The Illinois Innocence Project at University of Illinois Springfield has freed 34 innocent people who were convicted and imprisoned in Illinois for crimes they did not commit. Collectively, they lost 797 years of freedom. There are innocence organizations in 10 other countries and more than 60 in the U.S., but IIP is the only one based at an undergraduate institution. Most are located in large metropolitan areas and associated with law schools. IIP is also the only one that conducts statewide wrongful conviction training for police training academies.
IIP was founded in 2001 at Sangamon State University as the Downstate Innocence Project. What began as a fledgling group has grown into a prominent statewide organization with 20 staff, student interns and a cadre of volunteers, including attorneys. Stephanie Kamel has served as IIP director since 2021. Her 30-year career as an attorney has focused on criminal appeals, human rights advocacy and representing wrongfully incarcerated individuals.
IIP receives around 200 new applications for assistance annually and pursues less than 1%, with approximately 60 active cases. There are stringent criteria, and it is an arduous process to determine which warrant investigation. The alleged crime must have occurred in Illinois and involve a violent felony conviction. Individuals must have eight or more years left on their sentence, not be represented by other counsel, have no prior violent felony conviction, have an actual innocence claim and have exhausted all appeal options.
“IIP only opens cases where a person has a strong, credible case of innocence,” said Lauren Kaeseberg, IIP legal director.
She has been with IIP since 2013 and has extensive expertise in DNA and forensic science cases. She says it is a “huge mountain to climb” to prove innocence, and most cases take five to 10 years.
The legal team’s work involves knocking on doors, looking for new witnesses, evaluating forensics and physical evidence, doing DNA testing and uncovering new evidence.
“There may be all the evidence in the world that someone is innocent, but it has to fit into a complex framework in post-conviction litigation,” said Kaeseberg. “Clear-cut evidence is not enough. It has to be newly discovered evidence.”
In some cases, evidence reveals there was no actual crime but rather an accident or natural cause of death. In other cases, the wrong person was convicted of a crime. Ultimately, a judge has to vacate the conviction and then grant a certificate of innocence.
An asset for UIS
“As the Illinois Innocence Project celebrates its 25th anniversary, we recognize not only its remarkable record of helping to exonerate the innocent, but also the extraordinary educational opportunities it provides our students,” UIS Chancellor Janet Gooch told Illinois Times. “Through internships with the project, our students become part of cases that change lives, often witnessing an innocent person walk free and seeing firsthand the impact of their work.”
UIS has offered a wrongful conviction class since 2001. The Conviction of the Innocent course taught by IIP faculty is open to juniors, seniors and graduate students in any major.
UIS students have the opportunity to participate in an immersive internship program. Student interns conduct legal research, review police reports, send FOIA requests, analyze hundreds of pages of documents and search for evidence that might be DNA tested. Students attend court hearings, prison visits with IIP clients, police training classes and small-group presentations by exonerated individuals. They learn firsthand the type of perseverance and drive it takes to free and exonerate innocent people.
“Our UIS internship opportunity puts undergraduates at the heart of innocence work, immersing them in meaningful, hands-on experiences,” Kamel said.
IIP also has a year-round legal externship program which engages law students at other universities in the real work of innocence cases under the direction of IIP attorneys.
“Being an intern with IIP helped me find my life’s purpose,” said Elizabeth Boateng, who is now IIP program director for interns and education. Boateng studied law in Ghana, the United Kingdom and the U.S. She came to UIS for a master’s in public administration and earned a second master’s in legal studies. The Conviction of the Innocence class led to her becoming an IIP intern.
“My time as an intern showed me that my passion lies not only in the law itself, but in using the law to touch lives, seek justice and inspire others,” Boateng said.
She now oversees the internship program and works to create meaningful educational and professional experiences for students.
Preventing wrongful convictions
For five of the last six years, Illinois has led the nation in wrongful convictions as measured by exonerations. Chicago and Illinois are known as the wrongful conviction and false confession capitals of the world. For many years a number of bad actor police officers, such as the now-infamous Jon Burge, were empowered by the system to elicit false confessions and manufacture evidence to convict innocent people. The pattern and practice of police misconduct remain a common cause of wrongful convictions.
IIP began providing wrongful conviction awareness and avoidance training in 2023 for Illinois’ eight police training academies, the only program of its kind. This came about after Mike Schlosser, director of the Police Training Institute at University of Illinois, took a UIS wrongful conviction class in 2016 while working toward a master’s degree in legal studies. That class inspired Schlosser to invite IIP to present programs at the Police Training Institute in Champaign so that all his officers could hear the messages. In 2022, members of the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board also attended one of the classes. This led to the board mandating a training program for new police recruits and cadets at all the police academies statewide.
Marcus Beach, who was a police officer in Rantoul for 23 years and has served as an adjunct instructor at the Police Training Institute for 19 years, leads the course. In 2022, his mentor, Mike Schlosser, invited him to a class taught by IIP attorneys Kamel and John Hanlon.
Beach said he was blown away and troubled by the statistics, along with exoneree Kristine Bunch’s personal story. She was incarcerated for 17 years, accused of setting a fire that claimed the life of her 3-year-old son.
“It opened my heart to the issue,” said Beach. Instead of retiring, he joined IIP in March 2023 to lead the newly mandated police training program.
The four-hour course is presented by Beach, representatives from law enforcement, an IIP attorney and two exonerees who tell their stories. More than 20 exonerees from across the country are part of the speakers bureau.
Training addresses the five major factors that lead to wrongful convictions – the use of incentivized testimony, official misconduct, false confession, eyewitness misidentification and faulty forensics.
It also looks at the statisics. For example, 202 people have been exonerated from death row in the U.S. since 1973. The National Academy of Sciences estimates that 4% of the nation’s death row population could actually be innocent.
The training program is a learning opportunity for police officers and also a healing process for exonerees. Their involvement gives purpose to their lives, knowing they are helping to prevent wrongful convictions in the future. IIP teaches 30-35 classes annually and to date has trained 8,892 recruits. IIP is part of the Center for State Policy and Leadership, and its research unit is formally evaluating the program.
Hearing directly from people who were wrongfully convicted is highly impactful. The majority of trainees report feeling a combination of surprise and shock upon hearing examples of the consequences of wrongful convictions.
Training also dispels the notion that wrongful convictions “don’t apply to me.” Throughout his career, Beach said he didn’t give a lot of thought to wrongful convictions and couldn’t envision ever being part of one. However, four of the five leading factors come about when officers are doing what they are trained to do.
One participant in the program said, “It shed light on how, as initial officers on the scene, asking the right questions can change how someone is seen as the suspect or maybe a victim.” Another said, “lineups are not as effective as I had previously thought.”
IIP’s impact extends beyond Illinois. Staff have been invited to other states and cities to share information about this unique program, and they also present at national conferences.
Involvement in criminal justice reform
In 2021, IIP successfully advocated for legislation to ban the use of deceptive tactics during interrogation of juveniles, protecting young people from confessing to crimes they did not commit. This was the nation’s first law preventing law enforcement from lying to youth during interrogations.
Most recently IIP celebrated the enactment of state legislation to increase compensation by the state for people wrongfully convicted. After years of advocacy, the legislation passed the Illinois General Assembly unanimously and was signed by Gov. JB Pritzker in July.
The new law enables the Illinois Court of Claims to award exonerees up to $50,000 for each year wrongfully incarcerated and up to $25,000 per calendar year that a person was wrongfully on parole or probation or wrongfully required to be registered as a sex offender. Previously there was a cap on the amount any individual could receive, and Illinois was among the states paying exonerees the least. Forty states provide some form of compensation to exonerees, and Illinois now ranks in the middle.
Following enactment of the new law, Brian Beals filed a wrongful conviction compensation claim. Beals served 35 years after being wrongfully convicted of murdering a 6-year-old. The Aug. 6 order by Judge Peter J. Birnbaum, Chief Justice of the Court of Claims, and signed by three other judges, is powerful.
“In all of our years of hearing innocence cases, the injustice visited upon Mr. Beals is among the most tragic…The story of Brian’s conviction is as infuriating as it is tragic…Brian devoted himself for 35 years to bringing light to the darkest of places in the Illinois prison system…On behalf of the State of Illinois, we publicly apologize to Brian and his family for his needless suffering. We can only hope that Brian’s case will be the impetus for further reforms in both our policing and sometimes-imperfect court system.”
Many wrongfully convicted people spend decades in prison, deprived from what most people take for granted – the ability to work, have a family, celebrate birthdays and holidays, attend funerals for family members and loved ones and build a future. Family members and friends also suffer the consequences. The increase in compensation through the Illinois Court of Claims “acknowledges the state’s moral obligation to atone for these profound miscarriages of justice,” Kamel said at a ceremony celebrating enactment of the legislation.
Although some exonerees have received multimillion-dollar awards through lawsuits, this is a small percentage of individuals wrongfully convicted, as civil rights lawsuits must prove misconduct. In many situations, there is no one to sue for misconduct, such as when a witness gets it wrong or a jury believes a witness who was wrong.
After Innocence
Exonerees walk out of prison on their own with no transportation or support from the system. Some are fortunate to have family, while others don’t. For Kaeseberg, it’s both a moral obligation and an honor to be there to help.
“It’s the most incredible feeling to walk someone out of prison,” she said.
Exonerees face a daunting challenge to reenter society and rebuild their lives, as they don’t receive services available to people who are released after serving their sentences. The world has often changed dramatically while they were in prison. IIP staff do what they can to help them transition.
“Exonerees see IIP as their family,” said Kamel. IIP also connects exonerees with others who can help.
IIP has partnered with After Innocence for more than a decade, a California-based organization founded by Jon Eldan in 2004 that provides direct service support to exonerees after they are released. After Innocence helps exonerees throughout the country access healthcare and dental services, legal services and assistance with financial planning. Highly trained staff develop long-term relationships with exonerees.
After Innocence also works on policy reform and assists with state legislation. Eldan was intimately involved with the Illinois exoneree compensation legislation, having worked with many other states on similar measures.
“IIP is noteworthy and unique in its openness to collaboration,” said Eldan. “Its expertise in police training is also unique.”
Kaeseberg, the IIP legal director, says there is an epidemic of wrongful convictions.
“I long for the day when the entire system is open and honest about how pervasive wrongful convictions are,” Kaeseberg told Illinois Times. “It is frustrating to operate in a system that is reluctant to acknowledge the true scope of the problem.”
Kaeseberg is currently working with a client who has been in prison since 1979 and says he “just wants to see the horizon.”
Kaeseberg said she’ll be there with him when it finally happens. “We won’t stop until it’s done.”
Karen Ackerman Witter has met numerous exonerees attending events with her husband, Randy Witter, who is a volunteer lobbyist for IIP. She is amazed and impressed by their humbleness, especially after hearing their tragic stories.
This article appears in August 27-September 2, 2026.
