Learn about the recently passed innocence laws in Virginia on Thursday, May 7 at 3 p.m. on Facebook Live. Thomas Haynesworth, featured on the “The Innocence Files” docuseries, will join Virginia House Majority Leader Charniele Herring (D-Arlington), the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project, and University of Virginia (UVA) Innocence Clinic client Darnell Phillps on Thursday,

Kirk Bloodsworth walked out of a Jessup prison on June 28, 1993, as the first person in the country to serve time on death row and be exonerated by DNA. The case has lasting impact. Time has healed many things, but the memory of his ordeal remains vivid. “It feels

Today, Governor Larry Hogan signed into law a bill championed by Senator Bobby Zirkin to ensure that innocent people who previously pled guilty are able to prove their innocence in court. The Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project (MAIP) worked with the University of Baltimore Innocence Project Clinic (UBIPC) and the Innocence Project

Over the past few years, I’ve watched too many judges ignore the law and have seen too many cases where prosecutors ignore or seemingly take advantage of our efforts to collaborate.

We know that innocent people plead guilty to crimes they did not commit. Nationally, 10 percent of those whose innocence was proven by DNA testing pled guilty; in Maryland, 40 percent of those who were cleared based on DNA evidence pled guilty. Over the past three years, this fact hasn’t

A one-letter change in Virginia’s writ of actual innocence law five years ago that was dismissed by some as inconsequential may have made a big change in the life of a Chesapeake man exonerated last week of a 1977 rape. Pushed by MAIP Executive Director, Shawn Armbrust, and backed by

  A bill that would allow people wrongfully convicted by faulty forensic science to challenge their convictions in court was carried over until next year by a subcommittee of the Virginia House of Delegates on Monday. What does this mean? No further action will be taken on this legislation until

SB 777, which provides that a person who was convicted of certain offenses, upon a plea of not guilty or an Alford plea, or who was adjudicated delinquent upon a plea of not guilty or an Alford plea, by a circuit court of an offense that would be such offense