Kristine Bunch was 22 when her three-year old son died in an electrical fire. She was charged with his murder and served 17 years of her 60-year sentence in prison. The Illinois Innocence Project (IIP) brought her home in 2012.
Now, Bunch educates police officers on wrongful conviction and received the 2024 Defender of the Innocent Award Saturday evening, Oct. 19, at IIP’s annual Defenders of the Innocent event.
“I’m incredibly honored, but I know that I am just one person in a huge team and all of these people, we make each other strong,” said Bunch. “It’s an incredible program. I wish more people would step up to get involved, learn the issues and help.”
Last year, Illinois became the first state in the country to mandate wrongful conviction training for law enforcement. Young officers learn about factors that can lead to wrongful convictions and ways they can spread awareness throughout their work.
In the year and a half the program has been mandated, it has rapidly grown.
Bunch has coordinated 25 men and women from across the country to share their stories of wrongful conviction for the program.
“The first time speaking was very nerve-racking because it’s a room full of police officers, but the work is important,” said Jason Strong, a wrongfully convicted exoneree who served 15 years in prison and speaks at the trainings. “It’s also therapeutic for me, and I think it is for other exonerees to be in a room full of police officers and not be afraid.”
Program director Marcus Beach says he wants to expand the training classes to include continuing education for experienced police officers in Illinois. He’s also working with five states and Canada to extend the program beyond Illinois.
Defenders of the Innocent event
The event Saturday night brought about 250 donors, exonerees and IIP staff together in the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. Three exonerees shared their stories – James Kluppelberg, Marilyn Mulero and Brian Beals.
James Kluppelberg was physically beaten by police detectives and served nearly 25 years in prison before being proven innocent.
Marilyn Mulero, mother of two, spent 28 years in prison, 5 of them on death row. When her children, 5 and 7 years old at the time, visited, conditions were limited.
“It’s hard because you try to be strong, you try to not break down before your children,” said Mulero.
For Beals, an exoneree who served 35 of his 40 sentenced years before being proven innocent, storytelling is a part of him. He founded The Mud Theatre Project, which uses theater to educate audiences on incarceration.
At the end of the evening, all exonerees present stood together in front of the crowd and totaled their wrongfully convicted years. It added up to 535 years.
“It’s good seeing everyone here tonight, because it means there’s a lot of people behind us,” said Sabrina Butler-Smith, the first woman to be exonerated from death row. “These stories need to be told because there are a lot of innocent people incarcerated and that’s wrong.”
Creating change
Lauren Kaeseberg, legal director of the Illinois Innocence Project, says the project has now helped exonerate 24 individuals. Half of those exonerations have been in the last four years. And the staff has tripled in the last 10 years, according to IIP director Stephanie Kamel.
For Nick Colon, wrongfully incarcerated for 24 years and still fighting his case, the Illinois Innocence Project and his work helping with reentry programs have given him hope.
“I don’t care anymore about the outcome of my case because I’m doing what I love to do and am around the people I love to be around,” said Colon. “I have something that’s more valuable than anything – a sense of purpose and good people around me. I’m happy.”
Kaeseberg says change can also be made at the legislative level and is working on a bill that would increase the $230,000 in state compensation innocent exonerees receive.
“Illinois caps the amount of money an exoneree can receive, so what that means is the more time you spend in prison, the less you’re getting per year that you were in,” said Kaeseberg.
While the state has led the country in legislation reform efforts, Kaeseberg says how the state treats exonerees is nationally “at the bottom of the barrel.” Illinois is the number one state in the country for the most wrongful convictions and the most exonerations.
“We have a lot of work to do with our criminal justice system,” said Congresswoman Nikki Budzinski, who represents Illinois’ 13th Congressional District and attended the event. “There are folks that are wrongfully convicted within the system that have heartbreaking stories of how their families were ripped apart by this injustice.”
Budzinski wants to bring the Illinois police training program to the federal level.
In addition to exonerating innocent individuals and passing state laws, IIP leads educational events and trains student interns in their work. The Illinois Innocence Project is statewide and based at University of Illinois Springfield.
Kaeseberg says Saturday’s event was meaningful to everyone involved in the project.
“To all be together boosts everyone’s spirit. The work is really hard and so when you have the opportunity to celebrate the victories, it’s important to do that,” said Kaeseberg. “It fills our tank and gets us through.”
Addison Wright is a UIS grad student in the Public Affairs Reporting program. Wright graduated from UNC Asheville last spring with a double major in mass communications and political science. She covered local politics in Nashville, Tennessee, and food insecurity and higher education in North Carolina.
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