New Practice Guide for Post-Conviction Relief

Whether you are new to the post-conviction process or are knowledgeable in this area of law, you will find a new practice guide very useful.

Last year a working group of attorneys created “Miscarriages of Justice: Litigating Beyond Factual Innocence.” The authors noted two problems often encountered in the wrongful conviction movement: (1) the legal tools we use tend to defend the current flawed system; and (2) the number of claims we have available on post-conviction are so limited that many miscarriages of justice are unable to be addressed.

Traditional post-conviction claims in Indiana usually fall in one of the following five categories: claims of ineffective assistance of counsel, newly discovered evidence, Giglio and Napue claims regarding the State’s use of false testimony; Brady violations; and, in very limited circumstances, inappropriate sentence claims.

Our scope is often too narrow and our avenues of relief are too limited because we confine ourselves only to those claims we have always used. The authors’ purpose in creating the guide was to expand our vision to include all miscarriages of justice.

What additional claims are missing? The guide outlines them in a reader-friendly format:

• group claims of official misconduct, such as hiding exculpatory evidence, witness tampering, faulty forensics, etc.; and

• racial bias claims.

The authors note one other way in which our scope is too narrow: we often confine our cases to only innocent clients. But any constitutional violation is a miscarriage of justice, regardless of the guilt or innocence of our clients.

The practice guide is well-written, neatly organized, and contains a helpful infographic on the criminal justice process:

Years ago, I created something similar for my clients here in Indiana: