Banks Story Highlights Other Innocence Efforts

With the amazing story of Brian Banks‘s exoneration by the California Innocence Project and his numerous tryouts with NFL teams, there are many stories on the media about innocence efforts. It is great that all the sports fans will get to know what the innocence work is all about.

Brian Banks’s tryout with the Seattle Seahawks was a huge news in local media as well. It also highlighted local innocence efforts. Several news featured the work of the Innocence Project Northwest, located at the Univestiy of Washington School of Law.

Here is a story by KIRO FM News.

And here is a brief story by King 5 News.

Excerpt from the King 5 News: Media attention this week on aspiring Seahawks team member Brian Banks is shining light on the Innocence Project, a national effort to free and exhonorate wrongly convicted people from prison…

In Seattle, the Innocence Project Northwest operates out of the University of Washington School of Law, where students, faculty and volunteer legal experts have helped secure freedom for at least 16 people in Washington prisons since 1997.

One of those high profile cases involved Alan Northrop, who in 1993 was wrongly convicted of raping a Clark County woman. He spent 17 years in prison before being released in July 2010, and he has lobbied ever since to get people like himself compensation for the years they spent behind bars.
“It’s exhilirating. It’s tragic. It’s remarkable work. And it’s what makes me continue to want to do the work,” said Jackie McMurtrie, the lawyer who runs IPNW…

**Alan Northrop’s story here, here, and here…

I hope the incredible stories of exonerations will stir national and international debate about wrongful convictions.

Congratulations again to Brian and to the California Innocence Project!!