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The founders of New Zealand's Innocence Project have an unusual ambition: they want to be able to close down an enterprise aimed at highlighting wrongful convictions.
"I'd like us to go out of business, frankly," said Victoria University psychologist Maryanne Garry.
"I'd like there to be some rock-solid check and balance ... but there has to be something and right now we're it."
The Innocence Project, modelled on similar ventures overseas, was set up in May as a joint venture between academics at Victoria and Otago Universities.
Dr Garry, her colleagues and six student volunteers are considering between 50 and 100 cases where a convicted criminal has claimed he or she was wrongfully found guilty.
"We won't just take on a case because somebody claims innocence," said project manager Matthew Gerrie.
"There is a group of other criteria as well. We need to have evidence that is testable by us, and we will not take on a case which hinges solely on a matter of consent, for example where it is his word versus her word."
Applicants must also have exhausted their avenues of appeal before the Innocence Project will consider the case. The applicant is asked to fill in a questionnaire about the case, then the project prepares a case summary to be considered by its board of directors, which decides which cases to pursue.
The project has yet to settle on its first case but several are under consideration.
"We are assuming we will be contacted by a wide range of people with a wide range of problems, some of whom are guilty and some of whom are innocent," Dr Gerrie said.
"We don't assume innocence on the first point of contact: just because you tell me you are innocent, I'm not automatically going to believe you."
Some have questioned the necessity of an Innocence Project but others - most notably former High Court judge Sir Thomas Thorp - say there are most likely people in jail who have been wrongfully convicted.
Some such as Peter Ellis and David Bain have long protested their innocence and have attracted many supporters to their cause. Dr Garry said the Innocence Project would not necessarily select well-known cases to work on.
"Your access to justice shouldn't hinge on whether you have a bunch of advocates able to campaign for you around the clock and finance your appeal," she said.
"I suspect there are a number of people who don't have that luxury, and it is those people that innocence projects around the world are set up to help."
www.victoria.ac.nz/ipnz/
