Another Update: Thanks for everyone’s support so far! As of today, we’re only $3500 away from meeting the summer goal six weeks ahead of schedule!
Update: Thank you! This post has already raised $300 in less than day! It’s good to be able to count on active and passionate communities like this for progressive nonprofit work.
Hi DailyKos community. I’m a Democratic party organizer in Delaware and I am currently pursuing a law degree at Delaware Law School. This summer, I am interning with Innocence Project Delaware as a community organizer and fundraiser. Some of you may be familiar with The Innocence Project as a national organization, and its work exonerating incarcerated individuals who have been wrongfully convicted. It is estimated that the wrongfully convicted population of America’s prison system is about 120,000 incarcerated individuals, thus The Innocence Project’s pro bono legal aid can bring solace to otherwise tragic circumstances.
It may be surprising, but a state as “blue” as Delaware has a long history of a racist and classist criminal justice system, that punishes BIPOC and low income communities. In fact, Delaware locks up more people per capita than any democratic nation besides the United States as a whole. Perhaps most disturbingly, 60% of the prison population in Delaware is Black, despite Black people representing only 21% of the general population.
The unfortunate reality is that Delaware has, until very recently, completely lacked any formal organization dedicated to fighting for innocent people who were wrongfully convicted. Thus, Innocence Project Delaware has a substantial amount of casework, and is currently examining wrongful convictions going back to 1979. This work changes lives, and corrects historic wrongs, such as in the case of Marlow Wright. At age 18, Mr. Wright was the youngest person ever on death row in Delaware, and spent 20 years in solitary confinement for a crime he did not commit, but finally allowed to walk free in 2015 through pro bono legal representation.
My work as an organizer and fundraiser for Innocence Project Delaware has helped to generate momentum, but it is far from enough to fully tackle the state's backlog of injustice. Therefore, I am asking that the DailyKos community help me reach my summer goal of $15,000 by donating what you can. Currently, we are roughly $5,000 away from our goal.
Donations primarily go toward the extremely expensive administrative costs of pro bono legal work. These include DNA tests (which can cost $10,000) and things as simple as court transcript requests (which often cost around $500 per request). In the long term, Innocence Project Delaware hopes to hire full time positions such as a staff attorney and a community organizer, but we cannot without community support.
Thank you for reading, and I hope you can support our work.
