Conviction integrity units were meant to fix a broken system. Our ongoing investigation reveals that in many cases, they’ve reinforced it.
The letters paint a picture of a CIU process rife with roadblocks, especially for applicants who didn’t have lawyers.
A once-touted statewide conviction review unit lacks independence, authority, and transparency — and Albany hasn’t moved to fix it.
Prisoners seeking help from the AG’s office have little chance of review. Here’s one applicant’s story.
The attorney general’s conviction review bureau has investigated just a handful of innocence claims of the hundreds it’s received since 2012.
Here are the key findings from the second installment of our investigation into New York’s conviction integrity units.
In New York, half of CIU exonerations involve prosecutorial misconduct, but DAs rarely acknowledge who got it wrong.
The secretive units have fallen short on their promise to help wrongfully convicted New Yorkers.
Our investigation identified dozens of cases in which a wrongful conviction unit denied someone’s application, only for a judge to later exonerate them.
Our investigation into conviction integrity units reveals that they reinforce a broken system. Help us expand on this reporting.