In 2014, the District of Columbia expanded the right to post-conviction DNA testing to allow for touch DNA testing. MAIP worked with the Public Defender Service and a private attorney to help achieve this expansion of incarcerated peoples’ rights.
In 2015, work by MAIP and other advocates helped convince the DC Council not to move forward on a bill that would have reduced compensation for DC exonerees.
The Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project has filed several amicus briefs in Maryland. In 2014, MAIP filed a brief in a case involving the proper standard for evaluating eyewitness testimony. In 2015, MAIP filed briefs in Maryland v. Seward and Maryland v. Yonga, two cases interpreting the Writ of Actual Innocence.
In 2009, the Department of Forensic Science, the Forensic Science Board, and the Virginia State Crime Commission asked MAIP to serve as a contact point for more than 800 individuals whose DNA was being tested as part of the Old Case Testing Project in Virginia. More recently, MAIP was asked to oversee the review of nearly 400 cases from the Old Case Testing Project in which the DNA results were inconclusive. We are also working with the Department of Forensic Science as it sets up a review of old cases involving flawed hair testimony and a review to determine whether there are convictions based on flawed blood-typing testimony.
The Department of Public Safety asked our Executive Director to be part of their 2015 Blue Ribbon Panel Discussion about the failure to disclose exculpatory information and how that leads to wrongful convictions.
