The virtual National Registry of Exonerations is an archive of over 3,500 wrongful conviction cases in the U.S. since 1989. Founded in 2012 by faculty from UC Irvine, the University of Michigan Law School and Michigan State University College of Law, it records every official exoneration in the form of rigorously researched articles.
Each spring, the registry’s director and UCI professor of criminology, law and society Simon Cole selects 40 UCI students to participate in a field-study that entails working with the organization.
In 80 hours worth of work, students learn the process of gathering information from legal documents, creating a timeline and writing an article suitable for publication on the registry’s website. Usually written by journalists Ken Otterbourg and Maurice Possley, each article chronicles a case from the time the defendant was wrongfully accused, their exoneration and everything in between. The registry aims to provide information that will help educate others on past mistakes in the enforcement of justice and lessen the likelihood that they will happen again.
For the first five weeks, students work on an assigned case as a class. During the second half of the quarter, they work in groups of four or five, with each group collaborating to write one story. Each student typically focuses on one stage of the story, whether that’s the incident, trial, appeal, investigation or exoneration.
According to Cole, students often have to go through many rounds of drafting, each edited by him, to produce an article that meets the standard set by the journalists, who have 30 to 40 years of experience.
“I’m trying to teach them how to sort of construct the story clearly, what things belong in the story and what things do not belong in the story,” Cole told New University. “[But] once we get into it, it can be a lot of fun to see the students developing and learning stuff and getting better.”
Aside from gaining research and writing skills, Cole hopes that students will develop a more comprehensive understanding of the criminal justice system by being immersed in their assigned cases.
“I hope that the cases just kind of enlighten them as to how our legal system works by looking closely at a case of injustice and what happened,” Cole said.
Maytheli Sharma, fourth-year criminology, law and society and psychological sciences student who hopes to work for the FBI someday, said that being part of the 2024 field study gave her insight into criminal law enforcement and the ways it can harm innocent individuals. She noted Joseph Zamora’s case, which was assigned to the class during the first five weeks.
In 2017, Zamora was reported to police for allegedly displaying suspicious activity while walking to his home. Police officer Kevin Hake arrived at the scene and asked Zamora about his whereabouts, which Zamora was allegedly unresponsive to.
After Zamora put his hand deeper into his pocket Hake allegedly began hitting and pepper-spraying Zamora, later claiming he believed Zamora to be reaching for a gun. Officer Timothy Welsh arrived on the scene and allegedly began assisting Hake in hitting Zamora until he fell into a coma. Evidence later revealed that Zamora was intoxicated at the time of the incident.
Zamora, a Hispanic U.S. citizen born in Washington State, was charged with two counts of third-degree assault. During the jury selection process prior to the trial, the judge asked jurors about their views on the U.S.-Mexican border and illegal immigration. Zamora was exonerated in October 2023.
To Sharma, the significant amount of information available about the case provided a good foundation for her experience documenting a second case in the latter half of the field study.
“It definitely helped us understand what we need to be looking for [and] where we can find these resources,” Sharma told New University. “Not only were we learning about a case, but we’re also learning about where we find briefs, how we contact a lawyer.”
To Sharma, work with the registry felt very fast-paced. By the end of the first week, students were introduced to the case and asked to find a specific number of documents. Throughout the second week, they compiled basic information, including but not limited to the race, age and sex of the exoneree; the date of the crime; previous convictions; and the factors that contributed to the conviction, such as a false accusation or a misleading piece of forensic evidence.
According to Cole, the most difficult part of recording a case is accessing documents. Sometimes, the case is too old for electronic court documents to be available, so writers have to ask the court to provide photocopies of the briefs they are looking for. Other times, documents are not available to the public, in which case researchers would have to contact lawyers, who sometimes are not willing to reveal anything.
“One reason is they’re not getting paid for the time they spend helping us,” Cole said. “Sometimes they don’t think it’s in the client’s interest to cooperate with us, sometimes they’re dead and so you can’t get anything from them.”
The field study, taught by Cole, is one of two courses offered this school year under SOCECOL 106W, which satisfies both the university’s upper division writing and the School of Social Ecology’s field study requirements. Available on Nov. 29, the application form asks students about their interest in the course and their previous experience.
According to Cole, students who take his Miscarriages of Justice course have priority consideration for the field study.
Mariam Farag is a Features Intern for the fall 2024 quarter. She can be reached at msfarag@uci.edu.
Edited by Kaelyn Kwon and Ben De Guzman.
