Jomati Foundation provides funding for Innocence Project
The Innocence Project at Southampton has received generous support through funding form the Jomati Foundation. The Jomati Foundation is a UK registered charity, whose primary focus is to provide assistance in the area of legal education and access to law.
The University of Southampton Innocence Project is a student-led extra-curricular educational project, affiliated to the Innocence Network (UK) and based in the Law School, which centres upon the study of wrongful criminal convictions. Students are involved in objective and independent investigation of real criminal cases of prisoners who maintain their factual innocence but have exhausted their legal appeals.
Under supervision from an academic staff director, and with pro bono legal assistance from a practicing lawyer where appropriate, student IP members work in small groups to investigate individual cases of alleged wrongful conviction either to achieve a referral back to the Court of Appeal via the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) or, if evidence of factual innocence does not constitute legally admissible grounds of appeal, for application to the Secretary of State for consideration for a Free Pardon under the Royal Prerogative of Mercy.
Currently, twenty-five student case workers, law and non-law, are working on three cases with clients who are each serving a life sentence. Through working on cases of prisoners maintaining innocence, students gain valuable insight into the wrongful conviction of the innocent and the workings of the criminal justice system.