2011 KCMBA President's Message James A. Heeter

KCMBA and MIP Partnership is a Big Success

At KCMBA’s Annual Meeting in December, I spoke about the partnership I hoped to forge this year with the Midwestern Innocence Project (MIP). As most of you know, the mission of the MIP is to advocate for and obtain the exoneration and release of wrongfully convicted people, primarily in Missouri and Kansas. Wrongful conviction is a cause all lawyers should know about, and should care about eliminating.

We began work on a partnership with the Innocence Project almost immediately after our December Annual Meeting, and formed a steering committee co-chaired by Scott Bethune and Jennifer Shafer. They quickly began to collaborate with MIP’s board and staff to determine ways for the KCMBA to put its shoulder to the wheel and get our people actively involved with the Innocence Project to help it accomplish its important mission. Now we’re more than halfway through the year, and I’m pleased to report that our efforts together have been extremely rewarding and much has been accomplished.

For example, KCMBA was the proud co-sponsor of the highly successful “Faces of Innocence” dinner on April 21, which featured Betty Ann Waters, the real-life person portrayed by Hillary Swank in the 2010 Fox Searchlight movie “Conviction.” As a partner in this effort, KCMBA helped promote the event, encouraged the presence of its members and helped the Innocence Project achieve a great evening and a well-attended and financially successful event. Among other things, the funds raised by the event will be used by the Innocence Project to hire a new Executive Director.

In addition, more than 100 KCMBA members have received free CLE training in the causes of wrongful conviction and been trained to identify cases of potential innocence based on questionnaires submitted by prison inmates claiming innocence. As a result, in two “Freedom Friday” screening sessions held at the Stinson Morrison Hecker firm, more than 120 cases, previously backlogged, have recieved initial screening from KCMBA volunteers.

This has been a good year for the Innocence Project in other ways, too. The Western District Missouri Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court decision granting a writ of habeas corpus vacating the conviction of Dale Helmig, who was released from prison in December, thanks to the efforts of the Midwestern Innocence Project, after serving almost 15 years of incarceration for a murder he did not commit. Two Department of Justice grants have enabled the recent hiring of additional staff, including staff attorney Robyn Goldberg, paralegal assistant Marie Dorego, and investigator Nadia Pflumm. Laura O’Sullivan, an outstanding trial attorney with 18 years’ experience in the Missouri Public Defenders Office, begins her responsibilities this month as Legal Director for the Innocence Project and Clinical Professor for the clinical program at UMKC Law School, through which law students investigate, research and help to prosecute innocence cases. At least three new cases are expected to begin litigation in the near future.

In my remarks in December, I made the point that this KCMBA year would be one in which we took every opportunity to show our pride in our profession – our pride in being lawyers and contributing to our communities and our society. I can think of few things which should make us more proud than knowing we are actively working to exonerate and free innocent persons who have been wrongly convicted of crimes. Many people are responsible for the early success of our KCMBA partnership with the Midwestern Innocence Project-- perhaps too many to mention, but I’ll take a shot at it, anyway. In addition to Scott Bethune and Jennifer Shafer, Phyllis Norman and Jasmine Campbell have been champions of the cause. The firms of Langdon & Emison, Warden Grier, LLP and Stinson Morrison Hecker have generously hosted the lunches for the “Freedom Friday” sessions. In addition, the Stinson firm has hosted each of the “Freedom Friday” sessions. Committee members Judy Heeter, Emma Dill, Nicole Fisher, Jace Fletcher, Adam Guled, Jennifer McAdam, Holly Perkins, and Mark Haddad all have been working for several months to make the partnership a success.

Only eight months after we first announced our ambitious partnership with the Midwestern Innocence Project, we have accomplished a great deal. That is the good news. The even better news is that with so much remaining to be accomplished, both organizations are poised to do exactly that. We are just getting started, and the relationship between KCMBA and the Midwestern Innocence Project hopefully will be a long and successful one.

There are many opportunities for KCMBA members to be actively involved with the Innocence Project – and to contribute worthwhile pro-bono time which takes advantage of their legal skills and abilities, as well as their party-planning and social skills. Plans are underway for more “Freedom Friday” sessions featuring exoneree presentations and casework, as well as a series of “Sweet Justice” fundraising events and partnership on another major event next spring. And there is an array of opportunities for law firms to be directly involved with MIP. I hope that each of you reading this column will take a minute or two to ask yourself if volunteering for the cause of innocence is something you would like to do. I hope the answer will be “yes,” and that you will actively support the MIP-KCMBA partnership. When our criminal justice system “gets it wrong,” we all have a stake in making it right. Support for the Innocence Project is a great way to do something important for people who need and deserve our help– and a great way to show our pride in being lawyers.