Innocence Project plans to survive Madoff Ponzi scheme

December 16, 2:32 PMCivil Liberties ExaminerJ.D. Tuccille

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Among the victims of the Madoff Ponzi scheme (as opposed to the Social Security Ponzi scheme, which victimizes all of us) is the JEHT Foundation, which supports human rights groups and criminal justice reform. And among the human rights groups supported by JEHT is the Innocence Project, which helps to free wrongly convicted prisoners.

Among other achievements, the Innocence Project pushed to get scientifically suspect bite-mark evidence reassessed in Mississippi. At least two men were released as a result. Reports the ABA Journal:

After two men on Mississippi’s death row were cleared of their convictions, the Innocence Project, which investigated their cases and represented the men, is calling for criminal charges against a controversial bite-mark expert who testified.

The New York City-based nonprofit, which helps clear prisoners through DNA testing, also will ask the Mississippi attorney general’s office for a government-sanctioned review of all cases in nine states in which the expert—Dr. Michael West, a forensic dentist in Hatties­burg, Miss.—served as witness.

In February, DNA testing and a confession by another suspect confirmed that Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks, both convicted in the early 1990s for sep­arate child murders in Noxubee County, were innocent. But during trial, West had testified that multiple marks on the victims’ bodies were bite marks, which he then matched to the men. That testi­mony has been proven false, says Peter Neufeld, Innocence Project co-director.

The JEHT Foundation will apparently be shutting down operations. But the Innocence Project plans to keep its doors open through the support of other donors (including you, if you go here). That's welcome news, since the group would be much missed were it to go under.

Contact J.D.: civilliberties (at) tuccille.com