WASHINGTON _ As local prosecutors launch specialized units to review wrongful conviction claims, some defense advocates say they are noticing a transparency deficit.
Many units decline to release their policies, to share their findings with the convicted, or even to publicize their contact information, making it difficult to tell which are genuinely reviewing innocence claims _ and which might be a public relations move for the officials who created them.
"We're getting better at detecting wrongful convictions, and the units reflect that trend," said John Hollway, associate dean and executive director at Penn Law's Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice, a policy and research hub that looks to improve the criminal justice system. "But there are definitely units that put this out there as just a PR move."
There are fewer than 30 of these units nationwide, according to the National Registry of exonerations at the University of Michigan. The majority are known as conviction integrity units or conviction review units, and they are formed by teams of prosecutors located within a single jurisdiction, usually local district attorney's office. The North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission is the only statewide unit, a legislature-created agency that acts independently of state prosecutors.
They share a common purpose: to review claims of innocence. What each does to accomplish that goal is less clear, some advocates say.
