Midwest Innocence Project Makes Headway with Evaluation of Pro Bono Caseload - 2012-01-14

The Midwest Innocence Project will continue the series of Freedom Friday sessions, with the next meeting being set for Friday, February 17, 2012. The work session will be hosted by Stinson Morrison Hecker in Kansas City, Mo. The initiative has been bolstered by leadership within the Kansas City Metropolitan Bar Association and other bar associations. Langdon & Emison attorney Phyllis Norman has been a part of the committee that helps recruit attorneys from western Missouri to aid in the providing of pro bono legal and investigative services, particularly in the area of wrongful convictions.

At this session in February, there will be additional questionnaires for those volunteer attorneys from the legal community who wish to continue the process of evaluating cases for review, often from inmates who have been imprisoned for several years.  The regularly scheduled meetings have had a significant impact on the process of evaluating pro bono cases, as there are approximately 200 files with new information since the group's last meeting. This information that now needs to be reviewed includes transcripts, police reports, and other information that will help attorneys decide what, if any, next steps should be taken in a particular case and, as appropriate, to develop the investigation plan for a specific legal matter.    

The Midwest Innocence Project is arguably one of the nation’s top nonprofit organizations dedicated to pro bono legal services to the innocent in prison.  A wide array of attorneys from a variety of firms (plaintiff or defense-oriented) in Missouri have been meeting for regularly scheduled work sessions dedicated to recruiting pro bono attorneys and other ways that young lawyers can work across bar associations and firms to help with the cause.  Other firms taking a lead sponsor role in this project besides Stinson Morrison Hecker include Davis, Bethune & Jones, and Warden Grier.

While dedicating legal services to those wrongfully convicted, the MIP has effectively educated many in the profession about lapses in the criminal justice system.  Some of these issues have included eyewitness misidentification, false confessions, and junk science used in the courtroom by the prosecution.

Phyllis assumed the presidency of the Greater Kansas City chapter of the Association of Women Lawyers on January 1, 2012. Her legal practice focuses on product liability litigation, specifically in the areas of class action suits, auto product defects and mass tort litigation.