Petition

 

  Interesting points about Conviction Integrity Units

 

There are many reasons why every state, including Wisconsin, should have an Conviction Integrity Unit

• According to Reuters.com "Conviction integrity units were involved in just 2% of the registry’s initial pool of 873 cases—a figure that has since risen to 20% of all cases. There were 93 conviction integrity units operating by the end of 2021, including 14 that opened last year."

• " In addition to making sure people are serving prisons sentences for crimes they actually committed, these offices also identify areas where improvement is needed to avoid future mistakes" HowToJustice.Org 

•  CIUs should fundamentally be “independent, flexible, and transparent.” The report lays out several policy and practice recommendations, including: the unit should stand alone, rather than within an office’s appellate or post-conviction division; it should be “led by an attorney with firsthand prosecutorial and criminal defense experience;” and it should “review all petitions on their factual merits, and not on non-substantive grounds,” meaning the office should even review cases where a petitioner pled guilty. According to Quattrone’s report, testing evidence and establishing an “open exchange of information” are also important, as are personnel trainings and written policies. Conviction Review Units: A National Perspective

•  A CIU’s purpose is fundamentally different from that of appellate units in a DAO. Rather than attempting to preserve convictions, CIUs critically reexamine previously secured convictions and objectively reconsider the possibility of innocence,18 allowing the wrongfully convicted to get the relief they deserve VotingForJustice