Midwestern Innocence Project

I get a lot of questions about what I've been working on and what I'm doing after graduation. The following is a reflection piece I wrote about my work on the Project this semester. I could talk about wrongful convictions for hours on end, especially the case I'm working on, so if you're ever wondering feel free to ask. Anyway this explains what I've been doing, why and where I'm headed :)

Midwestern Innocence Project Experience

One of my most valuable experiences at the Missouri School of Journalism has been in my work with Professor Steve Weinberg and the Midwestern Innocence Project. I have learned, and continue to learn, about the many problems with our criminal justice system. More importantly, I’ve learned how to confront those problems as a journalist and investigator in an immediate, purposeful way. The Midwestern Innocence Project, in combination with the knowledge I gained in Professor Weinberg’s Intermediate Writing course, has provided me with the power and means to work with a UMKC law student on an actual innocence claim. I started work on this case in January 2009, and have spent much of my final semester of college traveling to southern Missouri to conduct numerous interviews as well as reading and organizing nearly fifteen boxes of paperwork on the case. Although I have enjoyed many story assignments I’ve been given in the journalism school, this experience has allowed me to use and strengthen my skills as a reporter and writer, and created a path for my future that I am equally passionate about and confident in pursuing.

In sum, the Midwestern Innocence Project, specifically the case that I have worked so diligently on with my partner, has taught me to be a more daring journalist. It has taught me to care more, ask both simple and complex questions and to be outraged by my findings when necessary. The case I’m working on involves a man who was co-convicted of murdering a 15-year-old girl. There is no physical evidence or DNA connecting our client to the murder. The entire case was built according to a single witness testimony that was later inflated by several people who received deals in return for statements. Our client has been in prison since 1997 for a murder I am 90 percent sure he did not commit, and my certainty increases daily.

I learned to care when I discovered the sheer magnitude of wrongful conviction cases. This was primarily in Professor Weinberg’s class, where I began and continue to pursue a profile of one of the attorneys on the board of directors at the Midwestern Innocence Project. I quickly learned how busy she was, and I committed at the point to volunteer in some way with the project in hopes of lightening the work load and to connect with the person I wanted to profile. My mind wouldn’t rest with the new knowledge that innocent people were trapped in prisons all over the country. At first, I didn’t know how much time I would be able to devote. Now I give as much of my free time as possible to the case. I find myself constantly talking about wrongful convictions, and I’m encouraged because so often the people I talk react in shock, as I did, prior to being introduced to the world of wrongful convictions.

I learned to ask a variety of questions in the interviews I’ve conducted on this case. So many professors preach that you have to ask the easy questions in order to ask the more difficult ones. I’ve learned that you have to ask both kinds of questions not because one yields the other, but because they both generate extremely valuable information. I think the best example of this in an interview I recently conducted with one of the prosecuting attorneys in our client’s case. In the very beginning of the interview I noticed a large black briefcase sitting next to my chair. Of course I began the interview by explaining who I was and a little bit about the Innocence Project, but some of my first questions were about his confidence in the use of a “Voice Stress Analyzer Test” he used in the mid-90s. He responded that he thought it was credible and that it was proven in most cases to be consistent with polygraph tests (which are also completely fallible). As he was answering I looked down at the briefcase and asked what I thought was a filler question: “Would this happen to be one of the voice-stress test machines?” It was. At that point, I didn’t necessarily find this valuable information. However, I continued to press him about the device, got to see it first hand and discovered that somehow he is still using this faulty equipment. This is when I learned that it is OK to be outraged.

When I say I learned to be outraged, I don’t mean I learned to scream or lash out at people. I’m a relatively controlled person. What I mean is that the feeling of utter frustration I experienced in the above interview has led me to speak out about the ignorance and arrogance of many people in the criminal justice system. I learned to push through the fear of the uniform and the business suit and question people until they provide a legitimate answer to the question I’m asking. In this case, my partner and I discovered the two questions people wouldn’t answer right away: What makes you believe he is guilty when the physical evidence does not match and how do you explain the lack of DNA evidence? The most common response from jurors, attorneys and law enforcement alike: “He just looked guilty.” Outrageous. And the very reason I am continuing work on this case following my graduation in May. I know now that I want to pursue a career in the criminal justice system. I’m still in the process of deciding if I want to do this as a journalist, a lawyer or in some other way. However I choose to go about it, my experience with the Midwestern Innocence Project has put me in the field and given me a memorable, real-world encounter with the injustices in our justice system.

A Piece of My Running Quote File

"The years teach much which the days never know."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off."

-Gloria Steinem

“They say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”

-Andy Warhol

"We might not understand something while it's happening to us. But if we take one stitch out of the blanket, the whole quilt would fall apart. I wouldn't change anything, even the stuff that was painful or things I didn't understand, because it might have been the one stitch that held everything together."

-Rachel Ray

"None who have always been free can understand the terrible fascinating power of the hope of freedom to those who are not free."

-Pearl S. Buck

"Success: To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."

-Bessie Stanley

"Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In ll the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can."

-John Wesley

“I love people who make me laugh. I honestly think it's the thing I like most, to laugh. It cures a multitude of ills. It's probably the most important thing in a person.”

-Audrey Hepburn

"The bottom line is that (a) people are never perfect, but love can be, (b) that is the one and only way that the mediocre and vile can be transformed, and (c) doing that makes it that. We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love."

-Tom Robbins (Still Life With Woodpecker)

"The meaning of good and bad, of better and worse, is simply helping or hurting."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson.

"To be aware of a single shortcoming in oneself is more useful than to be aware of a thousand in someone else." -Dalai Lama

"When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth." 4-year-old Billy.

"Nothing could be worse than the fear that one had given up too soon, and left one unexpended effort that might have saved the world." -Jane Addams

"Expect nothing, live frugally on surprise." -Alice Walker

"You can never get enough of what you don't need to make you happy." -Eric Hoffer.

"The best thermometer of your spiritual temperature is the intensity of your prayer." —Spurgeon

"One moment of patience may ward off great disaster. One moment of impatience may ruin a whole life." -Chinese Proverb.

"Wisdom is knowing what to do next. Skill is knowing how to do it. Virtue is doing it." -David Starr Jordan.

"Depth of friendship does not depend on length of acquaintance." -Tagore.

"Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult." - Charlotte Whitton.

"You cannot not communicate."

-Paul Watzlawick

"The best part about playing the piano is that you don’t have to lug around a saxophone."

-Gerry Mulligan

"To live each day as if it were your last, you would be trying to remedy all the mistakes you had made, all the regrets, all the things unsaid. If you live each day as if it were your first, you are freed from all obligations, all guilt, all regret."

-unknown

The highest form of prayer comes from the depths of a humble heart.

-unkown

God can turn any difficulty into an opportunity.

-unknown

But most important, it (humility) requires knowing who God is—holding Him in highest esteem and trusting Him for His best in His time. — Albert Lee

Happiness keeps you sweet,

Trials keep you strong,

Sorrows keep you human,

Failures keep you humble,

Success keeps you glowing,

But Only God Keeps You Going

One small step of obedience is a giant step to blessing.

The name Christian means an “adherent to Christ”—literally, one who “sticks” to Christ. Today many people call themselves Christians. But should they?

God’s unseen presence comforts me,

I know He’s always near;

And when life’s storms besiege my soul,

He says, “My child, I’m here.” —D. De Haan

Jesus rarely comes where we expect Him; He appears where we least expect Him, and always in the most illogical situations.

-Oswald Chambers

I wonder what I did for God today:

How many times did I once pause and pray?

But I must find and serve Him in these ways,

For life is made of ordinary days. —Macbeth

Whatever task you find to do,

Regardless if it’s big or small,

Perform it well, with all your might,

Because there’s One who sees it all. —Sper

One measure of our likeness to Christ is our sensitivity to the suffering of others.

If God has given you some special work to do that frightens you, it’s your responsibility to jump at it. It’s up to the Lord to see you through. As you faithfully do your part, He will do His part. — Richard De Haan

Old Blogs: Annoyed by an Obituary

May 12, 2008

"Anger makes you smaller, while forgiveness forces you to grow beyond what you were."

Ok, so as aspiring journalists one of the suggestions we are given at the j-school is to "blog". They say it gets us to write about anything and everything, and helps us become better writers. I've been meaning to do so all semester, and tonight I decided that I really should just do it. I love to write so why not? And who really reads these things anyway? Probably just me. Anyway, I figured one way to go about this would be to explain the quotes that I am drawn to daily and how they happen to define my life as it is usually. I am a quote freak - I'm aware. But I love when someone else perfectly captures my feelings. Plus, I find other people love reading them and often thank me for throwing them out there.

So today I woke up suprisingly calm, turned in my term paper and a take-home final and studied my little butt off for about 3 hours. Then started to stress - this is typically how my days go. I got to the Missourian (the newspaper/magazine I write for) at 3 and of all days they decided to actually give me something to do - an obituary for someone with the last name Smith. Now there are two reasons why I was stressed by this:

1. I have two finals tomorrow I was trying to study for and I needed to get out of there early to go to the review sessions

2. When you write an obituary, you're supposed to contact family members and try to make it a "life story" rather than a short little blurb. Well let's just say looking up Smith in the phonebook and trying to contact an 83 year old persons relatives is not exactly going to happen.

It's not that I mind writing obituaries - I actually enjoy it because I think they can be incredibly meaningful to families and sometimes you can write about an amazing person. But today was just not the day. It ended up turning out fine, I made a few calls - no luck but the editor said don't worry about making it a life story. I wrote the boring one and got on with my studying.

So what am I getting at? Anger/frustration gets you nowhere. It seems obvious but the way I felt for 15 minutes - the stress that mounted all over an obituary that ended up taking 20 minutes out of my day - well it wasn't really worth it! I thought about it and all I could think was that I ended up making it to my review sessions, I feel prepared for my finals, and I took 20 minutes out of my day to acknowledge the life of someone who's no longer here.

I don't know - I've been pretty consumed lately by some things that make me angry. Mainly with people who have abandoned me in the one and only time I can think of that I actually really needed people to lean on. I've realized quickly that as my life has become so filled with people, I've let some slip away. I guess I just never thought friendship should be work. It should be understood and mutual. And then again - I just think some people never genuinely cared about me. Forgiveness has never been a struggle for me - I don't know if it's just the way I was brought up or what but I don't hold grudges, I don't let little things build to the point to ruin a relationship, and I don't ever give up on people. But I find myself hurt often by people who don't realize how much they mean to me and who give up on me the instant my life changes or progresses. I can't say I'm suprised, but for some reason I am still affected by something so completely out of my control. So I continue to pray, and to forgive. What more is a girl to do? I just hope that I never turn into a person who forgets how to forgive. I never want to be the reason someone feels the loneliness I've been fighting in the past few months.

I can't say I won't be frazzled by another story thrown at me in the newsroom. I can say, however that I'm learning to love every minute of my life. And I am suprised and amazed at every turn. Despite the loss that I'm feeling, I can't describe how very happy I am right now. And I think that I am growing - and that when I look back, I will have gained much more than I have lost.

"for everything you have missed, you have gained something else"

-ralph waldo emerson

Old Blogs: The Friday Night Knitting Club

The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs (***)

If I had to summarize what the main lesson of this novel is, it would go something like this: Sometimes, you aren't strong because you want to be or because your are naturally endowed to be a tough skinned, dry-eyed individual who can handle anything. Sometimes, you're strong because you aren't given a choice. This book teaches strength in a number of relationships (mother/daughter, woman/woman, husband/wife, elder/younger), and reminded me of my mom's lesson to me while my dad was in Iraq. She always used to tell me - "I wasn't given a choice here. Dad made this choice. I get by and make it through the days because I have to. Not because I'm strong or because I don't have feelings, but because I have to. For him, for myself, and mostly for you kids." I'll never forget her saying that. When people asked her how she did it, she said "Well what else am I supposed to do? I don't have a lot of options here." And that's exactly the lesson the main character - Georgia Walker - teaches in this book. The lessons learned from her - and the directions for knitting that are two-fold...making one want to learn to knit ASAP and that equally apply to life - are applicable in a countless number of situations.

From the Instructions:

"The Gathering: Choosing your wool is dizzying with potential: The waves of colors and textures tempt with visions of a sweater or cap (and all the accompanying compliments you hope to receive) but don't reveal the hard work required to get there. Patience and attention to detail make all the difference. Also willingness. Challenge keeps it interesting, but don't select a pattern that is too far beyond you. Always select the best yarn you can afford. And use the type of needles that feels best in your hand..."

"Casting On: The only way to get going is to just grasp that yarn between your fingers and twist. Just start. It's the same with life. Of course, every beginning won't be the same: There are dozens of ways to cast on and they vary based on skill or design or even just relying on the tried and true. My point: Sometimes what works for one piece isn't the right way next time. You have to experiment and see what works. But there's a similartiy no matter the method: you either try or you don't."

"Doing the Gauge: Take measure of yourself against the expectation (Otherwise what you make just won't fit!)"

"Knit and Purl: Knit is what you show the world; purl is the soft, bubbly underside you keep close to the skin."

"Ripping It Out: All you have to do is forgive."

"Starting Again: No, there's a secret hope that makes you hold on, to dream that you'll get it right someday, that you'll go back and take it up again and it will finally come out right. That this time all the pieces will fit. The mistake is waiting until you feel renewed enough to give it another try. You simply have to pick up the needles and keep at it anyway."

"Binding Off: You can't keep your garment on needles forever; eventually it's going to have to exist on its own, supporting itself."

"Sewing It All Together: It's always easier to knit a sweater in sections: the front, the back, the sleeves. The benefit is that if one section is frustrating you, it can be put aside and you can move on to something else until you're ready to finish. that's not the same as giving up: that's being smart...Sometimes you just want to gaze on things awhile, to keep them fresh and perfect as long as you can."

"Wearing What You've Made: But just put it on anyway; celebrate your hard work and your talent. And your love. Why else would we create? Especially in a world that doesn't need homemade anything. That's when we need homemade everything. It never matters if things don't end up just the way you planned. Every moment is a work in progress; every stitch is one stitch closer. There may be worse, but there is always better. When you wear something you've made with your own hands, you surround yourself with love, and all the love that came before you . The real achievement, you see, is being proud of what you've made. I know that I am."

Other Quotes that spoke directly to me:

"Honey, being a woman is all about being sore. Get used to it."

"Love, Lucie had learned over the years, can smother you."

" It is a beautiful gift, thought Anita, to have your mother be your very dearest and best friend. It is quite another to try to be hers. Then you'd have to actaully get to know her. As a real person."

"Sometimes God answers a prayer you didn't know you had."

"We all find ourselves in places we don't expect, Cat. Situations that seem out of our control," she said. "The challenge is making our way out of them."

"Be your own saftey and security! Every woman should have credit in her own name."

"And failure, if you want to know, Dakota, is just another opportunity to try again."

"Stress is not about the situation my dear, it's about the person. There's some who can handle it and there's some who can't."

"Though the old woman was pleased, having learned through the years that a true friendship never really ended. It could always come round again."

"We don't always get what we deserve. Sometimes we get more; sometimes we get less. At least we get something."

"The things is," Anita began quietly, "that when you're young, you always think you'll meet all sorts of wonderful people, that drifting apart and losing friends is natural. You don't worry, at first, about the friends you leave behind. But as you get older, it gets harder to build friendships. Too many defenses, too little opportunity. You get busy. And by the time you realize that you've lost the dearest best friend you've ever had, years have gone by and you're mature enough to be embarrased by your attitude and, frankly, by your arrogance."

Old Blogs: Love Walked In

♥ Love Walked In ♥ by Marisa De Los Santos

This story isn't your fairytale romance, your picture perfect love. But it's love in every sense of the word: familial, friendship, romantic, and parental. This is a perfect depiction of what it means, from the eyes of a child and a woman, to search and hold on to love. The story addresses abandonment, loneliness, fear and ultimate joy. I closed this book feeling as though I just woke up and saw how important it is to hold on tight to the people I love, to tell them how much I loved them, and how I wanted immediately to start living with the grace and gratitude reflected by the two main characters, Clare and Cornelia. I think the message of this book is powerful due to Santos ability to pull at the heart-strings of anyone who's ever felt utterly alone, known love, or been terrified to know love because they know what it feels like to feel utterly alone. And it's the nature of the child, Clare, her strength, will and faith that bring readers of any age to yearn for the heart of a child when facing the struggles in life and love. If everyone could love, give, forgive and care the way that Clare and Cornelia do, the world would be a much more beautiful place.

Passages I Noted Throughout the Book:

♥ Maybe love comes in at the eyes, but not nearly as much as it comes in at the ears.

♥ For another thing, he wasn't a list of attributes, but a flesh-and-blood man, as physically present a prescence as anyone I'd met in my life. When he told me he loved me, he said it in his particular voice with catches in his particular throat, and the bones and muscles of his face moved in familiar ways and also in ways I'd never seen. Can you understand what I'm saying? I'm not just talking again about the power of physical beauty. Less-than-fantastic sex notwithstanding, we were intimates; I'd breathed his breath, my skin knew his skin, my nerve endings had sparked under his touch. That kind of knowledge was deep and had never been something I could walk away from with ease. And he had taste and humor and effortless elegance.He was down right debonair, and how many men could you say that about? And, OK, he was. He was so beautiful.

♥ I don't think love is blind, but wanting to be in love, that's probably blind.

♥ True love is probably the most clear-eyed state of being there is.

♥ What she came to was that even if someone wasn't perfect or even especially good, you couldn't dismiss the love they felt. Love was always love; it had a rightness all its own, even if the person feeling the love was full of wrongness

♥ There's a kind of holiness to love, requited or not, and those people who don't receive it with gratitude are arrogant beyond saving.

♥ She thought about the word "capture," how it put a writer on par with a fur trapper or big-game hunter, and how it implied that stories were whole and roaming around loose in the world, and a writer's job was to catch them. Except of course that a writer didn't kill what she caught, didn't stuff it and hang it on a wall; the point was to keep stories alive. She felt skeptical about this way of thinking about writing, she decided, but was glad to have considered it.

♥ When disaster strikes, I want my mother. I want her, I want her, I want her.

♥ There are facts and then there is knowledge that has nothing to do with fact.

♥ Our family is as happy as Martin was debonair: unassailably, impenetrably, consummately. We are a pretty picture hung on the gleaming nail of my mother, who is the most consummate one of all, and carved into our pretty frame are the words: DON'T ROCK THE BOAT.

♥ What do you do when you're in love with the last man in the world you can have? You plan a life, a real life, without him.

♥ And somehow to Clare, this seemed no less magical than flowers that stayed alive for years, that one woman could so love another woman that she kept doing nice things for her even after she was gone. Like love was a habit you couldn't break. (About Mrs. Goldberg)

♥ Love was mixed up in all of it, like gold in a pan of sand. Sift. Sort. Pay attention.

♥ If you're the kind of person I used to be, you might think that real life means going after what you want and getting it. I thought that, as I skirted those edges (and don't get me wrong, I liked that skirting; there was joy in it - most of the time, that skirting was the lightest kind of dancing), gazing into other people's real lives like lit-up houses, places in which real people did the work of real life. I believed they'd all achieved their hearts' desires or were in the process of achieving them. There. That's what I mean: I believed the process of achieving them was life...

I'd figured out that a real life didnt' mean attaining my heart's desire, but knowing it, meant not the satisfaction, but the longing. Knowing what you love and why, I found out, is as real as it gets.

♥ Yes, it's true, what I said earlier: A real life doesn't mean getting what you want; the acievement, the privilege, too, is knowing what you love. But getting what you love? Having what you love love you back? Oh, my friend, it's a miracle: your one tiny life's head-on collision with divinity.

♥ Because that's what love does: You give up a house that's been your heart's home most of your life and come away feeling like you've been handed the sun and the moon.

♥Suddenly it seemed vitally important that everyone I loved know exactly how and how much. I felt feverish with them to know.

♥ My heart is large; it can contain everything at once, and the road I'm on with Teo, can you see it? It runs forward and backward and no matter which we travel on it, the direction is the same. You know the direction I mean: Homeward.

Grace In Small Things

"It is with this thought that I am beginning one year of posts called "Grace In Small Things". Every day for 365 days, I will post a list of five things that have graced my life, either on that day or at any time in my life. Feel free to join me. Or mock me. Or, you know, do whatever's in your heart. You can start on whatever day you want, so if you come across this six months from now, don't let that hold you back."

-Schmutzie (http://www.schmutzie.com/2008/11/grace-in-small-things.html)

A New Challenge

I think this will help keep me faithful to my blog. And it's just a brilliant idea!

GiST 1:365

1. E-mail from my dad this morning, rather lengthy for my dad, telling me he's excited to see me :)

2. Waking up at exactly 8 a.m. (when I was supposed to be in class presenting) and arriving just in time for my group to present last

3. Sitting in my last college class as an undergraduate at this moment

4. Raising my hand to let everyone know I graduate!!!

Excitement.

If you’re waiting for answered prayer or the fulfillment of one of His promises, don’t give up. If you think He has forgotten you, think again. When the fullness of time is right for you, He’ll show up—and you’ll be amazed by His brilliant timing!

- Joe Stowell

I'm so anxious to finish these projects but I wanted to write on here first. It's been tremendously helpful for me to vent here lately so I figure I should continue.

I'm really missing my family, especially my dad right now. He's super unhappy in his job and I seriously worry every single day that his heart is going to act up. He's always had heart trouble and every time I talk to my mom she tells me how miserable he is. I love my dad so much and I just constantly worry about him.

At the same time I'm in love with the beautiful weather, the freedom I feel coming on post-graduation, and the friendships I've begun to build with both people here and family. Sometimes I don't feel like I can keep up with everyone, which is funny because I keep saying how lonely I am. Anyway I'm grateful for the love surrounding me. I'm trying to be strong and remember the promises I've made to myself for the next year.

One more thing- I was thinking of all of the great women in my life. Mom, Aunt Susan, Gma, SusieQ, Stacey Marie, Rachel, Sumo, Mimi, JMalle, JLew, Frischy, Smartie, AH, JR, Robin, Renee, Chrissy, Morgan& Mal, Jasmine, Mel, Casey and Jim & Jas (basically as great as the girls :)) I'm so lucky. And maybe I am a little bit feminst because I know such amazing women!

I'm almost a college grad :) time to work so I can celebrate!

btw - not talking to all of the boys from my past has been delightfully liberating so far

Oh, and I'm buying a black maxi dress from Ely's tomorrow that I can't afford.