Law students driving force behind Rocky Mountain Innocence Center

SALT LAKE CITY -Since she was young, Katelyn Farley has been fascinated by the thought of prosecuting criminals. Yet, through her work with the Rocky Mountain Innocence Center she's been shocked to discover ethical shortcuts and moral failings of individuals who should be upholding and mirroring some of society's highest standards.

"This clinic helps me understand...the things people have done wrong," said Farley, a second-year law school student at the University of Utah. "As a prosecutor, I do not want to do these things wrong. I do not want the guilt of thinking that I put someone behind bars who didn't do it."

Farley and her fellow law school students in the Innocence Clinic are the energetic volunteer force behind the non-profit Rocky Mountain Innocence Center, which works to investigate claims of innocence from inmates in Utah, Wyoming and Nevada prisons.

"We started out (in 2000) as a tiny non-profit with some really big ideas, and it quickly became clear that we needed staff, we needed funding and we needed organized involvement of students," said Jensie Anderson, President of the Rocky Mountain Innocence Center, professor at University of Utah S. J. Quinney College of Law and Director of the Innocence Clinic there.

The students, from the University of Utah, BYU, UNLV and University of Wyoming, are a crucial component, as are the volunteer attorneys. The Center has one paid employee and will be hiring one full-time attorney soon.

During their time with the Innocence Clinic, which also counts as law school credit, students are assigned cases that have been carefully screened from nearly 200 letters the RMIC receives each year from inmates.

Each week, the students learn about how to obtain and search through old police documents and trial transcripts, how to interview witnesses and how to overcome the various hurdles that naturally crop up when they begin looking for decades-old evidence.

Second-year U of U law student Matt Dodd estimates he's already spent nearly 15 hours just trying to get original police documents, not an uncommon problem.

"We often meet resistance for any variety of reasons, probably not the least of which is that, the state officials are worried about a mistake being uncovered," said Katie Monroe, attorney and executive director of the RMIC.

In many cases, the Center believes they have uncovered intentional errors or newly discovered evidence, both of which could mean the wrong person is in prison.