IPNO’s major successes to date include:

• Winning the freedom of 20 wrongly convicted prisoners and clearing the name of a 21st man who died in prison, 23 years into a life sentence for a crime he didn’t commit. Nine of these 21 cases had no DNA evidence; all except two of IPNO’s freed clients were sentenced to life without parole and seven were teenagers when they were wrongly arrested.

• Founding and supporting RAE, the first exoneree-run, holistic re-entry program in the United States, including raising money for the purchase of the first transitional home for returning exonerees in the country.

• Working with the Louisiana legislature to pass DNA testing and compensation laws as well as subsequent beneficial amendments to both.

• Founding and facilitating a working group of prosecutors, police, defense attorneys, judges and evidence clerks in Orleans Parish to formulate and implement best practices in evidence collection, storage and preservation and, in 2009, winning a $1.4 million grant  from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) for those agencies to inventory their evidence facilities, improve storage and retention policies and DNA test old biological evidence. The project has, to date, catalogued over 15,000 items of old evidence at the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court that were previously un-documented. Winning a $1.2 million grant from NIJ to expand the project across the state.

• Working with legislators and law enforcement groups to secure the first ever moratorium on evidence destruction in the state of Louisiana. This moratorium will at least ensure that while we arrange for the state’s evidence facilities to be catalogued, no biological evidence can be thrown away.

• Establishing an education and outreach program, directed by Gregory Bright, a Louisiana exoneree who spent 27 ½ years in Angola for a crime he didn’t commit. The program educates about wrongful convictions in Louisiana schools, churches, community centers, etc. as well as the media through interviews, op-eds and letters to the editor.