The Innocence Project: The O. J. Simpson Case

The Innocence Project is a nonprofit organization that is committed in exonerating wrongly convicted people through the use of DNA testing, and to reforming the criminal justice system in order to prevent future injustices (innocence). The Innocence Project was founded in 1992 by Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld. Barry Schneck was born in Queens, New York City. He earned his law degree in 1974 and began doing legal work on social justice. He was the defendant attorney on the O.J. Simpson case in 1955. His interest in forensics led him to co-found the innocence project. Schneck attended Yale University in the fall of 1967, and studied economic history and city planning. He graduated from Yale in 1971 and three years later he earned a law degree

While the students were investigating, they discovered that the police had promised Christopher to give him a lenient treatment on some pending minor charges as well as giving him $300 to buy clothes for the trial. They also discovered that there were some details that were not discussed with Abernathy’s defense attorney. The students at NU brought the newly discovered information to the law firm where attorney, Lauren Kaeseberg, began preliminary work on the case. In 2013, Kaeseberg started working for the Illinois Innocence Project at the University of Illinois. It wasn’t until 2014, Kaeseberg had asked the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit to re-examine the

Abernathy’s DNA was not found in any evidence including the vaginal swab, clothing of the victim, and her purse. However, they found a partial DNA match leading to a different person, and there was enough to submit to the DNA database. The prosecution agreed with the defense team that the testing excluded Abernathy as the perpetrator. On February 11, 2015 the Conviction Integrity Unit requested that Abernathy’s convictions were removed. The judge granted the motion and the charges were dismissed. Christopher was released at the age of 43 years old. He was greeted by his family, including his mother who visited Abernathy in prison nearly 1,000 times during the 30 years he was incarcerated. Since 2002, America has the highest incarceration rate in the world (Tsai & Scommegna, 2012.) There are 2.2 million people behind bars — by far the highest incarceration rate of any comparable nation. We have less than 5 percent of the world’s population but nearly 25 percent of it is prisoners. Mass incarceration is the greatest civil rights injustice of our time. People behind bars are disproportionately black and Hispanic. The criminal justice system drives and reinforces deep-seated racial