Innocence Project budget concerns halt intake of new cases

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The New England Innocence Project has decided not to accept any new cases as it searches for long-term funding solutions to support a “sustainable” operating budget.

The organization recently concluded it could not “responsibly” take new applications from prison inmates who claimed they had been wrongfully convicted without the assurance that there would be the financial resources to process and investigate the cases, according to David M. Siegel, chairman of NEIP’s board of trustees.

“We can’t respond now to anybody in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont or Maine who says, ‘Hey, I’m in prison and factually innocent,'” said Siegel, a professor at New England Law Boston.

But Siegel said he expected the freeze to be temporary, explaining NEIP is launching a campaign to draw financial commitments from law firms in the region to provide “long-term, sustaining funding” for the organization.

“We need to know there’s $200,000 a year for the reliable future,” Siegel said.

Joseph F. Savage of Boston’s Goodwin co-founded NEIP 17 years ago. He said he hoped to see law firms stepping up to provide the financial support needed by the organization.

“For nearly 20 years the law firms have been critical in terms of direct financial and pro bono assistance to the project,” Savage said. “That need is even more urgent today.”

Irreplaceable organization?

NEIP is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that provides pro bono representation to those who have been wrongfully convicted in the New England states.

“We don’t have a death penalty in Massachusetts, so convicting and incarcerating an innocent person for a crime that he or she didn’t commit is the worst injustice that our state’s legal system can do to somebody,” said Sharon L. Beckman, a member of  NEIP’s board of trustees.

Another staunch believer in NEIP’s mission is retired Supreme Judicial Court Justice Robert J. Cordy, now a white-collar criminal defense lawyer at McDermott, Will & Emery in Boston.

According to Cordy, NEIP has been at the forefront of shining the light on problems in the criminal justice system relating to DNA testing, fingerprint analysis, weakness of eyewitness identification and similar issues, whether in an amicus role or as counsel in individual cases.

“They often serve as a professional, independent voice, pushing the system to do better,” Cordy said.

Beckman founded an innocence program at Boston College Law School where she’s a professor, and she noted that the Committee for Public Counsel Services has a “phenomenal” innocence program of its own.

But she views NEIP as playing a unique and critical role.

“NEIP’s only mission is finding and helping innocent prisoners,” she said, adding that Maine has neither its own innocence project nor a statewide public defender system.

“The only other person we have on staff is a paralegal, and we are responsible for the entire functioning of the organization. That is clearly insufficient.”

— Radha Natarajan, NEIP staff attorney

Funding campaign

Siegel pointed out that NEIP does not benefit from traditional sources of funding for indigent legal services, such as Interest on Lawyer Trust Accounts or bar foundation grants. Instead, the organization got off the ground initially with the help of “very generous” attorneys’ fee donations from successful civil claims for wrongful conviction, he said.

Until about five years ago, NEIP also operated with the assistance of donated space and in-kind support from the law firm Goodwin. Siegel said NEIP subsequently decided to become fiscally independent, but that independence has led to the current budget shortfall.

Siegel was reluctant to give precise numbers, but he said NEIP’s current annual budget is about $200,000, much of which is used to pay for the organization’s single staff attorney, Radha Natarajan, and a paralegal who acts as a case coordinator. The 10 members of the board of trustees are volunteers.

The organization currently maintains office space at Suffolk University Law School. Siegel said he is in negotiation with the school to extend the lease, which expires early next year.

While Siegel indicated the board would like to expand NEIP’s full-time staff, the current budget problems preclude hiring additional attorneys. Siegel declined to get into specifics about whether the board had a target budget or optimal staffing levels should problems with funding be resolved.

The chances of NEIP receiving public funding are fairly slim, according to Martin W. Healy, chief legal counsel for the Massachusetts Bar Association.

“It’s such a tight fiscal climate both publicly and privately that it’s hard for an organization that’s representing individuals that have been incarcerated to get someone interested in appropriately funding the project,” Healy said.

To continue operating, NEIP has launched a campaign to get financial commitments from law firms to become “sustainers and supporters” of the organization’s work.

“The legal community in Boston and New England is very generous and there are many worthy causes,” Siegel said. “We think that helping wrongfully convicted persons should be one of those causes.”

Healy said it is going to take hard work by NEIP’s board and advocates like himself to get the word out to the legal community about the need for support.

“We have a significant number of law firms in Boston that are nationally based,” Healy said. “I think a number of those firms are fertile ground in terms of obtaining funding for worthy projects.”

Siegel said Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in Boston has become a “sustaining firm” by making a donation, and Latham & Watkins has become a “supporting firm.” He declined to elaborate on the level of financial commitment required to be recognized as a sustaining or supporting firm.

One piece of good news on the financial front is that an anonymous donor has agreed to match all donations to NEIP for the rest of the 2017 calendar year, up to $50,000, Siegel said.

‘Lean and mean’

NEIP’s two full-time employees pale in comparison to the 74 employees (including 12 staff attorneys) listed on the New York Innocence Project’s website. Led by high-profile defense attorneys Barry C. Scheck and Peter J. Neufeld, that organization is recognized as the preeminent innocence project in the country.

“Scheck has such a high profile as a criminal lawyer that he on his own personality brought interest to that group,” Healy said.

But the website TruthInJustice.org, which tracks innocence projects across the U.S., shows the operation of such organizations can be spotty. According to the website, innocence projects currently serve every state except Tennessee. The innocence project in that state is currently undergoing reorganization.

The Oregon Innocence Project in particular is reported as having suffered a number of setbacks during its history, suspending operations temporarily when its founder became a judge. Restarted in 2014, the OIP now lists three attorneys on its staff, even though it reportedly has an annual budget of only $130,000.

On the other hand, the Pennsylvania Innocence Project, with four full-time attorneys among its eight employees, is widely considered another successful program.

Siegel said that, despite the budget problems, NEIP has no plans to suspend operations apart from its decision not to accept new case applications for the time being.

Cordy credits NEIP for being effective despite staff limitations.

“They’ve always been a lean and mean operation,” Cordy said. “They’re very good at channeling a lot of very positive energy into the system at a very low cost.”

Siegel sings the praises of Natarajan, calling her an “incredible” staff attorney who can do the work of three lawyers and noting that she is recognized as a national authority on the inherent problems with eyewitness identification.

Natarajan has been at NEIP for two years, prior to which she was a public defender for 12 years. In addition to handling a small number of her own cases, Natarajan assists the volunteer lawyers and law firms that work with NEIP, all the while serving on or testifying before various committees and boards as a policymaker addressing criminal justice issues.

To accomplish its mission, NEIP at minimum will need to double its staff, according to Natarajan.

“The only other person we have on staff is a paralegal, and we are responsible for the entire functioning of the organization,” she said. “That is clearly insufficient.”

Siegel said NEIP works with several law firms and 20 or so lawyers who volunteer to take cases pro bono. Finding a lawyer to take a case is not the problem, he said. Rather, the real issue is the labor-intensive process of going through a convicted person’s court and trial records to determine whether there is a viable claim of actual innocence.

“It takes hundreds of hours to investigate a case before a lawyer can ever file anything in court,” Siegel said. “We take a case from a handwritten questionnaire from some inmate who says, “Help me, I’m innocent.'”

While law firms are generally willing to take on a case in which an injustice has been identified, Siegel said, few are willing to send over a team of associates to spend a couple of weeks going through piles of inmate questionnaires from prisons across New England to determine who might have a meritorious claim.