The Murder Rule(9)

“Thanks so much, Rachel,” Hannah said. “I’l try not to take up too much of your time.”

Rachel shrugged. “It’s real y not a problem. We’re al here to help.”

“Great,” said Marianne briskly. “I’l let you get started.”

Hannah took her backpack off and slid into her chair.

“Let’s get you logged in,” Rachel said. She leaned across Hannah’s desk and switched the computer on. “Do you have your student ID? You just need your name and ID number to set up access, and then you create a password.”

Hannah leaned down and fished her new ID card from her backpack. She handed it to Rachel.

“How did you manage to get a decent photo?” Rachel asked. “I swear I’ve never seen a good one on a UVA ID.”

“Just lucky, I guess.”

They waited for the computer to boot up.

“Okay,” Rachel said. “So you’re going to be working on assessing the applications that come in from prisoners. You know our criteria for accepting an application?”

“I think so.”

Rachel counted the criteria off on one hand. “The inmate must have been convicted of a crime in Virginia. The conviction must be final, meaning that no further criminal proceedings or appeals are ongoing, and lastly the inmate must be claiming to be actual y innocent of the crime for which he or she was convicted, and by that I mean factual y innocent, not trying to get off on a technicality.”

“When you say no appeals are ongoing, you mean no direct appeals?”

“Yeah, exactly. The convicted person has to have exhausted their direct appeals and then we’l look at post-conviction motions addressing issues like new DNA evidence, or prosecutorial misconduct, or ineffective assistance of counsel, to name a few. I mean, it isn’t possible for the Project to get involved prior to conviction or the number of applications we get would just skyrocket.”

“Got it,” Hannah said.

“Our first job is to go through the applications and cut out everything that fails to meet those conditions. That takes time, but it’s fairly straightforward. The next step is the hard part. We have to make a recommendation about which cases deserve further consideration.” Rachel put her hand to her chest. “We, the students, have to make an assessment about the likelihood of being able to prove innocence, what legal remedies are available, and”—here Rachel paused for effect—“our current caseload. It’s an enormous responsibility.”

“Caseload is a constraint?”

“We have a backlog of eight hundred applicants right now.”

Rachel grimaced. She gestured around the room. “Most of us are running at least four cases at a time, investigating, trying to build up the file to the point where we can get something going. There are finite resources and a lot of need.”

“I see,” Hannah said. She put her hand on her mouse. “I thought . . . I suppose I just assumed that most of the Project’s time would be taken up with death row cases.”

Rachel shot her a look, gave a tight little laugh. “Death row cases get al the headlines,” she said. “But they’re only part of the work we do here.”

“Of course,” Hannah said. There was an awkward moment of silence and Hannah wondered if Rachel had ever worked a death row case. Probably not. That might be the reason for the spikiness.

She should move on, to avoid provoking the other girl, but she needed to know how things worked.

“But students do get to work on death row cases from time to time? The Dandridge case, for example. I’d imagine that’s going to suck up a lot of resources. When does it go to trial?” Hannah worried briefly if she was being too obvious, but she figured anyone volunteering for the Project would know about and be interested in Michael Dandridge. His case had been widely reported in left-leaning newspapers, not just the Vanity Fair profile where she had first read about it. The Vanity Fair article had been published before charges had been refiled against Dandridge, but there’d been other reporting since.

“Preliminary hearing for the Dandridge case is next week,”

Rachel said shortly. “And Professor Parekh’s keeping the team pretty tight. There are three spots for student assistants and they’re al taken.” She turned back to Hannah’s computer. “Let’s get started,”

she said.

Rachel showed Hannah where to access the applications that came in through the website. How to open a digital file and save the application. “The next step is to write to the inmate and request a copy of their appel ant’s opening brief. Ideal y we get that digital y, but a lot of the time it stil comes in on paper. We have to scan the original paper brief into the system and return the brief to the inmate with this letter.” Rachel pointed to a template letter sitting in the workflow. “This just basical y tel s them that we’re assessing their case and we’l get back to them as soon as possible. And it asks them not to contact us until we get in touch, unless absolutely necessary.” Rachel rol ed her eyes. “We stil get phone cal s, of course, but Marianne deals with most of those.”

“Right,” Hannah said.

“So then you need to analyze the brief, and you need to write an evaluation for every application, including analysis of the facts, history of the case, evidence col ected, and whether or not there’s a possibility of DNA or other forensic evidence that might prove innocence. Let’s look at a few examples.”