Students Work for Justice in Wrongful Convictions Clinic
Wendy Lewis (’18), Tom Stonitsch (’18), and Merissa Pico (’18) work on an arson case in the Wrongful Convictions Clinic to give their client a second chance.
The Wrongful Convictions Clinic at Boston University School of Law serves as a last chance for many who may have been wrongfully convicted. Students work in collaboration with the New England Innocence Project to give a second chance to their clients.
Led by Lecturer in Law Phil Cormier, the two-semester clinic works on one case throughout the year, giving students the opportunity to experience the world of criminal law.
“We try to get students to understand that there are a lot of ways innocent people can be wrongly convicted,” Cormier says. “Students are essentially doing what an appellate or post-conviction attorney would be doing when they first get a case.”
Students in the clinic, including Wendy Lewis (’18), Merissa Pico (’18), and Tom Stonitsch (’18), have been working on an arson case this year, in which their client was convicted of felony arson murder for the deaths of two children. The client brought the case to the clinic in hopes of being chosen for post-conviction litigation support by the New England Innocence Project—a nonprofit organization that works with BU Law to provide pro bono legal representation to claims of innocence.
The students have spent the fall semester organizing thousands of documents and sifting through materials from the client’s trial and prior appeal. Currently, they are working with scientists to understand the evidence and are conducting factual investigation to assess their client’s claim of innocence. The goal is to create a final report of their findings that will be submitted to the New England Innocence Project for consideration.
Stonitsch, who is also in the Criminal Law Clinical Program, says the Wrongful Convictions Clinic has exposed him to the appeals side of criminal law. “It gives me a more well-rounded criminal law background,” he says. “There aren’t a lot of opportunities at other schools to get this type of experience, and having the chance to be a part of it for a full year has made me a more well-rounded trial lawyer.”
Lewis, who studied integrated biology at Brigham Young University, has been able to utilize her background to help understand the scientific elements of the case. Working with scientists and arson experts in analyzing burn patterns and other scientific evidence has been one of the roles she has played throughout the case. Lewis goes through testimonies given by firefighters and other experts, and has been investigating the accuracy of the scientific evidence that was presented at trial in order to build a case for the client. She says the clinic has given her the opportunity to become an expert in all areas of the law.
“As a lawyer, you have to be a generalist,” Lewis says. “You have to be able to go into any topic and try to grasp an inch of material so you can understand it, and then go through and find all the different things you need to fully understand the topic. I’ve learned things in this clinic that I don’t think I would’ve learned elsewhere.”
Pico says her experience in the clinic has been an important learning process that she hopes to apply to her future work.
“It’s been a good experience to just help somebody who has exhausted all of their options,” she says. “I think having this experience of having somebody to rely on you for essentially their last chance is a good learning experience and a huge responsibility, but also a great opportunity to help someone out.”
“Law is all about justice, and finding out whether people were wrongfully convicted is an integral part of that,” Lewis says. “It’s being able to correct an imperfect part of our system.”