As many of you reading this already know, I’ve been in the process of achieving relief in the court system with my state’s Attorney General’s office through their Conviction Integrity Unit.It’s been almost two years and I haven’t filled you all in on
my progress and I haven’t filled you all in on my progress, so I thought I’d do so now. Things are
actually going well, after being stuck in intake limbo with Cooley’s Innocence Project for almost 18 months a childhood friend’s mom reached out to me and connected me to an advocate and attorney in CA that changed my world. With her help I completed the intake file for University of Michigan’s Innocence Project and within a very short time the clinic assigned student attorneys to my file.
Eighteen months of waiting for the previous clinic to proceed hadn’t gotten me this far, so I am very optimistic. Once the student attorneys began communicating with the AG’s office and Cooley I received notice that Cooley was closing my file due to UofM’s involvement. At first this alarmed me because the AG’s office had assigned my file to Cooley but thankfully communication has been open between parties and UofM basically stepped into the role Cooley was in.
Nothing concrete has transpired, but with access to the student attorneys through JPay and occasional phone calls, I am confident progress is happening. The best indication of this for me was when I was informed at the end of May that the clinic had assigned another student attorney to my file for the duration of the summer, when the clinic works with a much smaller staff. I feel that they have made my file a priority and I’m so grateful for this.
I can’t help but think about how it shouldn’t be this hard. I understand that an already convicted person doesn’t have the luxury of presumed innocence anymore but for our system to be designed as though it’s errorless is absurd. The reason my file sat at intake at the previous clinic for 18 months is because of the overwhelming applicants begging for their services, it backlogs them for years. I mean I’ve already done all but 2 years of my sentence, I wouldn’t be fighting for relief if it wasn’t the truth. Lots of people that are exonerated have done decades in prison before they finally achieved relief. Maybe we should consider this, as a society, and change our system to relieve this. Otherwise, the journey I’ve been on will be the norm for many others in the years to come. I’ll keep you all updated on any upcoming progress.
*Ashleigh Smith is a lettersfromchristopher.com contributing writer.