The following column was published on the Illinois Times website on March 11, 2026.

By Stephanie Kamel, director of the Illinois Innocence Project

The Illinois Innocence Project has come a long way since it began as the Downstate Illinois Innocence Project in 2001 at the University of Illinois Springfield. What started with a couple of professors, an investigator, a few UIS undergraduates and a handful of supporters intent on exonerating one innocent man has grown into an organization that has brought freedom to 33 innocent individuals in Illinois.

Over time, our work expanded statewide. Supporters became donors. Attorneys worked pro bono. Grants enabled us to hire one, then two, then more staff. We began educating the public, working with lawmakers on policy and exploring our goal of training police about wrongful convictions. All the while, we took on more cases and worked tirelessly to free our innocent clients from prisons.

It’s impossible to summarize 25 years of history as rich as ours, but we can try. This year we will look back on how we got here: with 20 dedicated staff, countless student interns, law externs, community volunteers, hundreds of donors and thousands of supporters. We’ve educated more than 6,500 police officers about wrongful convictions and helped advance groundbreaking laws through bipartisan legislative relationships.

Our UIS internship opportunity puts undergraduates at the heart of innocence work, immersing them in meaningful, hands-on experiences.

Students open the hundreds of letters we receive each year from people serving decades-long sentences for crimes for which they maintain their innocence. This is where reality sets in. Students see the handwriting of a real person with a name, a photograph and a family.

Interns conduct legal research, review police reports, send FOIA requests and analyze hundreds of pages of documents. They search for long-lost biological evidence that may be tested for DNA.

As they review case files, students learn to recognize the common causes of wrongful convictions. For example, the witness who says they saw someone clearly when they were down the street and around the corner. The teenager who was interrogated by a detective who, we now know, targeted people he knew were innocent and beat them into confessing to something they knew nothing about. They see now-outdated forensic claims that science has since proven to be false, as in the case of a young mother who was convicted and imprisoned for nearly 20 years after her toddler died in an accidental house fire.

Their work culminates in the presentation of their case evaluations to our legal team. By that point, they have learned this work is not a television drama. It is painstaking and methodical work to assess the viability of an innocence plea. We all carry the burden of knowing these lives are in our hands.

Field work is also critical to our experiential education program. Students attend court hearings and see the care we have for our innocent clients when we visit them in prison. They see how we are helping change policing culture by attending a wrongful conviction awareness and avoidance class, our nationally recognized model program that the state has mandated as required curriculum at all Illinois police training academies.

Students tell us the most meaningful work they do comes from the personal connections they make with freed and exonerated clients and hearing their stories. This is where those handwritten letters come alive.

Over the past 25 years, we have learned justice does not happen on its own. It requires vigilance, courage and the support of a community to ensure its integrity. Our Springfield community has helped keep our doors open and the work going since our founding, and we look forward to celebrating that support at our 25th anniversary celebration the evening of Saturday, Nov. 7, at the Springfield Crowne Plaza.

Much remains to be done. Hundreds of innocent people write to us every year. So while we reflect, we are also looking ahead. We are focused on expanding our advocacy, education and reform efforts, strengthening partnerships and building a sustainable future for the organization and our clients.

We must ensure the Illinois Innocence Project will always be here to fight for the innocent in Illinois. With the Springfield community at our side, we know it will be.

Stephanie Kamel has served as the director of the Illinois Innocence Project at the University of Illinois Springfield since 2021. An attorney for more than 30 years, she has focused much of her career on criminal appeals, human rights advocacy and representing wrongfully incarcerated individuals.