Innocence Project

History of Exoneration

The act of exoneration is not a new element in the U.S. criminal justice system. According to Rob Warden of Northwestern Law, the first case of documented exoneration was in Vermont in 1820. Jesse and Stephen Boorne were sentenced to hang for the murder of their brother-in-law Russell Colvin in 1812. Although Colvin's body was not found, Silas Merrill, Jesse's cell mate, claimed that Jesse had confessed to the murder. After the police confronted Jesse about the statement, he confessed [Page 387]to the police while laying the principal culpability on Stephen. After the trial both Jesse and Stephen were sentenced to death by hanging. The legislature in Vermont commuted Jesse's sentence to serving life in prison but did not do the same for Stephen. Not long before Stephen was to die, Russell Colvin was found alive in the state of New Jersey. He returned to Vermont, and both Stephen and Jesse were exonerated of the murder.

According to Amanda Buck, the first group devoted to exonerating the innocent from prison was the Court of Last Resort. It was started in 1947 by Erie Stanley Gardner, a lawyer and a mystery novelist who was well known for his character of Perry Mason, a fictional lawyer. Gardner established a panel of experts to examine cases in which an innocent person may have been convicted. His first case was that of William Marvin Lindley. Lindley was convicted on the charge of murder in the state of California. Gardner and his panel proved Lindley was innocent. Gardner's work stopped in 1960, but he estimates that through the course of his work, the Court of Last Resort looked into 8,000 cases of innocent people who were incarcerated.

Centurion Ministries was the first organization that worked nationally. The Centurion Ministries was established by James McCloskey in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1983. McCloskey worked as a chaplain in Trenton State Prison. He chose to leave the position as junior chaplain and the ministry in order to focus his attention solely toward the goal of freeing innocent inmates. Centurion Ministries is still based in New Jersey and has five full-time employees and a network of forensic experts and lawyers throughout the United States and Canada. The organization also has a dedicated network of volunteers who work with the Innocence Project.

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