The criminal justice system is flawed and it is time to change it.

Amidst all the problems going on in the country like rising Covid-19 cases, violent protests, and election controversies, there are good things happening around the world, and one of them is the Innocence Project. “It’s about freeing as many innocent people as possible, addressing systemic issues, and giving back life and liberty.” That is what the Innocence Project is about. 

The Innocence Project first began in 1992 when Bronx Legal Aid Society public defenders Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld met. The project started as a legal clinic at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, and the idea is that if DNA technology has the ability to prove people guilty of crimes, it can also prove that people who are wrongfully convicted are innocent. 

Corey Mehlos is an associate attorney at Kaehne, Cottle, Pasquale & Associates practicing in Sheboygan County and in the Fox Valley. He worked in the University of Wisconsin Law School Innocence Project for a year. He was inspired to work with the Innocence Project because he “came to the conclusion that poor people and oftentimes people of color such as Black Americans face a higher rate of injustices in the criminal justice system”.

Mehlos chose to go to law school because he was inclined to revamp the system. “I wanted to correct these injustices,” he said. The Innocence Project gave him the opportunity to bring change and learn more about the use of forensic science techniques to help wrongfully convicted clients get back their stolen freedom. 

This project has been life-changing for Mehlos. “It has shaped me as a person and as a lawyer more than any experience I have had,” he said. 

He chose to become a public defender after he heard a family’s story. “I heard how their entire life had been shattered by their son being wrongfully convicted 15 years before [he] got on the case,” he said. Mehlos was able to accomplish what prior attorneys and Innocence Project Teams couldn’t: He walked an innocent man out of jail 26 years before his sentence would have ended. 

Malcolm Alexander, who is a black man convicted of sexual assault and sentenced for life without parole, is just one example of many who received justice with the help of the Innocence Project. 

He unjustifiably served 38 years in prison for a rape he did not commit. Alexander is the longest-serving exonerated client in the Innocence Project. On Jan. 30, 2018, his case was reopened by the Jefferson Parish District Attorney’s Office. The district court judge ordered the release of Alexander after DNA evidence proved his innocence. 

Alexander had a consensual encounter with a woman who then asked for money. When he didn’t comply, she accused him of sexual assault. The case was later dropped by the police, however, they associated him with a different rape case where a woman was held at gunpoint.

When the Innocence Project first took on Alexander’s case in 1996, the rape kit and other physical evidence from the crime he was accused of was destroyed four years after his conviction. Then, in 2013, the Innocence Project New Orleans was brought on as local counsel when hair evidence that was recovered from where the rape took place was found in the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office Crime Lab. 

Three different crime scene hairs had the same DNA profile which did not match Alexander, thus proving his innocence. Alexander was reunited with his son and grandson, both named Malcolm, along with his mother and sister. 

The feeling of bringing justice to innocent people is why lawyers like Mehlos and others involved with the Innocence Project do what they do. “What I have found through the Innocence Project and my practice as a criminal defense lawyer is that the criminal justice system has far more problems than most people realize, and far more innocent people are wrongfully convicted of crimes they did not commit than the general public realizes,” Mehlos said.

There are hundreds of heartwarming cases just like Alexander’s.   To learn more about the Innocence Project and other cases, go to https://innocenceproject.org/.