MID-ATLANTIC INNOCENCE PROJECT
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Mission Statement
The Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project works to prevent and correct the conviction of innocent people in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. We have one of the highest success rates in the country for exonerating those who have been wrongfully accused.
About This Cause
Founded in 2000, the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project (MAIP) has a mission to correct and prevent the conviction of innocent people in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia. To date, we have helped secure the exoneration or release of 39 innocent men who spent a total of 763 years in prison—lost years with their children and families, as active members of their communities—a massive injury to justice that we work to remedy every day. Despite our small size, MAIP has grown to be one of the most successful of the 54 innocence organizations in the United States. Our entire organization works to deliver our core program, providing pro bono investigative and civil legal services to prisoners in our region who claim they are innocent. We achieve that work through two main activities: 1) screening and litigating innocence claims; and 2) advocating for policy reforms to prevent and correct wrongful convictions. MAIP receives 300-500 new requests annually from prisoners and families claiming innocence. Investigating potential innocence cases is enormously challenging, and we are extremely thorough to ensure we only litigate the most meritorious claims. Currently, MAIP has 618 open cases at various stages of our rigorous five-stage review process (from pre-screening to assignment and investigation, through litigation). MAIP has successfully passed eleven laws that improve the criminal justice system in our jurisdiction, through both voluntary implementation and legislation, and helped prevent the passage of laws that would harm our clients, such as last summer’s proposal to weaken DC’s law that compensates the wrongfully convicted. Our success is due in large part because we collaborate with those who could be seen as opponents—the U.S. Attorney’s Office (USAO), the Baltimore City State’s Attorney, and Virginia’s Department of Forensic Science (VDFS), State Crime Commission, and Office of the Attorney General. It is hard to overstate the impact of this work on the lives of our clients. We restore our clients’ freedom and return them to families who have been without them for years—and often decades. Two recent examples of the profound impact of our work: • Sabein Burgess was exonerated last year after spending 19 years in prison for a murder he did not commit. He had never spent Thanksgiving or Christmas with his daughter (who was born right after he was arrested) until this year. • Thomas Haynesworth was arrested when he was 19 and was released from prison on his 46th birthday. Today he works at the Office of the Attorney General in Virginia, has been promoted twice, and is building a home.