Changing one life at a time

By Elena Meadows
College of Arts and Sciences Staff Writer

Dr. Kuersten and Student

Dr. Ashlyn Kuersten (right) and a student review cases.

Students in Western Michigan University’s Wrongful Conviction Program are changing the world, one life at a time.

“I cannot imagine getting convicted of a crime I didn’t commit,” said Dr. Ashlyn Kuersten, Director of the Wrongful Conviction Program and professor for the course. So she and her students work diligently to prove the innocence of those who were wrongfully imprisoned—and so far the WMU-Cooley Law School Innocence Project has exonerated three.

While most Innocence Projects—whose purpose is to exonerate the wrongly convicted through DNA testing and reform the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice—use law students to do research, WMU’s program allows undergraduate students the opportunity to research potential cases of innocence. Kuersten’s students learn from her about the most common causes of wrongful conviction, then work on evaluating the requests from inmates who contact her claiming innocence.

She has a backlog of 5,000—from Michigan alone.

Kuersten has 25 students in her class this fall and five graduate students who organize the research on these requests. For spring, 400 students have expressed interest in the class.

“Undergraduates love this work,” she said. Students from any major can apply to participate in the class; many of the students in this fall's class are criminal justice majors. Once the student researchers find a case with merit, they pass the case along to be litigated by the legal team that is part of the WMU-Cooley Law School Innocence Project.

A huge boon to the program is a large grant Kuersten received to facilitate DNA testing on worthy cases.

Ashley Chlebek, a criminal justice and sociology major who will graduate in December, said the class had changed her perspective. “Not everyone knows what goes on in the criminal justice system,” she said. “It’s supposed to be fair and just, but there are a lot of problems.”

Keiondra Grace, a Ph.D. student in sociology who has spent time studying the impact of incarceration on an inmate’s family members, said being involved with the program has given her a better grasp on how the process works.

Ryan Castillo, in his second year of his master's degree in sociology, is focusing on data and quantitative methods—collecting in-depth information to make it available to programs around the country working with wrongful convictions. “You read the correspondence and get the feeling (that these inmates) really are innocent, the sense of helplessness—it changes your perspective.”

Olivia McLaughlin, earning her Ph.D. in sociology with an emphasis in criminology and gender, said “that file room is a gold mine. We figure out what’s not working and what can be done to fix it.”

Kuersten recalled one case in which a man was trying to contact them but couldn’t fill out the questionnaire that her office uses to begin researching a case. He was illiterate. She is optimistic that the upcoming generation will “figure out a better way to manage our criminal justice system and social services in our state.”

McLaughlin noted that data collection would allow the students to determine from which counties most requests for help were coming, and why the inmates were writing—did they feel they had ineffective counsel? Illegal search and seizure? They were misidentified by a witness? They were treated poorly by detectives?

Wrongful convictions happen to all races and both sexes in the United States,  most frequently to black males.

Seeing the statistics on wrongful conviction helps students realize “this could happen to my friend, neighbor or dad,” McLaughlin said. “I think this keeps them motivated and engaged.” She said students in this program have a chance to connect learning with action.

See Wrongful Conviction Program for more information.