor claim : If your raw score sits from 20 to 39, validating your claim could raise it significantly. Fair claim : If your raw score is 40 to 59, validating your claim could help raise it enough to question the reliability of the conviction. Good claim : If your raw score is 60 to 79, you're already on your way to cast sufficient doubt upon the reliaility of the conviction. Strong claim : If your raw score is 80 to 99, great! No one gets a perfect score of 100%. While the formula to arrive at this estimate is not yet scientifically sound, it provides a reliable starting point. Mostly by comparing cases. Its early use can help improve it, and eventually ground it in more scientifically valid measures. Let's showcase your innocence If your innocence claim scores high, consider letting us publicize your viable case of actual innocence. When ready to upload your completed spreadsheet form, click this "Publicize my viable innocence" button. Check the upper right corner of that "Unexonerated" page. Click the “Publicize my innocence” button you see there. Fill out the form that pops up. By providing your email address, we can converse how you want your "innocence profile" to appear, in case I have any questions for you. Eventually, you will be able to post your innocence profile without my involvement. Your early involvement can help me to better understand how to create a user entry process benefici8al to all claimants. Estimated Innocence is always free. But if you can donate anything to help me establish this pioneering alternative, then I will be encouraged, and grateful. Helping the judicial system produce more just outcomes Estimating the viability of each innocence claims provides the adversarial judicial process opportunity to improve their legitimacy. That’s one of many aims for this tool. Its purpose can potentially fulfill these dozen aims. Aim #1. To provide innocence claimants with an instant estimation of the viability level of their innocence claim. Without the Estimated Innocence Form, you must wait for the courts to categorize you as still guilty or innocent. They coerce you into accepting the same overgeneralizing binary that led to these problems in the first place. How can we solve our specific problems from this level of generalizing that created them?   The EIF replaces this judiciary’s sledgehammer approach with the scalpel of nuance. And replaces self-serving legal arguments prioritizing institutional needs with the need-serving specifics prioritizing the justice needs the judiciary supposedly exists to serve. In short, the EIF raises the standard of justice. Aim #2. To provide claimants with independent verification of their acclaimed innocence. Without the Estimated Innocence Form, you’re left trusting the same institution that created the problem in the first place. With its devotion to conviction finality and fear of setting bad legal precedents to ensure its own positions of social power, it fails to serve the deeper interests of justice all people need.   Instead of relying on the adversarial judiciary with its many conflicts of interest, the EIF relies on the public’s impartial interest in validating your innocence claim. With your permission to access your case details and available documentation, select members of the public can determine likely innocence without fear of repercussions to their social status. Aim #3. To provide an alternative to the slow, resistant adversarial process weighed down with conflicts of interest. Without the Estimated Innocence Form, you typically must wait years and years. And repeated disappointments. You often slide into despair, and risk depression. You understandably can become disillusioned with the whole judicial process.   The EIF bypasses the snail-paced judiciary. By quickly ascertaining likely innocence, it either complements or competes with the judicial process. Where welcomed to support the interests of justice and public safety from a critical perspective, it can complement the judiciary. Where the judiciary resists critique and persists in error, it competes for legitimacy in serving justice needs. Starting with your affected justice needs. Aim #4. To springboard investigations into overlooked justice needs, such as identifying the actual perpetrator. Without the Estimated Innocence Form, criminal investigations occur mostly behind closed doors. Its opacity covers the frequent problem of investigative tunnel vision, confirmation bias, and untenable theories of guilt. Improper investigation resulting in wrongful convictions typically allows the actual violent perpetrator to violate others with impunity.   The EIF could potentially aid investigators in identifying patterns of crime resulting from locking up the wrong person. Sometimes the claimant has a better idea who the actual perpetrator than investigators trying to take shortcuts with people’s lives (both the accused and accuser). Such data provides better direction for solving crime than untested gut reactions of police and prosecutors who feel pressured to quickly close a case. Aim #5. To improve the efficiency of innocence projects, and others in the innocence movement, to process numerous innocence claims. Without the Estimated Innocence Form, each innocence project provides claimants with their own particular form. Some commonality exists between them. But these paper forms risk overlooking the nuances in your particular situation. They don’t know what they don’t know, and may never think to ask you critical bits of information that could make a world of difference.   The EIF proposes a uniformity of data collection. And to keep that information transparent to the public. It also incentivizes innocence projects to produce results more promptly, or risk being embarrassed by members of the public who outperform their investigations. The EIF empowers claimants and their supporters to competes with the inefficient legal-judicial approach of innocence projects, which still do not process enough claims to make a significant dent in the crisis of wrongful convictions. Aim #6. To increase the transparency of the process to identify and clear innocent prisoners and other wrongly convicted. Without the Estimated Innocence Form, you are generally kept in the dark. If fortunate enough to have a legal team working on your case, you still must wait weeks and months to hear if anything happened in the courts. And the news is not always pleasant.   The EIF keeps the process in the open. Sunlight is said to be the best disinfectant. Once a claim is diligently verified with a degree of certainty, and the outcome affirms innocence, the slow legal process can either catch up or shut up. If this alternative exposes thousands and thousands of actually innocent prisoners, any many more in the general public stuck in second class citizenship, the social pressure can become immense. The innocence movement and courts could then finally “find” the resources it now claims it does not have to review every viable claim, and to clear wrongful convictions faster than they are produced. Aim #7. To raise the standard of justice from a failed win-lose binary to identifying degrees of certainty in adjudicated outcomes. Without the Estimated Innocence Form, you are forced to accept the institutional binary of guilt-or-innocence. You personally know reality is more nuanced than such oversimplified binaries. You know reality operates in matters of degrees, not in simple black-and-white generalizations.   The EIF raises the standard of justice by checking for the degree of certainty in each conviction. Imagine if the original investigation began with the discipline of verifying the degree of certainty in the original theory of guilt. You may not have been wrongly convicted if investigators were held to such a higher standard of justice. You may now demonstrate a higher justice standard in how you can be more responsive to the justice needs of the complainants than the police and prosecutors who objectified them for their own judiciary process ends. Aim #8. To identify and address all affected needs impacted by the adversarial criminal judicial process. Without the Estimated Innocence Form, the courts impose a win-lose outcome on each case. Is it really justice when one side gains the resources to win a court battle with better persuasion over a jury? Or do we settle for this barbaric slugfest because we cannot envision the higher justice of something like the EIF?   The EIF rises above such adversarial justice to identify and respond to all the affected needs in an adjudicated case. It does not rest until all the personal justice needs are met. And it doesn’t accept the institutional needs of the judiciary to be more important than the justice needs the judiciary exists to serve. For example, the institutional need for ‘conviction finality’ cannot be accepted as higher than actually impacted justice needs. That’s unacceptably backwards.Aim #9. To identify the scope of the unexonerated problem to improve funding revenues for those still not keep pace in addressing the full problem. Aim #9. To identify the scope of the unexonerated problem to improve funding revenues for those still not keep pace in addressing the full problem. Without the Estimated Innocence Form, innocence movements and conviction integrity units tend to wander in the political dark. Without the data the EIF could make public, many political leaders (both Democrat and Republican) remain in denial to the scope of this problem.   The EIF-produced data can illuminate the scope of the need. Funding sources could then catch up with this immense need. Once they realize the amount necessary to compensate each potential exoneree, well, let’s say this has gotta scare the bejeezus out of them. Better to resolve this sooner than later.   By the way, claimants own their own data. Unlike all the popular social media platforms, claimants are to receive direct compensation for any use of their private case data. If this gets challenged in the courts where laws prohibit profiting from one’s alleged crime, this process has another tool called “legitimacy quality” that compels them to link each law and its interpretation to each resolved need. This process asserts how resolved needs sits at a higher authority than arbitrary law enforcement, and backs this with empirical data. There are more options after that, but I digress. Aim #10. To collect data to identify patterns contributing to wrongful convictions, that can then be used to inform relevant policies. Without the Estimated Innocence Form, researchers struggle to find data to identify wrongful conviction contributors. Sample sizes typically remain small. Statistically, any sample under 200 cannot create reliable conclusions. So we soldier on with bad policies on the books. The history of wrongful convictions then continues to repeat itself again and again.   The EIF-produce data can help researchers identify specific trends in specific jurisdictions, then address these locally. For example, a high volume of Brady violations in one DA could receive a specific correction than another DA relying on a corrupted state forensic science lab.   This can offer a sense of meaning for innocence claimants who had to grieve many losses because of the wrongful conviction. Knowing their case data can help others avoid a similar tragedy, they can more easily adjust to the painful losses caused by the miscarriage of justice. Of course, this can never excuse the wrongdoing among DAs and others contributing to wrongful convictions. Aim #11. To enforce accountability for public safety outcomes and impacts with a more rigorously disciplined process. Without the Estimated Innocence Form, or something like it, the judiciary and law enforcement rely heavily on oversimplified generalizations. For example, police rely on their “good-guy/bad-guy” binary to make snap decisions in the field when their lives could be at risk. But this binary risks distorting their perception of us. Without the level discipline enforced in other fields, these unchecked generalizations actually risk undermining public safety.   The EIF is based on a process called ‘need-response’ that rigorously identifies and addresses each impacted need. It exists independent of the judiciary and law enforcement, so remains removed from its conflicts of interest. It recognizes that no one sits above the law, but insists that no law sits above the needs for which the law exists to serve. With scientific vigor, it dares to hold all institutions (like law enforcement and the judiciary) accountable to the needs they exist to serve. Aim #12. To correct overemphasis upon individuals by balancing focus between violent individuals and systems of violence. Without the Estimated Innocence Form, it’s easy to assume ‘justice’ is basically holding violent individuals in custody to prevent them from acting out violently against others. This tradition stems largely from the Western value of individualism. Culturally, we impose a different standard against vulnerable individuals than we do against better resourced entities. This inherent injustice in the name of justice is arguably no justice at all.   Progressives counter with greater focus on social justice and racial justice. Conservatives demand safer streets. Political leaders collude with judicial leaders to exploit the holes in each side’s generalizations. Over-adjudication and wrongful convictions easily occur from this bipartisan pact. Liberals insisting on an expanded government role collude with conservatives insisting on individual responsibility for personal choices. While two wrongs don’t make a right, sometimes they make a law.   The EIF balances both sides with relevant specifics, to resolve justice needs and not simply serve judicial institutions trying to ease pain on one side by imposing pain on the other side. Justice is more than faulting deeds; there can be no justice without resolving underlying needs. I go into further detail about this in a book I am writing called “You NEED This: Introducing anankelogy as the study of need.” I expect it to have it published later this year. We brace ourselves for possible resistance to this new way of addressing justice needs. We can send our open letter to all judicial officials inviting their adoption of this more effective alternative to their black-and-white myopic approach. And we can send our open letter to all innocence litigators serving innocence projects and conviction integrity units. We then assess their responsiveness to this proposed improvement. They can either engage us to improve just outcomes, or risk being left behind. What if the claimant cannot freely access the Internet? Designated proxy . Any innocence claimant still under state custody, and unable to access the Internet, will have to assign someone they can trust to serve as their proxy. You can think of this as granting someone the power of attorney. Download this "Proxy Designation Form - innocence profiles" Word document. Upload the completed and signed when uploading the completed EIF on the Unexonerated page. Paper form of the EIF . What if the innocence claimant remains under state custody and denied adequate access to the Internet? Then have someone they trust who does have access to this online form to first send them this paper form. Have the claimant fill out as much as they can, then mail the paper form back to you. Then you or someone the claimant trusts can transcribe the info into the spreadsheet form.  Your spreadsheet tabs The spreadsheet pilot includes six tabs. The instructions below apply to the first tab, which opens by default. EIF draft E01 : the full Estimated Innocence Form, plus the Using your Estimated Innocence section. EIF E01 sample : the full Estimated Innocence Form filled in by the tool’s creator, to demonstrate how it can be used. EIF E01 NOVI : Notification of Verifiable Innocence to summarize the findings in one page. EIF E01 COVI : Certificate of Verifiable Innocence, more easily viewed and to print. EIF E01 EIR : Estimated Innocence Report, more easily shared with others. EIF E01 CQR : Conviction Quality Report, to send to innocent litigators as a helpful summary of what they may need to find. Page by page instructions Click on any page images below to zoom in and see it in detail. The form spans from page 8 to page 39. The portions for calculating the viability of innocence span from page 12 through page 32. Click on the headers highlighted in green to go to the table of contents above. Click on the page number or pages range to return here. General Instructions <> NOVI - p1 When first opening the document, you see its GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS. After filling out the form below, this changes to a Notification of Veerifiable Innocence, or NOVI for short. This is also available as a separate tab. The NOVI tab. COVI (sideways) - p2 This also changes after you complete the form. Find the horizontal version in the COVI tab. You can use either version Estimated Innocence Report - p3 to p7 Before using this form, you should see a raw score and an adjusted score at the top, both at zero. You don't fill in any of the blanks here. Scroll down to page six to start using this form. After you finish filling in the data below, these first five pages become your summary report of viable innocence. Navigation The seventh page provides you a navigation menu. Click on the letter in the left column to instantly go to that page. For example, click on "C.2" to go immediately to "Evidentiary factors" below. Return to this menu line by clicking the "C.2" in that page's header. Clicking on any page header's title returns you to top of the document. Other navigation links are availble. Look for arrows to take you quickly back and forth between these display pages and the entry fields below. This is how this first first section appears before you start filling in the form. SAMPLE "EIR" pp 3 - 7 A. Case information - p8 to p11 Here is where you spill the beans. Fill in the fields to showcase the basic material of your case. Provide as much detail as you can.   You likely have not thought about these details in a while. Some of this stuff likely brings up a lot of pain, which you may prefer to just forget. But your pain is not the problem  as much as this persisting threat your pain keeps warning you about.   We suggest you process these details with a little help from a friend. Perhaps a family member. Or a counselor. Once we credential need-responders , we could potentially serve you as a source of emotional support.   If filling out the paper form  while sitting in a prison cell, you understandably cannot process each point with your loved one in the free world. Do what you can and jot down some of your painful feelings coursing through you.   “Disturbing. Frustrating. WTF? Should never have happened that way!” Then find some way to debrief these emotions. Perhaps during your next visit. Or in a letter.   If transcribing this info from your incarcerated loved one, you too may find this emotionally taxing. You may feel shocked by some of it. Or remember some details differently.   Need-response can help build your resilience to endure emotional pain. Let’s work together to turn these challenges into opportunities for growth and redemption, on our way toward exoneration. SAMPLE Case Information pp 8 - 11 Now onto helping to prove your innocence believability. B. Documentation for verification - p12 to p16 This section helps you improve the veracity of your innocence claim with available documentation of 14 relevant items. Respond only to the elements relevant to this innocence claim. For each of these 14 items, select from the dropdown list the level of availability for that item. By URL [entered into the field] below, searchable text (best) By URL below, audio/visual (great) By URL below, image only (good) By email below (fair) Not at this time (poor) Not applicable (okay)   You will immediately see a percentage number to the right. This number will steadily climb as you add relevant elements as you go do down the form.   The single-line white field is for adding any URL links for others to check the available document. The larger white field serves as optional space for including any contextual information. Simply skip it if you don’t need to explain anything to those who may later help verify your innocence claim.   After selecting a dropdown list level of verification availability, you will see added text below in purple: “SUPPORTER REVIEW: Prepare for Independent Verifier”.   If you know the number of pages for the document, please include that count in the “How many pages?” field on the left. The page count helps to estimate how long it may take to go through it to verify the innocence claim, which you see at the right.   If the availability level includes a URL, select if that URL works from the dropdown listed provided in the middle. link does not work link works poorly link works, item(s) not found link works, all item(s) found other (describe in box above)   Simply skip each item not relevant to your case. Hopefully you can support your innocence claim with available documents. This raises your “adjusted score”. Think of the raw score as your own assertion. And the adjusted score verifying your assertions.   If you do not have access to your trial transcripts or case documents, that could undermine improving your adjusted score . We will then lean into your raw score .   Page 12 1. Trial transcripts . If you can provide access to your trial transcripts, this goes a long way to independently validate your asserted innocence. Even if no one invests the time to go through them, simply making them transparently available boosts your credibility. 2. Discovery documents . Like the search warrant, officer notes, and lab reports.Include as many as you have available. Especially if covering your innocence claim. For example, lab reports if improper forensics is one of your relevant elements selected in the next section. 3. Other trial related documents . Like trial motions.  Page 13 4. Police interrogation . If relevant, include any transcript of any interrogation. If not recorded, or if no transcript is available and such an interrogation occurred, mention this in the large white field. 5. Any new trial motion . If your defense counsel filed a motion for a new trial, or any kind of similar motion (e.g., motion to suppress inadmissible evidence), include these as well. 6. Presentence Investigation Report . Your PSI could help give a summary of your case through the lens of the PSI writer. Especially if sympathetic to your innocence claim.  Page 14 7. Appellate brief . Include your appellate brief, assuming you have one. 8. Appellate opinion . Include the appellate court’s ruling. Whether published or not. 9. Post-appellate remedies sought . Include any other attempts to appeal the conviction in the appellate process. For example, a 1983 motion or habeas corpus.  Page 15 10. Innocence project communication . Include any letters of correspondence with any innocence projects, conviction integrity unit, journalism students, activist organizations, and the like. 11. Professional supporters . Include any documentation you have of cultural and civic leaders expressing belief in your innocence. For example, a letter from the judge, or from a local reporter or media personality. 12. Media interest and coverage . Include any correspondence you received showing some interest in your case from any CIU or CRU. Whether or not they agreed to review your case. Page 16 13. Other documentation . Include any document supporting your innocence not mentioned above. For example, letters of support recommending leniency by the sentencing judge. 14. Other supportive material (e.g., alibi affidavit ). This one tries to cover anything overlooked, and turn over every stone left unturned. To squeeze every opportunity to demonstrate your innocence. Prep to-do list . To the left of “verification step”, select from the dropdown list the most relevant option. Need help scanning my case documents Need help counting pages of case documents Need help uploading case documents Need help checking if URL works Need help identifying support in case documents Need help hiring independent verifiers Need help verifying claim using case documents Need help accreditation on claim verification   You will then see just above it a percentage identifying your progress verifying your claim. Try not to worry now if that number is low. This can all be addressed later, if detractors insist you back up your innocence claim. For now, you can leave all three Prep to-do list  items at their default setting of “ not started ” yet.   The idea for this section is to give your supporters something they can actively do to support your innocence claim, and help you get closer to being exonerated. SAMPLE Documentation for verification pp 12 - 16 Now onto identifying wrongful conviction factors. C.1 Common factors in wrongful convictions - p17 to p19   Page 17 15. Eyewitness Misidentification . Include if your among the 70% of cases exonerated with DNA, where eyewitness misidentification played a key role. Was there a Rashomon effect , where multiple witnesses provided contradictory details of the same event? 16. False Confessions or Admissions . Were you coerced into implicating yourself, or pressured to agree to a plea deal under threat of a long prison sentence? Were you subjected to the Reid technique  where the “good cop” works off the angry “bad cop?” during an interrogation, to coax you into admitting guilt.  Page 18 17. Government Misconduct . Did any police officer or law enforcement official take any illegal shortcuts? Did they seem to intentionally alter evidence? Did the prosecutor withhold any potentially exculpatory evidence during discovery (i.e., a Brady violation)? 18. Unvalidated or Improper Forensic Science . Was your wrongful conviction based on any discredited forensic science? Did the expert testimony misrepresent the data, in a way favoring the prosecutor’s theory of guilt? Did the trial judge allow expert testimony that failed either the Frye  standard or Daubert standard , especially if never raised in a motion motion or included in an appellate brief?   Page 19 19. Jail Informant . Did some from your jail cell come forward claiming you implicated yourself? Was that informant apparently granted an easier sentence? Did the authorities incentivize your codefendant(s) to testify against you? 20. Inadequate Defense . Were you assigned a court appointed attorney who did not believe in your innocence? Or didn’t seem to care? Was that defense council overburdened with too many cases to adequately represent yours?   With each of these, remember to select from the dropdown list how much it applies to your innocence claim. SAMPLE Common factors in wrongful convictions pp 17 - 19 C.2 Evidentiary factors - p20 to p21   Page 20 21. Evidence yet to be DNA tested . Mention any evidence that was never tested for DNA. You could include here if you have approached an innocence project about untested DNA in your case, and they declined to pursue it. If so, explain why. 22. Non-DNA evidence yet to be considered . Include any possible evidence apart from DNA that could point to your innocence, but was not addressed prior to your wrongful conviction. 23. Exculpatory evidence exists . Include anything that could point to your innocence. You could mention why this wasn’t addressed at trial, or by your defense counsel.  Page 21 24. Conviction not corroborated by evidence . Include if your conviction was based primarily or exclusively on belief? Such as the testimony of an unreliable eyewitness. Include the use of their forensic evidence which failed to support their claims. 25. Conviction based on irrational theory of guilt . Include if the conviction is based on an implausible chain of events. Point out any absurdities, any contradictions, and any scientifically invalid assumptions built into the prosecution of your case. 26. No actual crime . Include if no actual crime occurred. For example, a fire that was not arson as they believed. Or “shaken baby syndrome” for a child who died from an undiagnosed medical condition. Again, state the degree each applicable element applied, using the dropdown list of options. SAMPLE Evidentiary factors pp 20 - 21 C.3 Investigative factors - p22 to p23   Page 22 27. Law enforcement tunnel vision . Include if law enforcement investigators zeroed in a narrow theory of guilt, then appeared to find evidence for it. Include any apparent confirmation bias by the prosecutor and/or police investigators. 28. Law enforcement noble cause corruption . Include any law enforcement shortcuts they rationalize as essential. Document any expressions heard or read where law enforcement officials rationalized their questionable behavior as necessary. 29. Complainant retraction . Include if any of the accusers retracted their accusation, either in whole or in part. Mention if characterized by law enforcement as less believable than the initial allegation, which can expose their confirmation bias.  Page 23 30. Confession from actual perpetrator . Include if anyone came forward to admit being the actual offender. When did they come forward? How was their admission treated by law enforcement? 31. Another person implicated in the crime . Include if anyone was independently identified as the actual perpetrator. Was this identification before or after the wrongful conviction? How did law enforcement treat this finding? 32. Conviction based upon outmoded law/beliefs . Include if law enforcement or the prosecutor’s office acted upon unfounded assumptions about you. Such as you identification with a marginalized group. Contrast how such views were more widely accepted than now. Identify its degree of relevance in the dropdown list for each item. SAMPLE Investigative factors pp 22 - 23 C.4 Complicating factors - p24 to p25   Page 24 33. Presenting conflict of interest . Identify any apparent conflicts of interest presented by anyone in law enforcement. Was the judge up for reelection? Did the prosecutor go out of their way to appear tough on crime? Was any negative coverage by a reporter apparently trying to provoke audience fears primarily to gain views? 34. Perjured testimony or false accusation . Include if any of the prosecutor’s witnesses appear to be coached. Or incentivized. Or if any witness could be involved in the crime, and whose testimony tried to distract attention away from them. 35. Moral panic . Include if your arrest, detention and trial occurred in the context of a moral panic . For example, mention if caught up on the Satanic panic  of the past few decades. Or if accused as a child molester because you worked as a daycare center in the late 1980s or 90s .  Page 25 36. Disparate impact . Mention if you are in a population frequently targeted by law enforcement. Include how many times you were stopped and perhaps frisked by police without cause. 37. Law enforcement prejudice . Did law enforcement convey any sentiment that you must be guilty of something solely on their perceptions? Did law enforcement use your natural defensiveness to their aggressive tactics as grounds to believe you must be a violent person? 38. Trial by media . Any sensational coverage of the case? Was news media present during the trial? Did their coverage favor the prosecution? Did sympathy for any victim overshadow reasonable doubts about you as the actual perpetrator?   Reminder: Include the degree of relevance in the dropdown list for each relevant factor. SAMPLE Complicating factors pp 24 - 25 Now onto idenifying the claimant's demonstrable innocence. C.5 Claimant's demonstrable innocence - p26 to p28 Page 26 39. Pled not guilty . Include if you pled not guilty and committed yourself to never taking any plea agreement. Mention any pressures to admit guilt that you consistently resisted. 40. Alford plea . Include if you took an Alford plea , or pled no contest. Explain why. Mention any pressures you were under, such as from family members desperate for you to come home as early as possible. 41. Duration of innocence claim . Mention how long you have maintained your innocence. Especially if you have always claimed to be innocent after many years while incarcerated, even at the risk of being denied parole.  Page 27 42. Respect for crime victim(s) . Identify how you positively regard the complainant(s). Mention how you never presented any threat to them, or ever had any motive to do them any harm. 43. Positive institutional record . Use your behavioral record under custody to challenge their mischaracterization of you. 44. No criminal history . Include if you remained free of any criminal activity before and/or after.  Page 28 45. Parole denial from maintaining innocence . Include how many times you were denied parole for “lack of remorse”.   Again, reminding you to check how much each of these applied to your case. SAMPLE Claimant's demonstrable innocence pp 26 - 28 Now onto recognizing the claimant's socially affirmed innocence. C.6 Claimant's innocence recognized by others - p29 to p30   Page 29 46. Any relief on appeal . Add any favorable relief you received from the Appellate Panel or any other step in the appellate process. Was your sentence reduced? Was any charge thrown out? 47. Supporters . Start creating a list of anyone who conveyed any support for your innocence. The more names you can list, along with current contact info, the better prepared you will be to build growing support for your innocence. 48. Affidavits . Include any signed affidavits vouching for your alibi. Or for anything pointing to your innocence, whether mentioned in your trial or not.  Page 30 49. Judge support . Add any judge’s name who either expressed some doubt in an eyewitness or complaint’s claims, or who later expressed vehement support of your obvious innocence. 50. Prosecutor support . Include if any prosecutor came forward to assert your innocence, or at least expressed doubt in your alleged guilt. 51. Defense counsel support . Mention how much your defense counsel believed in your innocence. Add if they went out of their way to persuade the jury or bench trial judge of your innocence. 52. Influential support . Include any cultural leaders who backed up your innocence. This could include political leaders, faith leaders, company owners or nonprofit leaders. SAMPLE Claimant's innocence recognized by others pp 29 - 30 If this form missed anything, now is the time to mention it. C.7 Other - p 31   Page 31 53. Any other relevant items . This form may have overlooked a critical factor. Here is where you include anything this form neglected to consider. For ideas what you could include not mentioned above, go to the last page and check out the “ Innocence Checklist ” by Dr. Carrie Leonetti. You help improve this tool by adding your own unique contributing factor here. You’re still checking the relevance level and how a relevant element can be verified, right? SAMPLE Other p 31 C.8 Process - p32   Page 32 54. Indictment changed . Mention if the prosecutor adjusted the original charges or indictment for apparent lack of evidence, or for any other reason. 55. Plea deal turned down . Mention how many times you were offered a deal from the prosecutor, and turned it down to insist on your full innocence. 56. Asserted right to trial . Mention of you asserted your right to challenge all the charges in a trial. Include any pressures from the prosecutor to take a plea bargain to avoid a trial. 57. Discovery with exculpatory evidence . Include any evidence declared in discovery that you identify as exculpatory, even if the prosecutor or others did not recognize it as such. 58. Exculpatory evidence not provided in discovery .Also include any evidence you may be aware of that could point to your innocence, but was not included in any discovery document. This concludes entries used for calculating the viability of your innocence. That covers the “what” of your overlooked innocence. Next, you declare “why” your exoneration is so vital. SAMPLE Process p 32 Now you rate the innocence options who seem to be serving the law more than serving you. Need-response features this skill to realistically assess the responsiveness of those we come to vulnerably depend upon. We must assess those who serve as the last or only option to address our affected inflexible needs. Such as your need for public recognition of your innocence, with or without an exoneration from the adversarial system that created it. D. Requests and responses for exoneration help - p3 3 For items 59, 60 and 61, you assess how satisfied you are with each innocence entity that you have encountered. You then asses how much you still trust that innocence entity. Like reviewing a business on Yelp, you assess their level of legitimacy.   Click in the white field to the right of “Satisfaction level:”. Then click on the arrow pointing down at the right end of this field. A list of options appears. Select your satisfaction level using one of those option from this dropdown list. Do the same with the “Trust level:” field.   Item 62 has you assessing the innocence movement as a whole. The dropdown list provides you a different set of options to rate their satisfaction and trust levels. Your critique of the innocence movement here can demonstrate the need for our need-responsive alternative.   Next, identify what you specifically need from the innocence movement. With the dropdown list, you indicate if that need for you is a low priority or a very high priority. This can improve your rapport with them, and improve their rapport with you and other innocence claimants.   Finally, report how this continuing wrongful conviction impacts you and your loved ones. Each of these eight items includes its own dropdown list of options. (NOTE: The updated version of this tool will report these in a new section after the CQR below.)   Page 33 59. Innocence Project . This gives you the option to select a specific innocence project in your state, assuming you did not seek help from one outside of your state. Click on “Innocence Project” to see the list of innocence projects in your state. The select the one that applies. All may apply, but select the one you prefer to rate right now. 60. District attorney . This also may list the prosecutors in your state. You can simple leave the “District attorney” default to keep it simple. This item speaks to their conviction integrity unit. Rate your satisfaction level and trust level, as you did above. 61. Other sources of legal assistance . Use this if you hired your own lawyer, or relied on journalism students, or reached out to a nonprofit organization offering legal services. If applicable, rate their satisfaction and trust levels. 62. Innocence movement . Assess the legitimacy of the current innocence movement as a whole. How content are you with the movement? Do you still trust the movement as the only show in town, or are you open to trying an alternative not focused on adversarial law?   Now let’s get to specifics. What do you seek from the innocence movement? Using the dropdown list, rate how importance that item is to you right now. This may help prioritize resources to work toward what you need the most. >  exoneration >  financial support for legal costs >  expunged record >  removal of all collateral consequences >  compensation >  apology >  OTHER: ______________ 63. Impact on claimant   (legitimacy of exclusionary legal-judicial process) . What are some specific impacts on the claimant after trusting the adversarial judicial process? 1.  reason for being denied review in the past 2.  revisiting case risks retraumatization 3.  depression level from legal-judicial process as only option 4.  anxiety from relying on same process creating error 5.  anxiety from slowness of legal-judicial process 6.  anxiety from prosecutor's power to reinforce error 7.  anxiety from having little to no control over process 8.  disillusionment with legal-judicial process   If the adversarial judicial process repeatedly fails to serve your inflexible need for justice, then consider the nonadversarial alternative of need-response. Consider if Exoneration Services can deliver to you the exoneration your life requires. SAMPLE Requests and responses for exoneration help p 33 How has this wrongful conviction damaged your life, and the life of your innocent loved ones? Next, we explore the continuing consequences you suffer from the state neglecting your innocence. E. Collateral consequences of wrongful conviction - p34 to p35   Page 34 Each map image takes you to an online site that lists various consequences of a conviction. National Inventory of Collateral Consequences of Conviction National maps on expungement, pardoning, and voting rights restoration Once at the site, click on their map to look at your state’s specific statues limiting your rights. This adds reasons for the innocence movement to address your affected needs. 64. Collateral consequences impacting claimant . Using the provided dropdown list, select in the left column how each items applies. Then using the provided dropdown list, mark on the right the time of its impact—before, during, or after incarceration. 1 ) Conviction posted online 2 ) Custody reimbursement 3 ) Education discrimination 4 ) Employment discrimination 5 ) Exempt from public assistance 6 ) Exempt from student financial aid 7 ) Health care discrimination 8 ) Housing discrimination 9 ) Loss of government benefits 10 ) Loss of gun rights 11 ) Loss of parental rights 12 ) Loss of vote 13 ) Loss or denial of professional license 14 ) Prevented from seeing family 15 ) Prevented from visiting prisoners 16 ) Restitution to alleged victims 17 ) Restricted movement 18 ) Sex offender registry 19 ) Workplace discrimination 20 ) Other (details in box below)   Use the large white field at the bottom of page 35 to include any consequence not listed above.  Page 35 65. Collateral consequence impacting others in claimant's life . Using the provided dropdown list, select in the left column if it applies and how.       >  not applicable       >  temporary       >  lasting       >  permanent  Then using the provided dropdown lists on the right, mark who is most impacted by that consequence of the wrongful conviction. impacting everyone I know impacting close friend(s) impacting close friends & family impacting only family members impacting only my (then) partner impacting (then) partner & kids impacting only my child(ren) impacting only my grandchild(ren)   Select who is impacted for each relevant item listed here. 1 ) anxiety 2 ) costs to contact while in prison 3 ) depression 4 ) divorce 5 ) housing instability 6 ) loss of companionship 7 ) loss of parent during upbringing 8 ) loss of stable income 9 ) loss of emotional support 10 ) poverty 11 ) stigma 12 ) targeted by bullies   Use the white field below item 65 to include any impacts not listed above.   66. Current neglected needs due to these collateral consequences . Identify how challenging the wrongful conviction has been to each of the first six items. Then identify how much you aspire to improve these listed areas impacted by the wrongful conviction.   Challenging 1 ) economic 2 ) physical health 3 ) mental health 4 ) relationships 5 ) will-to-live 6 ) OTHER: ______________________________________   Aspiring 7 ) income independence 8 ) maintaining healthy lifestyle 9 ) overcoming depression & anxiety 10 ) restoring family ties 11 ) helping others similarly situated 12 ) OTHER: ______________________________________   These lists likely overlooked something impacted in your life. Use the white field at the bottom of page 35 to add any other wrongful conviction challenge or aspiration.   As more claimants use this form, the more data we can present to the innocence movement and to the criminal judicial system to spotlight our neglected needs. SAMPLE Collateral consequences of wrongful conviction pp 34 - 35 F. Claimant narrative - p36 to p3 7 Here is where the claimant puts in their own words what they claim happened. Provide helpful context for the wrongful conviction. This appears in what others see first, so give it your best.   This section wraps up the form. The remainder is for helping you, the claimant (and proxy), to find the support you need to overcome this injustice. Keep going, you're almost there!   Page 36 67. Claim Synopsis . In two sentences or less, grab the reader’s attention with a tearjerking synopsis of the innocence claim. This text appears in the executive summary at the top. 68. Claim highlights . List eye grabbing highlights of claim, with as few words as possible. Replace each example with something from your own case. Up to ten highlights. 69. Flipside . For a balanced view, acknowledge what could be seen as the worst in the case. Nullify criticism by getting it out of the way. Demonstrate your integrity, your honest and humility. Defy the stereotypes about those claiming to be innocent. Because we are.   Think of this like the job interview question: “Tell me your greatest weakness.” That question builds trust by humbly admitting human imperfection. But the quicker the answer segues into the positivity of progress in that area, the better. Apply that to your prison experience.   So conclude your admitted weak spot on a positive note. For example, you could admit that you were obnoxious back when you were arrested. But then took the opportunity to face the worst of what life could throw at you to improve your moral character. How many guilty felons can express such honesty and demonstrate growth from the harshest of experiences?  Page 37 70. Claim Summary . Summarize the innocence claim—with an eye for short attention spans. Add some context to the synopsis above. Provoke the reader's curiosity and interest to discover more.   Invite your closest supporter(s) to give you helpful feedback. Keep it engaging. Leave out any tone of blame. Describe what occurred without suggesting what anyone should do about it. Except close with a call-to-action. What can those moved by your words do to support you?   Follow this format to standardize your summary. The more the reader can follow your words, the more likely they will read it to the end. The more engaging your narrative, the more support your bound to attract by sticking with this simple formula.   On [INCIDENT DATE], [CLAIMANT] [HOW INCIDENT OCCURRED]. [CONTEXT]. Do your best to describe the facts without vilifying anyone. Let the reader decide. Close with a call-to-action [CTA], what you are asking the engaged reader to do. Look through the example to get some ideas. 2,500-character limit .   Be free to rewrite and rewrite your early drafts. Polish this narrative as best as you can. Or get another to write it for you. Let your innocence shine for all to see! SAMPLE Claimant narrative pp 36 - 37 G. Compensation - p38   Page 38 Since creating this tool, more states have passed legislation to compensate those exonerated. And the statute may not indicate how difficult it can actually be to receive just compensation.   For more current information about your relevant state, use a search engine online.   One reason for including this section is to appreciate the stakes involved when recognizing your innocence. When considering the estimates on the next page for how many could potentially be eligible for compensation, you might better appreciate the politics of stalling. SAMPLE Compensation p 38 H. You're not alone - p39 A growing list of academic articles tries to estimate just how many of us are wrongly convicted. The exact number is not knowable by current methods. Various researchers use various methods to give us a rough idea. First, the researcher must define who is, and who is not, wrongly convicted. More recent estimates narrow that definition to actual innocence and not merely on a legal technicality . Which refers to those who played no role in the identified crime. Researchers using a broad definition tend to come up with larger percentage rates of wrongful convictions than those using a narrower definition. The research methods used by those working withing the judicial system tend to come up with much smaller rates. They understandably are more invested in avoiding the opposite risk of wrongful acquittals.   Page 39 This optional form allows you to see where you fit into the scope of this problem.   First, go to the National Registry of Exonerations (which recently migrated to a new website ). Find their latest total of exonerations (top left of most of their pages). Enter that figure in the first field.   In the next field, select the relevant population from the dropdown list. Felony population Ex-prisoner population Custody population (includes all those on parole and probation) Prison population (both state and federal) Registered sex offenders   Then check the results for each estimated rate below. Remember, these are merely estimates. For a more thorough exploration of these wrongful conviction rate, click the image to the right. In this document, I unpack each of these estimated rates.   I identify the professional role of the researcher. Then give their definition of a wrongful conviction. I also summarize their research methods. Academics working within the judicial system understandably estimate lower rates. Criminologists and others outside of the judicial system and peering tend to find higher rates.   Higher rates also stem from a broader definition of wrongful conviction. Such as a legal technicality, which can include those guilty of lesser offenses.   More recent research narrows the definition of a wrongful conviction to “ actual innocence ” or “factual innocence.” This effectively excludes the wrongly convicted of one charge while admittedly guilty of a different or lesser offense.   More research has emerged since its publication in 2021. You can search online to get an update, if you prefer. Enter in your search engine of choice: academic research estimating   rates of wrongful conviction . While the exact number eludes us, the scope of the problem of wrongly convicted innocence becomes clear. Starting with Zalman (#4), you get a number into the tens of thousands. The widely accepted rate of 5% results in 100,000 innocent persons in prison!   Now you do the math: estimated total# — the registry total# = holy crapola!!!   You can quickly appreciate why we need something like the Estimated Innocence Form, to shine a light upon this underserved problem. You can quickly draw the same conclusion as Samuel Gross of the National Exoneration Registry, back in 2015: “We know without doubt that the vast majority of innocent defendants who are convicted of crimes are never identified and cleared.” - Samuel Gross, editor of the National Registry of Exonerations , as reported in 2015 in the Washington Post . At need-response, we find this unacceptable! SAMPLE You're not alone p 39 With your estimated viability of actual innocence, you can now hold the adversarial legal process to a higher degree of accountability for your underserved justice needs. “Accountability—the sense that one’s actions are personally identifiable and subject to the evaluation of others—often acts as a constraint on unchecked power. Individuals in power who know they will be held accountable are more likely to consider social consequences and take others’ interests into account.” ( Keltner, et al., 2003 ) end of page by page instructions That concludes the instructions for filling out the form. Using your Estimated Innocence This sums up the standard half of the Estimated Innocence Form. The remaining pages provide a starting point for those requiring options to go beyond adversarial legalism . They could be used if you upgrade to the Responsive Innocence option.   The above instructions provide you with minimal guidance for how you might want to apply your resulting raw score. Its broader application is still evolving. We’re exploring how to use it during each step of what we call the re-adjudication process . Think of your viable innocence score as the opening for a fresh approach toward serving the needs of justice. Three avenues now open up to you. You’re likely familiar with the strictly adversarial judicial process. Consider two other paths we can carve out for you. 1. Estimated Innocence . You keep relying on the adversarial judicial process to someday lead you to an official exoneration. You keep going it alone. After all, until need-response  takes off as a viable alternative, official court exoneration is the only game in town. 2. Responsive Innocence . You parallel whatever is left of your reliance upon the adversarial process with our pioneering mutuality process . This introduces you to our “ public exoneration ” alternative, which taps into the public’s disillusionment with many of our institutions. [STILL UNDER DEVELOPMENT, AND YOU CAN HELP TEST IT] 3. Honored Innocence . You prioritize our mutuality alternative to properly resolve needs, challenging the adversarial system to be as responsive. This option features “public exoneration” that invites the public to scrutinize the adversarial legalism also harming them. [STILL UNDER DEVELOPMENT, AND YOU CAN HELP TEST IT]   All three fall under the umbrella of our Exoneration Services , still in development.   Now let's review the results. Review your results After filling in each relevant field and seeing your viability score climb, go back to the top. Notification of Verifiable Innocence (NOVI) Scroll back to the top, and find the GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS have converted to your Notice of Verifiable Innocence. You find a printable copy of this at the NOVI tab. Certificate of Verifiable Innocence (COVI) The second page becomes your very own Certificate of Verifiable Innocence. Sideways, of course. Go to the COVI tab for a lateral version, which you can now save as a PDF, and print out as needed.   In the future, we may put your account number on this printable certificate. That way, anyone can look up your vouched for innocence. Estimated Innocence Report (EIR) The next five pages, page three through seven, becomes your updated Estimated Innocence Report (or EIR for short). You will notice how much of it displays whatever you entered in section F.   Use the downward pointing green arrows to quickly return to section F, like if you need to edit it or correct any misspelling. Once at section F, click on the upward pointing yellow review  arrows to instantly get back to the EIR.   Go to the EIR tab to more easily save your EIR as a PDF. You can also easily print this out from there. Send the PDF or printed copy to someone who supports your innocence. Have them review it and offer any helpful improvements.   Thank them for their constructive feedback. Then improve your EIF with their input. And with your own recognized room for improving it.   Remember, this portion distills your Estimated Innocence into an easily digestible report. It likely will be the only aspects of your acclaimed innocence most people will ever see. Conviction Quality Report (CQR) This organizes all of your identified factors contributing to the wrongful conviction, and displays it for easy processing for innocence litigators. Go to the CQR tab to easily save this as a PDF. And to print it out, if needed.   Look for similar reports to be included in the next updated version of the EIF. Save this version   After you fill out all the relevant white fields and have fixed any errors, click save. You can save your changes in one of thee ways. Pick the method you’re most comfortable using.   Method 1: While holding down the shift key, press the ‘S’ key. Or… Method 2: Click on the diskette icon on the top bar to the left in Excel. Or… Method 3: Point your mouse arrow of the File menu. Click it. Then go down to Save, and click that. Next, click on Save as  (under the File menu) to create a copy of this version. If this is still in your downloads folder, pick a location to save this copy on your device. Edit the file name by adding who you plan to send it to.   For example, “EIF E01 - Innocence Project”. You can now easily save a PDF copy from this version of your work. To save as a PDF Instead of sending the Excel file, you may prefer to send either the whole file or one of the tabs as a PDF. If unfamiliar how to do this, simply follow these steps. Click on the step listed below to quickly go down to the detailed instructions for it further below. You can click on that step below to quickly return to this list of steps. 1. Go to File. 2. Go to Save as. 3. Click browse. Pick a location on your device. 4. Click on Excel Workback after Save as type: 5. Select PDF. 6. Click save. These steps apply specifically to Excel 2021 while using Windows 11. Yours may look a little different. These images above are for a different spreadsheet tool, but illustrate the same steps. 1.   Go to File. From within Excel, point your mouse to the first menu option: File. This opens you to your list of saved Excel files. 2. Go to Save as. Move your mouse arrow down over the Save As option. Click "Save As" to get ready to save a version of this file. 3. Click browse. Pick a location on your device. Move your arrow over Browse, to the right of the folder icon. Click on "Browse" to open the Save As dialogue box. 4. Click on Excel Workback after Save as type: While the standard copy of the file name is highlighted in blue, now is a good time to edit the file name. Click after the file name and add the recipient's name. E.g., "EIF - Innocence Project 1". We recommend adding a number in case you later need to create updated versions. Next, click in the "Save as type:" field below the file name. Click on " Excel Workbook " to open the list of available file types. 5. Select PDF. Move your arrow down to PDF (near the bottom of the list). Select it. Be sure this the location you want to save this PDF version of your EIF. If not, now is the time to change the folder. You will need to remember this file location when ready to send it to the recipient. 6. Click save. Move the mouse arrow down the lower right of the dialogue box. Click on the S ave  button. Once saved, your PDF should open the program you have defaulted to open PDFs. For most of us, that would be Adobe Reader . Need help completing this form, or how to use it? As the professionally responsive  sender, you can use this tool just once or many times. If used repeatedly, you have further options. 1. Do It Yourself option. You can opt to download this tool, fill it out according to these instructions, and send the results directly to each recipient you contact. No cost to us or to you. No hassles. No kidding. 2. Free peer support option. If you have a question about the EIF not covered by these instructions, you can seek answers from others more familiar more with it. Free, but you will have to sign up to use the forum. “If you have any question how to use the Estimated Innocence Form, go ahead and ask them here.” You just have to sign up to become a member of Anankelogy Foundation.org. Simply follow the forum’s guidelines. Much like the group rules you see in almost any Facebook group.   Post your questions and concerns. Answer the posted questions from others. Help each other optimize this free tool for publicizing your innocence. To enter, click the button below.    3. Free expert support option. If you get stuck, consider receiving one-on-one support from the person who created this tool. While offered free up front, I ask you for a donation afterwards. Your gift for using this Estimated Innocence Support service can help me faithfully provide it. 1. Click the ‘Book Now’ button above . This takes you to the booking process. You do not have to log in for this process, but that can make it go smoother. You will see how these sessions last 25 minutes on Zoom. While each session is provided to you without cost, it does cost me to provide it. So after the session, I will invite you to donate what you can afford. 2. Click the ‘Request to Book’ button . The "Appointment Summary" appears. “Estimated Innocence Support online With Steph Turner • 23 min • Donate afterward”. Click the “Schedule Appointment” button below this text. 3. Schedule your appointment. You will see a calendar on the next page. I am available to provide sessions during the evenings of Sunday through Thursday. After you pick a day and time right for you, click the ‘Request to Book’ button at the right on that page. 4. Client details . Provide the information we will need to properly serve you. Add an optional message, if you like. Post any question you may have so I can be prepared to promptly answer it. 5. Review and place order . Confirm your name and email is correct. If all looks okay, click the “Request to Book” button at the right. 6. Confirmation . You’re set! I will confirm your order as soon as I can. Check your email for a confirmation of this scheduled online session. If you do not see it promptly, then check your spam folder. You can optionally add this to your Google Calendar . See you then. Give us your feedback 1. Help spot our mistakes. As I write this, this tool's potential has yet to be tested in real life situations. Your feedback to this tool could help improve it for the lives of countless others. Please report any problems you encounter. Thank you. identify any misspelling report any broken links here or in the spreadsheet report any problem with page breaks in the spreasdsheet form suggest improvements propose a wrongful conviction factor overlooked here (click here for ideas) 2. Take a very short survey. Please take a moment for this three-question survey. 1) Agree or disagree that you found the Estimated Innocence Form to be useful. 2) Agree or disagree that you found the Estimated Innocence Form to be difficult to use. 3) What is one thing about it you would change if you could? 3. Take a slightly longer survey. To give us more of your feedback, consider filling out our longer survey. If you could make this better, what would you change? This 16-item survey consists mostly of multiple choice answers. Your answers can help shape this tool to fit the underserved needs of the unexonerated wrongly convicted. If wrongly convicted yourself, or you represent someone who is wrongly convicted, and not yet exonerated, this tool and survey is especially for you. How can Estimated Innocence better serve you as the innocence claimant or their rep? How can Estimated Innocence better serve you as the innocence litigator or their org? Thank you for taking the time to fill out this survey. Click on the button for you to start. For innocence claimants For innocence litigators Follow its development on our podcast   I, Steph Turner, will be the first to try these pioneering alternatives. Before inviting you to test the untried, I aim to build rapport with the judicial system. I will first serve their need to process innocence claims for efficiently and effectively.   Then I hope to come back to you with some good news. You can follow how this all works out at our Need-Response podcast . We solve problems by resolving needs, one person at a time. That could include you, soon enough.   Listen each Wednesday as we test this fresh approach to resolving needs. Subscribe at Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. We may even invite you on the show one day, to share how this new experience works for you.   Click on the Need-Response podcast show image to learn more.

Anankelogy establishes your every need as an objective fact Anankelogy recognizes your every need as objective fact ; as inflexible needs. You cannot change at will whatever you may need in the moment. You can only change how you respond to them. Need-response puts your inflexible needs ahead of flexible laws, ahead of our social norms. The reality of our needs evolved first. Our laws and norms then followed long after. Compared to your need for water, or for friendship or for solitude, social norms like laws  or political views are flexible . Sure, they can be next to impossible to change. And often don’t need to be changed. But since social norms and laws are not grounded in biology, they can  change .   Your needs cannot. They occur as inflexible phenomena, biologically, prior to your subjective awareness and choices. They only go away if you resolve   them . Not if trying to relieve the pain, or to suppress them to comply with some authority. Or because others regard them as subjective choices. Your need for water is objective. You objectively cannot function fully while thirsty, while your body lacks sufficient fluids. How you subjectively quench your thirst for water does not detract from its objective core. Your need for security is objective. You objectively cannot function fully while insecure, while unable to confidently step outside and not risk harm. How you act upon your need for security does not detract from its objective core. Your need for self-determination is objective. You objectively cannot function fully while others are imposing their will over your life’s course. How you act upon your need for self-determination does not detract from its objective core.   If your needs are completely subjective and a matter of choice, why do you choose to be thirsty? Or is your thirst an emotional response to your objective need for water?   How you get that water involves choices. But needing water is not a matter of choice or subjectivity. You objectively cannot function while your body’s fluid level collapses. If your needs are completely subjective and a matter of choice, why do you choose to be lonely? Or is your desire for friendship an emotional response to your objective need for social connection?   How you seek friendship or companionship involves choices. But requiring deeper social connections occurs outside of your choices or your subjectivity. You objectively cannot function well without the support of others at times. If your needs are completely subjective and a matter of choice, why do you choose to feel smothered? Or is your desire for solitude an emotional response to your objective need for personal space?   How you seek to get away from others involves choices. But requiring solitude occurs outside of your choices or subjectivity. You objectively cannot function well unless you’re free to do some things for yourself.   Only anankelogy makes this careful distinction. Only the service of need-response prioritizes your needs as objective phenomena. Because your needs persist as inflexible facts, over flexible norms. And over imposing authorities. Learn more about how this new professional service honors the inflexibility of your needs, by subscribing to this Need-Response podcast . You can learn more about the inflexibility of your needs at our website: AnankelogyFoundation.org . Use Google or any other search engine and enter A-N-A-N-K-E-L-O-G-Y then foundation.  We respect the inflexibility of your needs so you can be your full self. Hear this podcast episode one clip online at:

Dr. Carrie Leonetti identifies a list of 27 factors contributing to wrongly convicting the innocent. They complement the Estimated Innocence Form . IMAGE: Dr. Carrie Leonetti, Auckland University Since creating the Estimated Innocence Form  in 2019, Dr. Carrie Leonetti   of Aukland University (originally of the University of Oregon) independently identified a list of predictable contributors to wrongful convictions.   You can see her full 2021 article here  that publicized her innocence checklist.   Almost anyone in the innocence movement can identify the five most basic contributors. Official misconduct. Eyewitness misidentification. Incentivized (jail) informant. Junk science or improperly applied forensics science. False and often a coerced confession.   Inadequate legal defense can be added. Along with a host of other factors, like tunnel vision investigations , confirmation bias , noble cause corruption , prosecutorial misconduct like Brady violations , sunk value fallacy , political pressures , and more.   Leonetti’s list identifies no less than 27 factors correlating with wrongful convictions. She groups these factors into clusters for easier review.   When I can find time, I aim to craft a comparison chart that illustrates which of her identified factors leading to wrongly convicting the innocent fits closely with the Estimated Innocence Form. And which items she identifies is lacking in the EIF. Along with items in the EIF missing in her checklist.   Her “innocence checklist” supports my aim to develop an empirically sound basis for more quickly identifying viable innocence claims. Unlike Professor Leonetti, I am already putting my list into action, with the downloadable EIF .   Read the list for yourself below. Click on each listed item to explore it in more detail below. Clicking the header above each paragraph below returns you to this navigable list.   If you have downloaded the EIF and find any of her factors missing an important factor, share your observations in the comments below. If you can think of anything we have both missed, you can add it to the comments below. Keep us on our toes. You can do your part to help us improve how we all transparently identify and clear the wrongly convicted innocent. INNOCENCE CHECKLIST Cluster I: Government Misconduct (1)   Prosecutorial Disclosure (2)   False Evidence (3)   Coaching (4) Witness Hiding (5) Deficient Defense (6) Forensic Misconduct (7)   Police Misconduct Cluster II: Material New Evidence (8) Reasonable Doubt (9) Alternate Suspect (10) New Science (11) Presence (12) Diminished Mental Capacity (13)   Recantations (14)   Impeachment (15) Incentives (16) Changing Science (17) Biased or Unvalidated Scientific Evidence (18) Corroboration (19) Maintenance of Innocence Cluster III: Government Negligence and Other Forms of Misconduct (20)   Missing or Inadequate Corroboration (21) Unreliable Eyewitness Identification (22) Questionable Confessions (23) Inconsistent Theories (24) Police Corruption (25) Snitch Testimony (26) Inconsistent Witnesses (27) Pretrial Publicity   Explore each of these in a little more detail below, as found in pages 145 through 149 in her academic article .   Cluster I: Government Misconduct   (1) Prosecutorial Disclosure Failure of prosecutors to divulge favorable evidence, regardless of whether such failure meets the doctrinal test of Brady . If suppression is unintentional, it should count as a factor in favor of wrongful conviction when the withheld information is reasonably likely to relate to the accuracy of the trial. If suppression is intentional, it should count as a factor in favor of wrongful conviction irrelevant of the likelihood that the withheld information relates to the accuracy of the trial.   Stock image: Collecting evidence at a crime scene (2) False Evidence Prosecutorial presentation of materially false evidence, regardless of the state of mind of the prosecutor who examined the witness. (3) Coaching Inappropriate preparation of prosecutorial witnesses.   (4) Witness Hiding Intentionally securing the unavailability of defense witnesses.   (5) Deficient Defense Failure of defense counsel to investigate or develop potentially viable defenses, especially alibi claims, including failure to retain scientific experts to test, retest, or challenge questionable prosecution forensic-science evidence, regardless of whether such failure meets the doctrinal test of Strickland .   (6) Forensic Misconduct Intentional misconduct or gross negligence by forensic analysts or the crime laboratory that processed evidence during the time period that evidence relating to the defendant’s case was processed (e.g., “ dry labbing ” or undetected contamination), regardless of whether there is evidence that items specifically relating to the defendant’s case were contaminated or misprocessed, particularly if the misconduct was not discovered promptly through laboratory audit procedures. Stock image: Police misconduct gets felt the most by those most targeted by police. (7) Police Misconduct Police misconduct or gross negligence either during investigation of the defendant’s case or a pattern of misconduct across cases that could include the defendant’s, such as lost or destroyed evidence; material record-keeping omissions; coercing or inducing confessions, even if inducements do not rise to the level of a constitutional violation (e.g., lying to a suspect about evidence); inducing false testimony; or intentionally withholding information from prosecutors.   Cluster II: Material New Evidence   (8) Reasonable Doubt Discovery of evidence unknown at the time of trial (regardless of whether it could have been discovered through due diligence ), the presence of which now creates a plausible theory under which the defendant could be innocent or is reasonably likely to cause a reasonable, disinterested person to harbor a reasonable doubt about guilt.   (9) Alternate Suspect Evidence tending to inculpate a suspect other than the defendant, including a DNA match from crucial biological evidence to any individual other than the defendant from an item of material crime-scene evidence (even if such a match is not conclusively exculpatory); confessions or incriminating admissions by alternate suspects; video footage or other electronic surveillance records documenting the presence of an alternate suspect at the time of the crime; or identification by a witness of someone other than the defendant as the perpetrator.   (10) New Science The existence of scientific evidence that either was not available or was available but not performed prior to trial, the favorable results of which are likely to exculpate the defendant.   (11) Presence Evidence casting doubt on the defendant’s presence or ability to be present at the scene of the crime.   (12) Diminished Mental Capacity The presence of a serious mental illness or intellectual disability in the defendant prior to and/or during trial, including one that derived from youth, immaturity, and lack of formal education, regardless of whether such illness or disability was known to the court or defense counsel at trial or whether such illness or disability rendered the defendant incompetent to stand trial under Dusky v. United States .   (13) Recantations Recantation or subsequent statement(s) that is (are) materially inconsistent with trial testimony by significant prosecution witnesses.   (14) Impeachment New information discrediting a key prosecution witness’s ability to observe, recall, or recount the subject matter of their testimony accurately or truthfully, including physical or mental health issues. Stock image: Authorities risk exploiting the vulnerabilities in some populations, sowing division. (15) Incentives Benefits given or promises or threats made to significant prosecution witnesses, including leniency in their own criminal cases.   (16) Changing Science A significant change in the state of prosecutorial expert evidence , including a change in the consensus of experts in a field about the significance or interpretation of results. This factor should apply to any case in which the evidence, now known to be unreliable, was presented, including expert testimony that a fire was arson based on burn patterns, testimony that a hair taken from the defendant matched a hair taken from the crime scene based on microscopic comparison, testimony that bitemarks found on a victim or at a crime scene matched the defendant’s bite, hypnotically induced testimony, or testimony that a baby’s death was caused by violent shaking based on shaken-baby syndrome .   (17) Biased or Unvalidated Scientific Evidence Forensic analyses that were obtained in the context of unnecessary biasing information and forensic-science testimony that was inaccurate, misleading, or oversold, regardless of the good/bad faith of the analyst.   (18) Corroboration Material evidence significantly corroborating the defendant’s contested testimony or theory of the case.   (19) Maintenance of Innocence The defendant’s consistent, explicit, personal maintenance of innocence.   Cluster III: Government Negligence and Other Forms of Misconduct   (20) Missing or Inadequate Corroboration Absence of physical evidence to corroborate crucial witness testimony or a defendant’s confession under circumstances in which such corroborating evidence would reasonably be expected to exist and be obtainable. Stock image: Eyewitnesses do not always get a good look at the culprit's face (21) Unreliable Eyewitness Identification Introduction at trial of a stranger eye-witness identification of the defendant when that identification either (a) was obtained from procedures proven to be suggestive by social science evidence, regardless of whether such procedure has been deemed unnecessarily suggestive as a matter of constitutional or common law and regardless of whether evidence relating to the lack of reliability of the procedure was introduced at trial (defense expert testimony, cross-examination, or closing argument) or (b) was not significantly corroborated by other evidence, under circumstances in which such corroborating evidence would reasonably be expected to exist.   (22) Questionable Confessions Introduction at trial of the defendant’s confession or substantial inculpatory admissions that were obtained through coercive interrogation techniques like the Reid method of interrogation; confessions obtained from highly vulnerable suspects; confessions obtained after prolonged detention, isolation, when the suspect was sleep deprived, or in response to evidence ploys and other misrepresentations; and confessions obtained without video-taping or other recording.   (23) Inconsistent Theories Use by prosecutors of a theory of the defendant’s case inconsistent with the prosecution theory in another closely related case.   (24) Police Corruption Compelling evidence that law-enforcement agents who investigated the defendant’s case engaged in corrupt conduct during the course of another investigation (e.g., stealing or intentionally “misplacing” evidence, planting evidence, giving or accepting bribes, providing “protection” to criminal syndicates, frequenting sex workers, using illicit drugs, knowingly violating the constitutional rights of suspects, or “ testilying ”).   (25) Snitch Testimony Material testimony of an incentivized informant or wit-ness cooperating in exchange for a material benefit, regardless of whether any incentive for cooperation was disclosed to the defense prior to trial or introduced in evidence.   (26) Inconsistent Witnesses Prosecutorial introduction of testimony from two or more witnesses whose testimony is materially inconsistent with one another.   (27) Pretrial Publicity Sensationalized media coverage of the case prior to trial, particularly if it involved commentary by prosecutors or police officers about the defendant’s prior criminal record, character, credibility, reputation, or inculpatory statements; physical evidence; the testimony, criminal record, character, reputation, or credibility of witnesses, including the victim; or evidence that was ruled inadmissible at trial.   References: Carrie Leonetti, “The Innocence Checklist,” 58 American Criminal Law Review 97  (2021). Leonetti's Innocence Checklist Model, People's Commission for Integrity in Criminal Justice. Medword, D. (2005). The Zeal Deal: Prosecutorial Resistance to Post-Conviction Claims of Innocence, Law, Political Science 125 . DOI: 10.18574/nyu/9780814796245.003.0008

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 legitmizing 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 was obviously coerced into performing acts for your viewing pleasure. 4. Properly easing needs You seek to ease your needs in ways that does 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 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 slippin 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 diaster 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 tryanny. 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

You feel fine one day. And wake up sick the next day. Our health care language characterizes this as some kind of binary. Anankelogy recognizes how we gradually slip from full wellness into sickness. STOCK IMAGE: much like this control room, functionality covers a complex array of needs you experience Which do you think is more likely? You are either well or sick with little room in between. OR Wellness is a matter of degree between full wellness and full illness. Wellness as a matter of degree Illuminating "symfunctional strain" Definition and illustrative description Slipping into the “symfunction trap” Your fallback functioning Institutional relief Spotlighting culprits to rising dysfunction Most problems emerge beyond your personal control Pulled into less wellness Getting stuck sliding from wellness to illness Wellness as a matter of degree Anankelogy illuminates how every need exists as an objective fact . Wellness only occurs when all of your needs adequately resolve. The less your needs resolve, the less well you become as you slip further down into lower levels of functioning. Lowered functioning then prompts pain, to warn us of this declining wellness. Anankelogy recognizes how we call experience a functionality array where we go through phases of complete wellness to deadly pathology. Peakfunctionality   - prioritizing resolving needs; full wellness. Symfunctionality   - prioritizing easing needs; from wellness to illness. Dysfunctionality   - prioritizing relieving pain; full illness. Misfunctionality   - prioritizing survival; terminal illness. peakfunctionality symfunctionality dysfunctionality misfunctionality Conventional thinking presents a wellness/illness binary. Anankelogy suggests something exists in between. Think of complete wellness as peakfunctionality . And illness as slipping into dysfunctionality , and into misfunctionality for terminal diseases and disorders. In between exists what anankelogy labels as symfunction . Where you are neither fully well nor fully ill. Symfunction can be broken down into smaller steps that helps to explain this slide into illness, called symfunction capture . It includes three distinct stages. Symfunction creep. Threshold into unwellness. Symfunction strain . Emerging unwellness. Symfunction trap . Unwellness taking hold. Illuminating "symfunctional strain" Definition and illustrative descriptions Symfunctional strain refers to the ongoing emotional stress you naturally experience from each need not fully resolved. Each imperfectly resolved need prompts your body (specifically, your autonomic nervous system , or ANS ) to warn you of its particular threat against your ability to fully function. If enjoying a quick meal of processed foods leaves you nutritionally deficient, your body warns you that your hunger has not been fully satisfied. If sharing your emotional troubles with a trusted friend who then dismisses your complaint, your body warns you that your need for social support remains unfulfilled. If your job provides a steady income but less meaning to create appreciated value for others, your body warns there is still room for improvement to address your need earn a living creating something meaningful. Typically, you feel each warning of a partially eased need as a dull and manageable pain. If experiencing just a handful of such needs that remain partially resolved, you likely do not even notice this strain. With most other needs fully resolved, you can still function quite well with little if any distraction. You can focus sufficiently despite that emerging reminder to satisfy that hunger. Or that slightly disturbing cue to find someone who cares about your complaint. Or that gnawing but easily ignored feeling that you are not really being valued at work for all you’re worth. These mostly resolved needs let you focus on the positives and disregard such miniscule negatives. Slipping into the “ symfunction trap ” Often, however, a few partially resolved needs swells into a molehill of unresolved needs. A few mostly resolved needs slips into mostly unresolved needs, severely compromising your ability to function. These can build up into a mountain of warnings constantly reminding you of growing threats to your ability to function. Any dull pain you felt at the beginning can now overwhelm your attention. Your growing hunger pangs refuse to be ignored. Your increasing sense of being misunderstood crowds your attention. Your alarming dissatisfaction with your lousy job consumes your focus. These less resolved needs increasingly distract you, as they scream for your attention. They warn your ability to function is becoming intolerable. Your once-trivial problems now appear more urgent. You feeling increasingly trapped to prioritize these alarming needs. While not completely nourished, you lack sufficient energy to always prepare a healthy meal. While wondering if you’ll find anyone who’ll care, you adjust your expectations to avoid painful disappointment. While feeling stuck in your dead-end job, you doubt if you can find any job that’s better. You now feel trapped into this mediocre level of functioning. At least you can get by in this modern world of technological conveniences and predictability provided by enforced laws. At least you’re not alone in this situation. Your fallback functioning The “ sym ” prefix, means “with others”. Sym+function means “relying impersonally on others to adequately function”. The less you can fully resolve your own needs, the more you likely fall back on what others provide. And you tend to accept the imperfect terms for how they provide it. The less you can fully access water freely from digging your own well, for example, the more you impersonally rely on the public water systems or store-bought water. The less you can count on your friends to help get you through a crisis, the more you seek whatever support is available—even if of lower quality. The creeping normality of settling for whatever you can get eventually takes its toll. The less you can fully resolve needs on your own or with a few supportive others, the more you tend to rely upon impersonal norms to fill the gap. You now must expect others to respect your exposed needs by following established laws. You cannot directly know what’s in that store-bought bottle of water, but experience indicates the laws work to keep you safe from any toxins. You cannot directly know if who you call on that helpline will be adequately sympathetic, but experience teaches you they follow ethical standards enough to be worth the call. Our recent ancestors could provide much more for themselves. Their needs tended to be far less vulnerable to divisive social norms, or to those in positions of power, or to onerous social structures. You cannot draw clean water from a river as could your great-great-great-great grandparents. Unlike them, you have to apply for a government permit to dig a well. By contrast, you must obey far more comprehensive laws. Norms rule our lives like never before. We are “free” to obey more laws than ever before in human memory. We are “free” to believe we’re free, or risk being locked up with the largest incarceration population in recorded history. We are “free” to think we’re all okay while living at a time of unprecedented rates of addiction, severe anxiety, major depression, and suicide. The more we assume sickness only occurs within, the more we may overlook culprits to our recurring unwellness. Perhaps you follow the privileged norm of feeling outraged toward others with a different political view. Maybe you’re among those who believe our adversarial legal system works great, that it’s the best in the world. Perchance you accept the dominant narrative that personal problems stem mainly from distorted thinking and has little to do with encroaching limits on your options to stay well. If you’re conservative and think such symfunctional conformity is more of a problem on the political left, think again. Certain aspects of political generalizing can leave liberals and progressives more prone to symfunctional strain . But even contemporary libertarians fall trap to symfunctional norms. We all rely more on institutions to ease our public needs. Institutional relief Psychiatry, and almost all of Western medicine, posits wellness or illness squarely within the individual. Its disease model tends to overlook the full context of wellness in favor of hyper-individualism . If you're cooperating with others, then all should go well. Until it doesn't. Relying on law-based institutions, such as politics and the judiciary, does little to accountably identify and address need to produce wellness outcomes. These institutions easily pull you into what anankelogy identifies as toxic legalism . Trusting laws to ease your needs tends to pull you into unhealthy norms. But the more you conform to unhealthy norms, like opposing what others inflexibly need , the less you can fully resolve your own needs. Sure, you fit in enough to gain approval. But at what cost to your wellbeing? If you cannot fully fit in to win their affirmation, then there is supposedly something wrong with you. In a world filled with many socially privileged problems—like hyper-rationalism , outrage porn and hyper-individualism —fitting in can be painfully overrated. Indeed, much of the stigma around mental illness, as a medical construct, points to this overemphasis upon the individual unable to fully function. It's often easier to talk about a sick person than admit we live in a sick society hindering an individual's potential to stay well . Anankelogy starts with a more holistic approach. Instead of relying on the medical model or internal cognitive processes, which reveals a Western bias toward hyper-individualism that overlooks socioenvironmental factors, anankelogy balances both internal components of wellness with external components. Anankelogy recognizes that wellness is psychosocial . Spotlighting culprits to increasing unwellness Conventional thinking generally assumes our dysfunctions exist squarely within our individual selves. We must have made some wrong choices that keep us trapped in pain. If only we applied ourselves, started making better choices, and asserted the willpower to remain disciplined. Then we could finally escape our pain. Or so goes conventional thinking. Anankelogy debunks such a hyper-individualistic narrow view. For starters, anankelogy recognizes pain as your body warning you of some perceived threat to your ability to function . The greater the threat and more vital the area of the threatened function, the more intense the pain. Most of these threats are real and come from outside of the pained individual. Pain typically points to some problem from unresolved needs. Pain is not the problem as much as the threats to functioning that pain exists to warn us about . Most problems emerge beyond your personal control Anankelogy gives context to the variety of such pain from pressing problems. Anankelogy identifies four levels of human problems provoking your pain. Each of these point to some threat to your wellness. Personal problems . These often constrict you capacity to fully function until you make some personal alterations within your responsiveness. Interpersonal problems . These generally limit your capacity to function until you work out your differences and respond to each other's affected needs. Power problems . These tend to significantly restrict your ability to function, depending on the recourse available to you. Structural problems . These can severely restrict your ability to function with little if any resource. IMAGE: Good Will Hunting scene: Too much self-blame leaves problem-makers off the hook. For example, if you live an environment where junk food is easily available while quality meals are less accessible, you face a structural problem that could easily pull you into painful dysfunction. But the more you can reliably access primary resources like healthy foods , the better you can function. If you could grow all the food your body requires, than you could come closer to sustaining full wellness, full peakfunctionality . The social and political arrangements of modern society tends to make that increasingly impossible. Pulled into less wellness We all find ourselves vulnerably dependent upon economic forces beyond our personal control to supply us with the food we need. When not adequately available, or when we find it challenging to find the time and energy to prepare a decent meal, we often opt for quick processed foods. It's easy to argue that we should all prioritize eating healthily. But the more we face the complicating details of modern life, the easier we can admit how our food choices get readily manipulated by structural patterns beyond our control. Once I opt for processed foods, I find I have less energy to prepare a better meal. The more time I save from microwaving quick meals, the more I commit much of that time to fulfill my social obligations. Which leaves me less time to cook next time. My growing dependence on microwaveable food can be described as a coerced poor option dependence (or CoPOD for short). Social pressures may coerce me to occasionally choose the easiest option available. As my energy declines, that occasional choice turns routine. My rare bouts of indigestion start to become a daily norm. Getting stuck sliding from wellness to illness The more you struggle with pain from unmet needs, the more naturally drawn to pain relief. But then you tend to ignore the underlying need. Which prompts more pain. The more you neglect your pain-reported needs, the further you slip into less wellness. And eventually find yourself getting sick. Anankelogy identifies this pattern as symfunction capture . Whether from poor choices or coerced into accepting the only options available, you acclimate to fewer needs resolving. A few unmet needs expands to several. Neglecting your low priority needs (like satisfying your vocational goals) can slip into neglecting your more essential needs (like personal security). Anankelogy views what we call "illness" as significantly diminished functioning. Before you label yourself as "sick", your ability to function often undergoes a steady decline. You may not feel this decline as a path toward pathology. You may not even recognize the many components of wellness slipping out of your reach. Anankelogy recognizes this dynamic for you. And sheds light on what it truly means to be sick, and to be well again. Your responsiveness to these levels of your functionality Your turn. Consider one or more of these options to respond to this need-responsive content. Check out Engaging Forum to FOLLOW discussions on this post and others. JOIN us as a site member to interact others and create your forum comments. Explore similar content by clicking on the tags below. Find similar content under this functionality category. Share this content with others on social media. Share the link to share the love. Check out recent posts of interest to you. Add a rating below to let others know how much of a good read this was for you. Write a comment below to give others an independent perspective on this content. Recommend this on Facebook. Introduce anankelogy to your social media contacts. Lastly, support us in building this new love-nurturing alternative to our hate-enabling institutions. You can help us spread some love. back-to-top

The first listeners to our podcast will likely be those who actively seek the solution we offer. We will roll out the red carpet to woo them. THEIR PROBLEM WE SOLVE We put a name to what our ideal listeners suffer: toxic legalism . They cannot resolve their needs because of imposing norms. And this leaves them in pain. ​ ​ OUR SOLUTION We t hen invite our listeners to engage our solution: The need-response service. Which proactively counters the problem of toxic legalism by prioritizing inflexible needs over imposing norms. And that's just for starters. Together, we bring out our potential to love each other more. ​ ​ SHARED OPPORTUNITY This serve has yet to be development. Our ideal listeners will help us, and help all humanity, by co-creating this service together with us. The more our listeners suffer this problem of toxic legalism, the more we anticipate such listeners will become invested in its creation and adopt it when developed. ​​ INNOVATORS? We anticipate the first to invest their energies into bringing the need-response into fruition will be disillusioned lawyers and disillusioned psychotherapists who actively seek this kind of alternative.  We invite them to join the Need-Responder Community as Contributors . ​​ EARLY ADOPTORS? Next, we anticipate to generate interest among those disillusioned with lawyers and the legal process. And those disillusioned with psychotherapy . We invite them to join the Need-Responder Community  as Supporters . ​​ EARLY MAJORITY? This could lead to interest among those who hear about this alternative from these earlier listeners. And then decide to follow us more closely, to be ready to adopt this new service when it's finally ready. We invite them to join the Need-Responder Community  as Followers   NEED-RESPONDER COMMUNITY Our membership tiers follow the first three stages of the adoption curve. These are beyond subscribing to the podcast. Followers – early majority Listeners who require an alternative to law or psychotherapy. Oriented to the possibilities of need-response and a wellness campaign. Help popularize the service. ​ Followers are typically the first to support another’s wellness efforts, who wait and see it can be of help to their particular situation and needs; to orient them to this fresh approach. ​ Followers find this valuable enough to invest their opportunity costs to regularly follow along. ​ Supporters – early adopters Listeners who urgently need the alternative of need-response. Explore how to be among the first clients and team members of a wellness campaign. Provide testimonials vouching for the service’s potential. ​ Supporters are typically prospective clients after the service gains traction, who will be among the first to try the service as early adopters; they act as something of an ad hoc board, who oversee the service’s development with a vote on key issues. ​ Supporters find this valuable enough to invest $5 each month and some of their effort to see this grow legs and take off. ​ Contributors – innovators Listeners who are disillusioned lawyers and disillusioned psychotherapists. Learn to be the first trained professional need-responders. Work out the bugs to establish the service. ​ Contributors are typically among the first prospective clients, who test the process and help tweak it, who are open to trying something untested, who have the need for this service and can eventually provide this service to future clients, and many will be cultivated to become the first staff of the service, including the first professional need-responders.   We anticipate most will be disaffected lawyers and counselor attracted this to approach that satisfies much of what they find lacking in the practice of law and the practice of psychotherapy. ​ Contributors find this valuable enough to invest $25 each month and to invest their professional skills to help establish this service for everyone in need, starting with themselves.

We guide your improving wellness along 16 familiar steps in the hero’s journey. Publicizing your adventure this way could easily attract more public support. To get the most from this article, check out part one here . PART TWO CONTENTS Your "responsive narrative" steps BASE - Addressing personal problems - steps 1 to 4 TEAM - Addressing interpersonal problems - steps 5 to 8 GROW - Addressing power problems - steps 9 to 12 GOAL - Addesssing structural problems - steps 13 to 16 Putting this into practice Your "responsive narrative" steps Your responsive adventure closely follows the steps in what storytellers call the monomyth , or hero's journey . You as the hero follow the steps in the monomyth cycle as explained below. The entries below first cover the fictional hero's journey, and then applies it to your own wellness adventure as our advocacy campaign step. The fictional hero’s journey This section in each entry below introduces you to the story element identified by Joseph Campbell and others. It’s why we stay engrossed in such stories as Star Wars  and The Matrix . Our advocacy campaign step This section applies the monomyth to our journey together resolving needs. It’s why others will become and stay captivated by your responsive narrative . This portion has yet to be tested and could change over time. Click on the narrative step here to quickly go to its explanation below. Click on that step title below to instantly return to this menu bar.    Norm - Call - Hesitancy - Advocacy - Enter - Growth - Faceoff - Approach - Ordeal - Atone - Apotheosis - Reward - Return - Mastery - Empower - Resolve BASE: ADDRESSING PERSONAL PROBLEMS Step 1: Norm Ordinary world As the story starts, you see the hero in their ordinary world. Luke Skywalker is stuck working on a moisture farm for his uncle on Tatooine. Thomas Anderson is stuck living a double life as a hacker likely to lose his daytime job. Cisconventional realm You begin your responsive narrative  while feeling stuck under circumstances beyond your control. You align with conventional wisdom that you can only change yourself, so must put up with the terrible situation clouding your life. You adjust or acclimate to a life of unmet needs. You settle for a life of quiet desperation. Step 2: Call Call to adventure You see the hero receive some kind of challenge to go above and beyond the usual. The would-be hero is typically less enthusiastic. Their motivation may be too external at this point. Or too selfish to consider their impact on others. Luke is invited by Obi-Wan to join the rebellion by becoming a Jedi. Neo gets invited to follow the white rabbit, and later receives a call from Morpheus. Call to resolve overlooked needs You can’t take the complacency anymore. Something occurs in your responsive narrative  to disrupt business as usual. You get some kind of “call” to try to resolve your overlooked need or needs, like a “call to adventure”. You must take charge as it seems no one else will. You feel a call of duty, like you might be the only one who can get this done. At this moment, you feel sure of it. Step 3: Hesitancy Refusal of the call You see the hero have second thoughts about going through with this challenge. Luke insists he must go back to help his uncle. Neo questions himself while trying to escape out on a ledge. Hesitancy to resolve needs You realize answering the call could exact a price you may not be ready to make. Your initial readiness to confront powerholders gets tempered by the reality of your current limitations. Your  responsive narrative finds you vacillating between the extremes of avoidance and being adversarial to those in power. Your hesitancy to jump into such a win-lose battle prepares you for or win-win mutuality alternative. Step 4: Advocacy Meet the mentor The hero is shaken from complacency by a wise helper. Obi-Wan inspires Luke to explore his greater destiny as a Jedi. Morpheus inspires Neo to find out what the matrix actually is. Receive advocacy to resolve needs Here is where your continuing responsive narrative merges with ours. We guide you to enter a new world of possibilities. We advocate for your vision to resolve the needs you feel called to resolve. We help you break the cycles of extremes. We inspire you with a workable plan to speak your truth to power. TEAM: ADDRESSING INTERPERSONAL PROBLEMS Step 5: Enter Crossing the threshold Now the hero boldly steps into the special world. Luke leaves Tatooine with Obi-Wan to get to Alderaan. Neo chooses the red pill and then suddenly wakes up from the matrix. Enter the extraordinary transconventional realm Here is where your responsive narrative  shifts focus. We initiate you into this special need-resolving world with a simple test of endurance. You reorient yourself to endure discomforts to resolve needs. You let go of generalizations to engage nuance. You transcend temporal barriers to address all the relevant needs in your situation. You also start with your contact list of those who may take interest in your progressing responsive narrative  in real time. They subscribe to the service for free as “followers” who regularly receive news from you. Later, you will nominate the more engaging followers to be your supporters, who invest in your vision with money and volunteer roles. They become invested coproducers in your responsive narrative . In short, you build up a support team that can also benefit from this. Step 6: Growth Belly of the whale The hero fully leaves the familiar behind and steps deeper into the special world. The hero faces their first real challenge or challenges and often fails. Transformation begins now in earnest, to prepare for the road ahead. Luke starts learning the ways of the force with Obi-Wan. Neo accepts he is “the one” and begins training with Morpheus. Growth with new skills We step deeper into transconventionality to let go of trusted generalizations and to replace pain-relieving habits with norm-transcending need-resolving determination. You internalize that you can do this, to courageously speak your truth to power. Your support team tests your character to make sure you can. Together, you prepare yourself to boldly address the relevant needs on all sides. Step 7: Faceoff Road of trials, allies, and enemies The hero gets put to the test, sometimes repeatedly. Luke encounters Darth Vader, who kills Obi-Wan. Neo is relentlessly pursued by agent Smith. The less trustworthy in the team reveal themselves. Han Solo helps only for the money. Cypher betrays the team. A new ally emerges to inspire the hero to reach their goal. Princess Leia inspires Luke to take on the empire. The Oracle inspires Neo to realize his life purpose. Facing off with your team to improve yourself Your support team helps you practice speaking truth to power. You match a supporter to each AI, and have them role-play as that AI. They can play devil’s advocate, to ensure you are ready for the real thing. They can help you consider outcomes and objections you may have overlooked. They give you constructive feedback to your rough draft messages for contacting each powerholder. Most importantly in this step of your responsive narrative , you fully realize the ultimate enemy is not these people in positions of power but structural barriers that prevent you and them from fully resolving needs. Once internalized, your conciliatory approach becomes increasingly irresistible to these powerholders. You soon realize you’re finally ready to speak this deeper truth to power. Step 8: Approach Approach to the most innermost cave The hero draws closer to the edge of the impending ordeal. There’s little room for failure now, so the hero better be ready for the danger ahead. After the Death Star destroys Alderaan, Luke and the others enter this behemoth weapon of terror. The Oracle warns Neo that he or Morpheus will die from the choices he makes. Approach to speaking truth to power You draft your final message to send to each identified powerholder. If no one objects or finds room for improvement, you give these to the service to pass along for you. Before forwarding your messages, we “announce” to each powerholder to alert them that a change is afoot. The service contacts each powerholder with news of a revolutionary kind of leadership development support. You could say this softens up the target for your initial contact in the next step, so it does not land like some cold call. They can expect your initial call. In fact, this step is the “norm” in each powerholder’s forthcoming narrative of need-resolving change. Your “ordeal” is their “call to leadership”. GROW: ADDRESSING POWER PROBLEMS Step 9: Ordeal Ordeal, death, and rebirth The hero faces the most challenging circumstance so far. It typically challenges the hero’s assumptions. After helping to rescue Leia, Luke sees Obi-Wan killed by Darth Vader. Neo and the others get ambushed by agents in the matrix. Ordeal of speaking truth to power You finally make contact with powerholders impacting your needs. You assess their responsiveness to your expressed needs widely shared with others. You challenge them to improve their leadership qualities, ready to provide social proof of their responsiveness. Or testimony of any disappointing reactions or neglect. Once you contact powerholders, we go live with this responsive narrative . Your interactions with powerholders remain transparent. Together, we draft press releases to send to relevant media outlets and interested podcasters. In the extraordinary world of this transconventional realm, legitimate power impacting the needs of the vulnerable holds no legitimate secrets. clinging to opacity can cost powerholders their assumed legitimacy. Step 10: Atone Atonement with past The hero recognizes past mistakes in the ordinary world and now comes to terms with it. Luke learns to accept that Obi-Wan is really gone and finds his connection with the force growing stronger. Neo blames himself for Morpheus’ s capture and renters the matrix to rescue him. Incentiize powerholders to engage you The more you inspire powerholders to listen to those impacted, the deeper you connect with your untapped potential. You see how you resolve more needs more fully with the active support of powerful others. Or you find yourself in the uncomfortable but necessary position of sorting out bad leaders. You help society weed out those who stubbornly prevent us from resolving our needs. Along the way, you may inspire emerging leaders to proactively address structural problems. Step 11: Apotheosis Apotheosis or resurrection The hero goes through a life-or-death metamorphosis. The results bring the hero closer to the ultimate goal. Luke hears Obi-Wan encourage him to trust the force, which he does and destroys the Death Star. Neo almost dies at the hands of the agents, but with Trinity’s love and trust that he is the one, he revives and defeats the agents. Reborn as effective need-resolver Your past reliance on conventional generalizations to ease pain gets finally crushed. You learn to embrace the discomforts of resolving needs. You learn to transcend divisive generalizations and any conventional opposites to more fully resolve needs. You avow to each contacted powerholder that you will now pursue every legitimate means available to resolve the identified needs, with or without their support. Your example either incentivizes their support or gives them good reason to make room for more effective leaders. Step 12: Reward Reward, or ultimate boon The hero gains something special for all their efforts, to take back to the ordinary world. Luke realizes he has the force within him, to become the Jedi he is meant to be for the rebellion. Neo realizes that he is indeed “the one” as Morpheus claimed, so he can manipulate the matrix to bend to his will for the benefit of others. Add powerholders to social capital You gain a pioneering type of authority, and that is the anakelogically recognized authority of resolved needs. You realize all legitimate authority only exists to resolve needs, and any claim to power that fails to effectively resolve needs is merely coercive illegitimate force. You bestow or withhold legitimacy on powerholders with your newfound organic authority. You reach some satisfactory level of your campaign goal. You earn the right to advocate for each other’s impacted needs. You may soon be in high demand to help others similarly situated. GOAL: ADDRESSING STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS Step 13: Return Return to the ordinary world The hero must now find their way back to the ordinary world. They typically bestow onto others what they gained in the special or extraordinary world. Luke gives new energy to the rebellion as an emerging Jedi warrior. Neo gives hope to others that they break free from the matrix without threat from the agents. Return to cisconventional realm You step back into your conventional life. Your familiar friends may not adequately understand your transconventional journey. They may try to pull you back into comforting overgeneralizations, and settle for the quiet desperation of symfunctional or dysfunctional survival. But now you carry the responsibility of modeling a better way to those in higher positions of authority than you. Your consistency to proactively resolve needs, with endured short-term discomforts and messy nuance, could attract more powerholders. You stay true to your new energized self. Step 14: Mastery Mastery of two worlds The hero develops competencies in both the ordinary and extraordinary worlds. Luke continues as a humble Jedi warrior. Neo humbly accepts that he is “the one” as he comfortably moves between the matrix and the real world. Competency in both transcon and ciscon realms The more you integrate specifics in your decision-making, and embrace the sharp pain when first alerted to a triggered need, the easier to trust your resulting emotions. By cultivating new routines to more fully resolve needs, you can encounter the benefits of the transconventional realm after sliding back into the ordinary world of the cisconventional realm. This time, you enjoy a growing social circle of the powerful. Granted, you may alienate a few powerful folks who are unwilling to appreciate your vision. But the more you demonstrably resolve needs over settling for perpetuating pain, the more you brand yourself in ways that will protect you from the reactive. You become too much of a champion for both the vulnerable people and the compassionate powerful for haters to mess with. Step 15: Empower Return with the elixir The hero brings back what they gained to others in need. Luke brings back the power of the force for good. Neo brings back the powerful knowledge that the matrix can be transcended by deeper awareness of a greater reality. Goal supported by powerholders You show others this more effective way to address and resolve needs. You offer a more attractive alternative to adversarial justice, or to divisive politics or some other way you transcend the symfunctional status quo to inspire more of us to pursue need-resolving peakfunctionality. Step 16: Resolve Resolution or denouement The hero or others, sometimes the narrator, wraps up any loose ends in the story. Sometimes this closure utilizes humor. Just about every Star Trek original series episode closed with a humorous or lighthearted point. This can counter the heaviness in the preceding plot. Luke and the others are celebrated as smiling heroes at the end. Neo speaks his truth to the diminished power of the agents, offering a fresh vision for moving forward in life without their domineering presence. Sometimes this post-climatic closing plants seeds for a sequel. Need-resolving expands as a reachable standard You are now ready to move on with your life with a new way of seeing things. You help establish a higher standard to hold the powerful accountable to their objective impact on our needs. Or perhaps you have some unfinished business. You know more powerholders to reach with this need-resolving vision. Maybe you are just getting started on a longer journey of advocacy campaigns. You can repeat this cycle to reach more lives, and to more fully resolve needs. There is now plenty more love to go around. Putting this into practice

Need-response transports the client from the "ordinary world" to the "special" or extraordinary world inside the hero's journey. A wellness campaign publicizes the adventure of speaking truth to power . The client takes the role of "hero" in their own empowerment story. To go beyond the ordinary world . This liberation narrative follows the familiar pattern of the hero's journey , recognizable in many legendary stories and hit movies. PART ONE CONTENTS Your "responsive narrative" You as the HERO of your own improved wellness The hero enters the special world Cisconventional realm Transconventional realm The hero covers all problem levels 1. Personal problems 2. Interpersonal problems 3. Power problems 4. Structural problems Your "responsive narrative" Most of us find ourselves trapped in what can be called a " feel-reactive " mode. We likely don't realize how stuck we are in life-stifling norms of the "ordinary world". We're like fish in the ocean who remain oblivious to the increasing stagnancy of the water. Need-response can liberate you from this trap . It can lift you out from the smothering pressures of the "ordinary world". It can carry you into the "special world" where you develop your human potential to be much more " need-responsive ". Every wellness journey begins with a client suffering a problem. It's a situation mostly beyond their personal control. The problem points to power dynamics. The client has fewer options in the power relations affecting their problem. Need-response considers this client the " Reporting Impactee " or " RI " for short. They address all four levels of human problems in their journey to solve their stubborn problem. You as the HERO of your own improved wellness The hero of each responsive narrative  is the RI . Think of this as a David versus Goliath story. But the villain in your story is not the Goliath of Ascribed  or Acknowledged Impactors  but all the structural barriers in the way of resolving each other’s affected needs. The qualified AI s become a part of the RI ’s team that helps slay this impersonal dragon. “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world” that have drifted into symfunctionality  or worse. The hero enters the special world To slay that dragon, the hero must leave the familiarity of their ordinary world to step into an extraordinary world. To fully resolve overlooked needs, the hero leaves the familiarity of the cisconventional  realm to enter the more focused transconventional  realm. Cisconventional realm Accept popular generalizations while continuing to overlook relevant specifics. Settle for easing needs or merely relieving the pain of unmet needs while leaving the unresolved needs to cause more pain. Accept established norms as the way we should all do things. View life through a binary lens, that waters down complex moral issues into simple black-and-white terms. "Cisconventional" means you align with what is conventional. This points to Kohlberg's middle stage of moral development: Conventional. It features symfunctionality of pragmatically fitting into what is socially expected. Here we find the “normal world" or "ordinary world”. Transconventional realm Question widely accepted generalizations to address missed specifics. Seek to fully resolve the needs prompting each other’s pain, even if this means enduring some discomfort now. Insist that our enforced norms result in more needs resolving and raising our overall functioning. Embrace the nuance in life. Engage the ambiguities in moral issues. Transcend binary terms to connect with the unmet needs on all sides to an issue. "Transconventional" means you transcend what is conventional. This points to Kohlberg's middle stage of moral development: Post-conventional. It features peakfunctionality of fully resolving needs and reaching toward full human potential. Here we find the “special world" or "extraordinary world”. The hero covers all problem levels Along the way, powerful AI s who seemed like adversaries become allies. The hero leads a team that helps the willing AI to test and improve their leadership qualities. The team attests to the AI ’s progressing leadership credentials, after measurably demonstrating greater responsiveness to the RI’s cause of overlooked needs. Anankelogy recognizes four levels of human problems , or common challenges. The West’s emphasis on the individual can easily get us fixated on the first level of the individual, tempting us to overlook the many external factors contributing to our many stubborn problems. 1.    Personal problems. The only barrier to resolving some need is within the individual. Once the individual changes it, the problem goes away. Pain dissipates as function improves. If left in place, the individual typically continues to suffer in pain as function declines. EXAMPLE: You avoid asking for help in your time of need only out of fear of being rejected, but if you do not ask then you will never know if you could have received the needed assistance. Or while still afraid, you test the waters and ask someone for a little help. As they reach out to help you, your discomfort fades and you get back on your feet. 2.    Interpersonal problems. The barrier to resolve needs exists between two or more people of relatively equal social status. Once all sides change what they can, the problem can be solved. Pain goes away as function improves. Otherwise, all sides tend to remain in some level of pain as their ability function remains compromised. EXAMPLE: You get into an argument with your neighbor about how noisy they get late at night. They complain you leave your windows open so they partly blame you for being so sensitive to the noise. You get an air conditioner to keep your windows closed and they turn down their music after 9 PM. Each adjusted to the identified need, which helps to clear up the problem. 3.    Power problems. The barrier to resolve needs stems from someone in a position of power lacking sufficient responsiveness to an affected need, typically the needs of the less powerful. Once this powerholder recognizes the need and makes the necessary change or changes, the problem can be solved. Pain goes away as function improves. Otherwise, the pain persists for the less powerful while their ability to function remains limited. The full potential of the powerholder is also held back, compromising their legitimacy as a leader. EXAMPLE: Your supervisor at work keeps giving you tasks originally assigned to your coworker. You want to complain, but avoid risking retribution. Your supervisor then explains your coworker is recovering from an invisible injury, who apologizes for not having to shift their workload onto you. After saying you understand, your supervisor requests you receive a raise. The problem takes care of itself. 4.    Structural problems. The barrier to resolve needs exists in the social or cultural structures, beyond any individual’s personal control. Cultural norms or long-standing practices get in the way of fully resolving affected needs. Once the structural barrier gets transformed to be more responsive to the identified needs, the problem can be more easily solved. Pain can subside and allow personal and shared functioning to improve. Otherwise, society itself can remain held back to a lower level of functioning. Addressing such structural barriers typically calls for a sharp level of leadership, which can sort out weak leaders from the worthy ones. EXAMPLE: A police officer detains you after you wander through a protest that turned violent. You protest that you were not part of the protest, but the officer tells you that he is only doing his job. You are release about an hour later, with a warning to be more aware of the social situation around you. You feel annoyed but thankful things didn’t get any worse, as you are now free to go home. Part 2 takes you deeper into the hero's journey. See how the journey addresses each of these four problem levels. Dive deeper into each step along the way.

Anankelogy  points to an objective side to morality, based on the objective fact of your needs . What we do about our needs is subjective. But necessities to function occur independent of awareness, and therefore exist as objective phenomena. The more our actions results in resolving each other's needs, the more our actions can be quantitatively good. The more our actions detract from resolving needs, the more our actions can be quantitively bad. This republishes my Medium article titled Holding Moral Views Accountable to Measurable Outcomes . Summary of these six empirically measurable definitions of moral terms. Which would you prefer? Morality only exists as a culturally relative construct forged into politically agreed upon rules. OR Morality retains an objective basis anchored in the objective fact of our inflexible needs . The more we relegate moral issues as personal preference or as culturally relative, the more we blind ourselves from the root of our many personal and social problems . Anankelogy puts objectivity back into "right" and "wrong" by empirically measuring the predictable outcomes of resolving needs (good) or not resolving provoked needs (bad). DEFUNCTIONS or what's morally bad Look for how anankelogy and its application in need-response can empirically measure the predictable outcomes from these objectively based definitions of what is morally good. 1. Empirical sin (objectively sinful) 2. Empirical wickedness (objectively wicked) 3. Empirical evil (objectively evil) REFUNCTIONS of what's morally good Now look for how anankelogy and its application in need-response  can empirically measure the predictable outcomes from these objectively based definitions of what is morally bad . 5. Empirical repentance (objectively repentant) 6. Empirical righteousness (objectively righteous) 7. Empirical uprightness (objectively upright) Objective morality of factual needs If a need exists as an objective fact , independent of its subjective experience, then surely morality includes an objective dimension. While morality speaks to how we address each other’s needs, the results on our functioning can be empirically determined independent of any moral belief. Between our objective needs and our empirically measurable levels of functioning, we experience various defunctions that reduce functioning. And we experience various refunctions that raise functioning and restore wellness. We dance around these when talking about interests, motivations, incentives, goals, aims, desires, intent, privileges, rights, responsibilities, obligations, laws, norms, agreements, and so forth. These all exist for the sole purpose to address needs. Apart from needs, none of those would exist. Morality only exists to assess how responsive we are to each other’s needs. Apart from needs, no one cares about judging actions as right or wrong. Anankelogy now adds the discipline of empirically measuring the linking between our actions and our levels of wellness. To get there, let’s learn some new terms to give this fresh approach some teeth. The Batman villain the Joker illustrates the darker side of what many of us identify as evil. 1. Empirical sin (objectively sinful) MEASURABLY NOT RESOLVING A NEED FULLY Empirical sin identifies where you cannot resolve a need fully. You fall short. You miss the optimal mark. You consequently cannot function fully, in objectively measurable ways. Which limits what you can do for others, also in measurable ways. Likewise, when others cannot fully resolve their needs, their responsiveness to yours can be diminished. Such measurable imperfection occurs independent of emotion, or belief, or perception. For example, it’s objectively sinful to indulge in junk food that deprives your body of the full nutrition it requires. Perhaps it’s all you have to eat right now. Unlike conventional sin, empirical sin doesn’t necessarily refer to something you can personally change. Any market failure is an empirical sin . 2. Empirical wickedness (objectively wicked) MEASURABLY HINDERED FROM RESOLVING NEEDS Empirical wickedness identifies where someone or something measurably prevents you from fully or even partially resolving a need. You objectively cannot function, at least not fully, if kept in some way from accessing the essential means to resolve a need. Equally, you’re objectively wicked when hindering another from resolving their needs. Their ability to function objectively declines. It occurs independent of emotion, belief or perception. Your intent may be good. For example, you could sympathetically offer pain relief that hinders another from recognizing the need that pain tries to report. Standing by and doing nothing as they become dependent upon pain relief leaves you measurably complicit in their resulting decline. 3. Empirical evil (objectively evil) MEASURABLY BENEFITING FROM UNRESOLVED NEEDS Empirical evil identifies where you benefit from hindering the resolution of some need. Or benefiting from harm. The more you gain something from preventing resolution, or from harming others to serve your own interests, the less likely you recognize the problem. Your perspective easily overlooks the consequence of reduced functioning. Similarly, others may gain from preventing your needs from fully resolving. Motivated reasoning prompts them to deny any harm. Especially if they’re more socially powerful than you. To paraphrase Upton Sinclair, doctors receiving financial incentives from pharmaceutical companies to prescribe symptom relievers are less likely to invest the time to identify your allergies causing that pain. It is objectively evil to benefit from another’s compromised level of wellness. "Good" means we can continue functioning more toward our full potential. 4. Empirical repentance (objectively repentant) MEASURABLY RESOLVING A NEED FULLY Empirical repentance counters empirical sin . It turns from a problem to a solution. It signifies an objectively improved level of functioning from resolving a need more fully. This could happen outside of anyone’s individual action, and yet remain independent of emotion, belief or perception. For example, you contact a social media “friend” and find common ground to establish a deeper or more satisfying relationship. You become objectively repentant of only investing yourself in surface relationships. Your ability to function objectively improves as a result. You can intentionally shift your actions toward others in ways that let them to more fully resolve their needs. Often after you're freed to do so. The more we recognize external components hindering resolution, the less this involves personal shame. 5. Empirical righteousness (objectively righteous) MEASURABLY RESOLVE NEEDS BY UNBLOCKING WELLNESS Empirical righteousness counters empirical wickedness . It identifies the unblocking of any hindrance to resolve a need. This also may occur beyond any individual action, while remaining independent of emotion, belief or perception. For example, you resolve your objective need for acceptance after a damaging piece of incorrect information gets automatically corrected by some computer program. Now you can do more than you could before. Your wellness objectively improves. You can be objectively righteousness when removing an obstacle to resolve another’s need. Like the local official using their discretion to remove prematurely applied constraints so the new business owner can start operations. 6. Empirical uprightness (objectively upright) MEASURABLY RESOLVE THE NEEDS OF OTHERS TO BENEFIT THEIR WELLNESS Empirical uprightness counters empirical evil . It occurs when shifting incentives that once discouraged wellness to now improving wellness. Removing any benefit that limits another’s needs opens up opportunity to incentivize more wellness. To illustrate, it would be objectively upright to resolve conflicts by replacing the norm that assumes mutual hostilities with a disciplined process of addressing each other’s affected needs. The measurable results could enhance just outcomes, independent of emotion, or belief, or perception. The more we could replace empirical evil with empirical uprightness , the better all of our lives could be. We are all more objectively upright when honoring the needs of others as we would have them honor our own needs. Such of power of love is supremely upright. Your responsiveness to objective morality Your turn. 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