Wis. Innocence Project gets $1M in federal grants

MADISON, Wis. (AP) - The Wisconsin Innocence Project has received $1 million in federal grants to help investigate cases where inmates may have been wrongly convicted.

The Innocence Project is a legal clinic at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It looks for cases where the convictions were based on faulty science or where evidence can be tested with new technology that wasn't available at the time of the trial.

The grants are from the U.S. Department of Justice.

Innocence Project co-director Keith Findley says some of the money will be used to place an Innocence Project attorney in the state public defender's office. He says that attorney can help screen cases for potential DNA evidence that could be used to prove innocence early in the litigation process.

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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