Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project

Thank you for your willingness to volunteer to review MAIP's archival cases. Please complete the required fields below.

Please note the following policies of this volunteer opportunity:

- You must have attended law school (in the US or a foreign country) to participate in this effort. By consent box below, you are self-attesting that this is true. - Please review the Reference Guide here before you proceed to ensure you understand how this effort will operate.

- Case documents will be shared with you via Google Drive. You must provide an email address in the "email to access Google Drive" field below that can access Google Drive to participate. If your organization has a firewall on Google Drive, then you are ineligible to participate. You can provide a personal email and/or access Google Drive from a non-work location as one workaround with approval from your organization.

- You will have 30 days to review a case. If you are unable to complete your review within that time period, you can request a one-time 14 day extension. If you are unable to complete the review by the end of extension, the case will be reassigned.

Name(Required)

First Last

Organizational Email Address(Required)

Please enter your work email address.

Email to access Google Drive(Required)

Please enter the email address you will use to access case files in Google Drive.

Please confirm that the email you entered above can access Google Drive. If you are unsure whether your organizational email can access Google Drive, please stop now and confirm with your Pro Bono Manager or email MAIP (automations@exonerate.org).(Required)

Yes, I confirm the email entered above can access Google Drive

Organization/Firm(Required)

Please select your gender identity.(Required)

Race/Ethnicity(Required)

American Indian or Alaska Native

Asian or Asian American

Black or African American

Hispanic or Latino/a

Middle Eastern or North African

Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander

White or European

Prefer not to answer

Occupational Status(Required)

Please select the option that best describes your occupational status.

Licensed attorney (active/inactive/retired)

Law degree (JD, not licensed)

Paralegal

Law student

Other

We would like to collect some limited opinion information from our volunteers, to include questions about criminal convictions, contributors to wrongful convictions, and the criminal legal system. The questions in this section are completely voluntary. You are NOT required to answer them to participate in the archival data collection project. If used in future data analysis, this information will be reported only in aggregate. Your individual responses will be kept strictly confidential. If you have any questions about this form, please contact the Screening Manager, Jennifer Kamorowski, at JKamorowski@exonerate.org.

Are you willing to answer some questions about your opinions related to criminal cases, wrongful convictions, and the criminal legal system?(Required)

Yes

No

Wrongful Convictions and Proof of Guilt in Criminal Cases

Percentage of wrongful convictions(Required)

Please think about misdemeanor and felony convictions in the United States, to include convictions based on plea agreements, judge trials, and jury trials. In your own estimation, what percentage (0 to 100%) of these cases are convictions involving people who are actually innocent? By actual innocence, we mean people who did not commit the crime(s) for which they were convicted, or any lesser included offense. For example, do not include in your estimate cases for which a person may have been guilty of 2nd-degree murder but not 1st-degree murder. Please do not include in your estimate cases that potentially involved weak evidence that arguably did not rise to proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

Please enter a number from 0 to 100.

For each of the known contributors to wrongful convictions, please indicate the extent to which you think the factor is present in wrongful convictions.(Required)

	Never (0%)	Very rarely (less than 5%)	Rarely (5 - 20%)	Occasionally (21 - 49%)	Frequently (50 - 75%)	Very frequently (more than 75%)
Government misconduct
Eyewitness misidentification
Flawed forensics
False confession
Incentivized witnesses who commit perjury
False accusations
Inadequate legal defense

Guilty verdicts not supported by proof beyond a reasonable doubt(Required)

Indepndent of cases involving wrongful convictions, please think about misdemeanor and felony convictions obtained through a jury trial in the United States. What percentage (0 to 100%) of these cases do you think are so weak that the prosecution is arguably unable to meet the burden of proof? In other words, what percentage of jury trials do you think end in a guilty verdict that is probably not supported by proof beyond a reasonable doubt?

Please enter a number from 0 to 100.

How often do you think most jurors understand and correctly apply the standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt in criminal cases?(Required)

Sentencing for Criminal Convictions

Generally speaking, what do you think about sentencing for criminal convictions in the United States?(Required)

Too lenient	Usually fair	Too harsh

At what age do you think a person's youth should no longer be considered a mitigating factor for sentencing purposes?(Required)

A criminal defendant's youth is sometimes taken into consideration at sentencing, which may result in a comparatively reduced sentence. From the options below, please indicate the age at which you think such consideration should no longer apply (put another way, the "cut-off" age).

For which of the following offenses is the death penalty an appropriate punishment?(Required)

New Data Collection Volunteer Form

Legal Experience

Wrongful Convictions and Proof of Guilt in Criminal Cases

Sentencing for Criminal Convictions