Our Story

In order to understand where we’re going, it helps to know where we’ve been.

In 2000, with the support and guidance of the national Innocence Project, the University of Tennessee College of Law established an all-volunteer project to review requests for assistance, investigate cases, litigate innocence and wrongful conviction claims, and make efforts at criminal justice policy reform.

The volunteers helped draft, obtained legislative sponsorship, and advocated for passage of the Tennessee Post-Conviction DNA Analysis Act of 2001, which was a significant accomplishment.

Beginning in 2009, the University of Tennessee College of Law operated a law school innocence clinic supervised by a single volunteer attorney. This clinic remained the only innocence organization in Tennessee until it was terminated in 2018.

For almost a decade, the Innocence Clinic helped train law students and lawyers on how to investigate and litigate innocence claims in Tennessee. The Innocence Clinic could only handle a small number of cases at a time, though, with just law student support and part-time attorney assistance, and it became clear that there was a critical need for a state-wide non-profit innocence organization.

In 2019, a dedicated group of individuals – some of whom were involved with the innocence movement in Tennessee since its beginning – revived the Tennessee Innocence Project as a freestanding state-wide non-profit, expanding its mission to operate with multiple law schools, law firms, advocacy groups, and other partners in all parts of Tennessee, with the focus on providing the resources, staff, and infrastructure necessary to fight for the innocent.

The Need

According to the National Registry of Exonerations, Tennessee has had only 41 exonerations since 1989, including 6 achieved by the Tennessee Innocence Project since 2019. This is significantly lower than other states with similar incarceration rates. For example, during the same period, North Carolina has seen 75 exonerations, while Louisiana has 93 exonerees and Michigan has 176.

What’s the difference?

Tennessee is not carrying out justice better than any other state. The difference between Tennessee and other states is that, until recently, Tennessee has not had the mechanisms in place to properly address the criminal justice system’s mistakes. Many other states (such as North Carolina, Louisiana, and Michigan) have fully functioning innocence organizations. In states like Illinois, where innocence organizations have been operating for several decades, more than 530 people have been exonerated. Currently, in Tennessee, attorneys are compensated only $1,000 for conducting an investigation that should be as complete and detailed as a season of the Serial podcast. In addition to investigation, attorneys must litigate all viable claims. Tennessee attorneys do not receive any funding for investigators or expert witnesses to pursue actual innocence claims. This utter lack of funding means that few if any attorneys will assume the responsibility of reviewing a complex criminal trial, investigating for new evidence, and litigating actual innocence claims where the burden of proof is on the defendant to prove his or her innocence. This means that without a functioning innocence project, actually innocent persons who are being wrongfully incarcerated will never have access to the legal representation they need and deserve.