Colorado Prosecutor Says Exonerating the Innocent Part of Her Job….

Colorado in Spring…

From source:

Reviewing old convictions for cases where DNA might exonerate an inmate never seemed like defense-attorney work to Julie Selsberg.

On the contrary, the senior assistant attorney general said it squares perfectly with a prosecutor’s responsibilities.

“It’s may be unusual, but not when you really think about it,” Selsberg said. “A prosecutor’s mission is to seek the truth in all matters. That’s the kind of prosecutor I’ve always held myself out to be, and I was happy to see that Colorado aligned with my moral compass on that.”

Selsberg, a transplanted prosecutor from Manhattan, last week helped make Colorado history with the first prosecution-led exoneration of a wrongfully convicted man, Robert “Rider” Dewey.

She heads the Attorney General’s Office’s Justice Review Project, a small grant-funded endeavor that’s stretching into its third year. It’s just her and veteran investigator Larry Adkisson.

Together they reviewed nearly 5,000 cases of murder, sex assault and homicide, looking for a case such as Dewey’s, where new DNA technology could shed light on old convictions.

Without her work and the cooperation of Mesa County prosecutors, Dewey could have spent many more years behind bars.