{"id":3330,"date":"2017-02-07T16:14:57","date_gmt":"2017-02-07T21:14:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/reporter\/?page_id=3330"},"modified":"2017-02-07T16:14:57","modified_gmt":"2017-02-07T21:14:57","slug":"justice-served","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/reporter-winter2017\/features\/justice-served\/","title":{"rendered":"Justice Served"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"bluestine2\"<\/a>
Marissa Boyers Bluestine \u201989, founding legal director of the Pennsylvania Innocence Project. Photos: Ed Cunicelli<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Marissa Boyers Bluestine \u201989 works to exonerate wrongfully convicted<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Maura King Scully<\/em><\/p>\n

Marissa Boyers Bluestine \u201989 was a philosophy major who never took a class with legendary Professor of History Jack Chatfield. But that didn\u2019t matter. He still managed to change the course of her life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always wanted to be a doctor,\u201d recalls Bluestine, who thought philosophy would be an interesting background for a career in medicine. The West Hartford native was equally focused on attending Trinity College. \u201cI was a local girl. Trinity looked like it was out of central casting, and it had a terrific reputation.\u201d<\/p>\n

While she found her way to Trinity, medical school just wasn\u2019t in the cards.<\/p>\n

\u201cI blame him,\u201d Bluestine says with a laugh, recalling Chatfield\u2019s influence in changing the direction of her life. \u201cJack was a marvelous mentor, always giving and thoughtful. Though I never took a class with him, he helped advise my thesis.\u201d<\/p>\n

That thesis \u2014 on nonviolence as a means of social change \u2014 was the result of becoming involved with planning a 1988 symposium on the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee\u00a0(SNCC) that Chatfield organized at Trinity. A member of the SNCC himself, Chatfield was able to bring many 1960s civil rights activists to campus.<\/p>\n

It was a pivotal moment for Bluestine, who began to think about ways she could \u201cmake a difference.\u201d After graduating from Trinity, she moved to Philadelphia, where she spent two years working at a shelter and soup kitchen. She also joined the board of the National Coalition for the Homeless.<\/p>\n

In 1992, she decided that a law degree would allow her to tackle housing and poverty issues on a larger scale, so she enrolled in Temple University\u2019s law school. During a first-year criminal law class, she was volunteered to provide a closing argument in a mock criminal case. At the time, she thought to herself, \u201cI could never defend these folks.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"bluestine1\"<\/a>But an open mind, even in the face of her own strong opinions, once again shifted her direction. \u201cDuring my third year of law school, I participated in a clinical program with the Defender Association of Philadelphia, handling DUIs, drug possession, and other types of crimes, and I fell in love with trial work.\u201d<\/p>\n

After she graduated, she became an assistant defender with the association. She then briefly tried a stint as a litigation associate at Duane Morris, but, she says, \u201cWhen your pro bono hours start outpacing your billables, it\u2019s probably not a good fit.\u201d Though she \u201cloved the firm,\u201d she returned to criminal defense.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, \u2018Give me all of the cases that everyone else has thrown up on,\u2019 \u201d she recalls of her time as a public defender. Though many of her clients were guilty of egregious crimes, she became increasingly frustrated by a criminal justice system that was \u201cnot keeping up with needs of defendants. Pennsylvania was the only state where we were not allowed to put up an expert to explain the vagaries of eyewitness IDs,\u201d she explains. \u201cEvery other state allowed experts to explain what can go wrong with memory. We couldn\u2019t argue that witnesses might be honest but not accurate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bluestine became increasingly interested in wrongful convictions \u2014 though DNA exonerations were garnering significant press attention, she says that many other types of evidence, including expert testimony and eyewitness identifications, were not receiving the attention they deserved.<\/p>\n

In 2009, Bluestine became the founding legal director of the Pennsylvania Innocence Project \u2014 a small, independent nonprofit not affiliated with the Innocence Project based in New York \u2014 which works to exonerate those convicted of crimes they did not commit and to prevent innocent people from being convicted. The project is supported by Temple University Beasley School of Law. Bluestine is quick to point out that the backing of fellow Trinity alumna JoAnne Epps \u201973, who served as dean of the law school at that time and is now provost and executive vice president of Temple University, was crucial. \u201cJoAnne\u2019s support allowed us to literally launch the project,\u201d says Bluestine.<\/p>\n

Epps, who notes that law students from across the state \u2014 not just Temple \u2014 participate in the project\u2019s work as part of a hands-on, clinical experience, says, \u201cMarissa is easygoing and not strident, which I think is really wonderful given the critical nature of the work she does.<\/p>\n

\u201cMarissa has really come into her own as an advocate for people,\u201d continues Epps. \u201cShe has not allowed her work to ever make her shrill. She\u2019s an excellent lawyer and an excellent advocate for the cause. You don\u2019t always get both of those in one person.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"bluestine3\"<\/a>Epps\u2019s nod to Bluestine\u2019s adept lobbying for policy changes is well deserved. Among other honors, in 2013, Bluestine received the Philadelphia Bar Association\u2019s Andrew Hamilton Award for Distinguished Service in Public Interest Law. Bluestine credits the Philadelphia Police Department as a partner in changing procedures to avoid incarcerating innocent people. \u201cWe have helped reform eyewitness ID procedures, and the police now record interrogations. We\u2019re working on revising the wiretap law to allow for police body cams and recording interrogations statewide,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen we started, there was a lot of animosity, but now I\u2019m contacted regularly by DAs and police to make policies and procedures better. There\u2019s so much law enforcement is doing to be more professional and progressive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the past seven years, the project has received more than 3,500 inquiries from prisoners and has 27 cases currently in litigation. In total, six people have been exonerated, and two have had new trials granted as a result of the project\u2019s efforts.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost people don\u2019t realize how long it takes innocent people to get out of prison,\u201d explains Bluestine. \u201cThere is a lot of opposition, resistance, barriers. I\u2019ve never represented anyone that I didn\u2019t feel 100 percent confident that I would welcome into my home, but I think [society] tends to define people by the crimes they were convicted of, whether they did it or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the end, it\u2019s the moments of justice served that make the work so worthwhile for Bluestine. She recalls the case of Eugene Gilyard, convicted of a murder he did not commit and sentenced to life without parole at 19. \u201cWe met him 12 years into his sentence,\u201d she recalls, \u201cwhen he had almost given up hope of ever seeing freedom again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bluestine and her team investigated his case, identified the person who actually committed the murder, and were able to file a petition to reverse Gilyard\u2019s and his co-defendant\u2019s convictions. \u201cAt the end, when the judge announced her decision from the bench, I was sitting behind Gene\u2019s mom,\u201d recalls Bluestine. \u201cThe judge ruled that Gene\u2019s conviction could not stand and ordered it be vacated. While I absorbed that, Gene\u2019s mother turned to her friend and said, \u2018I have my son back.\u2019 As the mother of a son myself, I could not imagine being separated from him for 15 days, much less 15 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cLater, when Gene came home, I was there,\u201d continues Bluestine. \u201cTo see him reunited with his family and breathe freedom for the first time\u00a0in 15 years\u00a0was the most extraordinary experience.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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