special projects: justice first - the collateral relief project

The criminal justice system is no less fallible than the people who administer it. There is no longer any debate that the system generates wrongful convictions, cases in which innocent people are sentenced to long periods of prison or even death for crimes they did not commit. But in the absence of DNA evidence, proving actual innocence is a difficult undertaking.

Traditional appellate practice is inadequate to address the plight of the wrongfully convicted since new evidence cannot serve as the basis for a direct appeal. To address this problem, in 2002 the Center for Appellate Litigation developed “Justice First –The Collateral Relief Project,” a program designed to detect wrongful convictions and aggressively pursue claims of actual innocence through collateral litigation.

Since its inception in 2002, the Justice First Project has enjoyed impressive results. Recently the Appellate Division, First Department reversed a first-degree robbery conviction based on newly discovered evidence uncovered during an extensive reinvestigation of the case. By interviewing the complainant's co-workers, searching his employer's log entries, and searching public court files the attorneys working on the case were able to demonstrate that the complaining witness had lied about critical aspects of his trial account. The First Department found the newly discovered evidence created a real probability that our client would be acquitted at a new trial.

In another first-degree robbery case, the trial court vacated the conviction based on the prosecution's failure to disclose evidence that our client had closely cropped hair where the complaining witness described the perpetrator as wearing braids. Photographic evidence had been in the prosecutor's case file, but had not been disclosed during his trial.

In a sexual assault case, the trial court  vacated the defendant’s conviction based in ineffective assistance of counsel,  including such deficiencies as  the failure to articulate reasons for challenges during voir dire, inadequate cross-examination, failure to object to damaging hearsay, failure to establish claimed weaknesses in the prosecution’s case, as promised to the jury, presentation of an unconvincing and apparently coached defense witness, use of conflicting defenses that cast doubt on each one, absence of timely alibi notice, an incoherent summation and other errors.

In yet another victory, our client was awarded a new trial in an attempted murder case after we convinced the trial court that he had not received the effective assistance of counsel to which he was constitutionally entitled. Trial counsel had failed to investigate our client's obvious mental impairments, had disclosed privileged attorney/client communications in filed court documents, had failed to move to suppress identification evidence and had failed to raise a valid legal claim that would have resulted in dismissal of the indictment.

Previous victories include the following: Based largely on the eyewitness accounts of witnesses scattered across the state, we exonerated a client convicted of first-degree sodomy and sentenced to 20 years’ to life imprisonment. In another case, our investigation revealed that a gun used in a shooting belonged to the complainant – evidence that provided vital support for our client’s justification defense. In yet another case we discovered that the People’s star witness had provided contradictory testimony in an earlier homicide trial, evidence that was never disclosed to the defense.

The mission of Justice First is to harness the expertise of those attorneys who have successfully worked on off-record investigations. Through a unique screening process, cases that warrant additional factual investigation are quickly identified so that effective investigation strategies can be developed and implemented. Every case to which the Center for Appellate Litigation is assigned is screened to determine whether additional off-record investigation is warranted. Cases referred to the project usually involve issues such as erroneous eyewitness identifications, unreliable confessions, ineffective assistance of counsel and prosecutorial misconduct.

Claudia S. Trupp, the Project’s Director, was a recipient of  N.Y.C.L.A.'S 2007 Public Service Award.  She has worked in both the public and private sectors and has both civil and criminal, appellate and trial experience. Over the past six years, her work at CAL has primarily involved complex criminal appeals, with a particular focus on those cases requiring in-depth factual investigations. Through these experiences she has developed an expertise in litigating such claims. Ms. Trupp is assisted in the Project by other highly experienced CAL attorneys.

CAL is committed to providing the highest quality representation to our clients. The success of this Project requires work and ingenuity. We continue to be optimistic about its potential to benefit our clients and, as an organization, we are dedicated to these goals.