The Innocence Project, New York, NY
This past summer, I spent ten weeks working as an intern in the Intake Department of the Innocence Project (IP) in New York City. IP is a legal non-profit that works to exonerate the wrongfully convicted through DNA testing and to reform the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice. The Intake Department is tasked with reviewing the enormous number of requests for assistance that IP receives (approximately 2,400 new requests per year), and identifying the cases in which DNA testing could potentially be used to prove a defendant’s innocence. Case analysts in this department work closely with attorneys in the Legal Department to determine which cases IP accepts for representation.
As an Intake intern, I reported to the Case Analysts. My job involved assisting in evaluating cases for possible representation, including reviewing and summarizing criminal case documents, organizing case files and digital records, and aiding with administrative tasks. My primary role was to conduct in-depth reviews of criminal case documents, including trial and pre-trial transcripts, police reports, lab reports, and so on. After reviewing all of the available documents for a given case, I produced memoranda that synthesized the most important details of the case, and then presented these memoranda to the Case Analysts at our bi-monthly meetings. This aspect of my work improved my ability to quickly, yet attentively, read through several long documents, extract the most important information, and synthesize it in concise and clear language. These reading and writing skills will help me tremendously through the rest of my time in college, and will definitely be hugely beneficial to me as I pursue a career in either legal practice or academia.
Reading through these cases also provided me a better understanding of the factors that lead to wrongful convictions; specifically, ineffective police procedures, and eyewitness misidentification. Given that I am a psychology major with a particular focus on the intersection of psychology and law, this further understanding of factors contributing to wrongful conviction has given me several ideas of future directions for research in this field. One of my future goals is to be able to do work that bridges the gap between academia and practice, and the knowledge I gained from working on these cases will be invaluable to my pursuit of that goal. Hopefully, by bridging this academia-practice gap, we will be able to more effectively conduct policy work that reforms the criminal justice system to prevent future wrongful convictions. Most importantly, this work deepened my understanding of how extensive the factors leading to wrongful convictions are, and has motivated me to pursue a career in criminal justice reform.
While this part of my internship was immeasurably meaningful, at times it was also very emotionally exhausting given the violent nature of the cases. However, this taught me that I must learn to incorporate self-care into my daily routine, and this will be extremely useful to the work I do on campus with the Rape and Sexual Assault Network, and to whichever job I have in the future, considering I want to do work related to public service. The form of self-care that I practiced this summer was exercising immediately after leaving work for the day. I felt like this not only helped me clear my head and have an overall happier and healthier summer, but it also improved how productive I was at work.
Besides the day-to-day work that I was doing, one of my favorite parts about this internship program was attending presentations by speakers who worked in organizations related to criminal justice such as Senior Staff Attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights; and the topics ranged from current research on juvenile guilty pleas, the issue of the NYPD gang database, and the constitutionality of solitary confinement. Attending these talks significantly broadened my understanding of serious issues in the justice system outside of the wrongful conviction of innocents, and introduced me to different paths that I could take in my pursuit of a job focused on reforming the justice system.
The talk that had the most consequential impact on me was the one given by the Director of Policy at IP, Rebecca Brown. Ms. Brown gave us an overview of how the Policy Department works with Congress, State legislatures, and a variety of different local leaders, including a hotel workers union for example, to pass laws and policies that prevent wrongful convictions and make it easier for innocents who have been wronged to receive justice. Attending her talk, and having the opportunity to speak with her afterwards, reinforced my interest in policy work and has encouraged me to apply for a position in IP’s Policy Department.
Looking back at my time with IP this summer, my most memorable moment was attending a video call with Christopher Tapp immediately after his exoneration on July 17th. DNA testing identified the true perpetrator in a 1996 rape and murder case, and exonerated Mr. Tapp. It was incredibly inspiring to be able to hear Mr. Tapp speak and to see how meaningful the work IP does is. That moment solidified my desire to pursue a career that has a positive social impact, because the feeling of fulfillment you get from moments like that make all of the hard work worth it.
I had wanted to work with IP since my junior year of high school, and the interest in the intersection of psychology and law that I developed at Williams only furthered that desire, and so my time at IP has been an exceptionally fulfilling experience. The work that I have done has both satisfied and fostered my interest in public service, and psychology and law, and has introduced me to a new field that I previously hadn’t thought to explore—policy work. I am eager to see how this experience continues to shape who I am and what I decide to do, and I am immensely grateful for this opportunity provided to me by the Innocence Project, the ’68 Center for Career Exploration, and the Class of 1972. I am deeply appreciative of all that they have done for me, and am eager to pay it forward in the future.
Megamenu Social