Irish Innocence Project at Griffith College
The Irish Innocence Project at Griffith College aims to assist convicted persons who believe they have been the victims
of a miscarriage of justice, and who, with the assistance of the Project, can cite evidence to support their factual innocence.
All clients of the Innocence Project must make a declaration of factual innocence.
The Irish Innocence Project is a colloboration
between Griffith College Law Faculty and the Innocence Project Network. The Project is part of the
Innocence Network and has been validated
and accepted by the Innocence Network.
There is undoubtedly an important need for an Innocence Project in Ireland. A number of miscarriage of
justice applications have recently been made before the Irish courts (see here for the recent Hannon case). Miscarriages of justice are a recognised component of every criminal justice system,
and in the USA there have been 254 post conviction exonerations on the basis of DNA evidence alone.
The Irish Innocence Project
has not been initiated to incriminate the Irish justice system. Instead, the Project merely recognises the fallibility of the legal system and is
attempting to redress this through the investigation of cases where the appeal process has been exhausted.