Santa Clara University

Law Briefs

Law students help exonerate prisoner

John Stoll spent nearly 20 years in prison, but he gained his freedom on his 61st birthday thanks to attorneys and SCU students with the Northern California Innocence Project at Santa Clara University School of Law and the California Innocence Project at California Western School of Law.

On April 30, Kern County Superior Court Judge John Kelley overturned Stoll’s 1985 conviction. Kelly ruled that the techniques investigators used to question children two decades ago “resulted in unreliable  testimony.”

Stoll was convicted of 17 counts of child molestation in 1985. He had long maintained his innocence on grounds that there was no evidence for the charges against him. But he was unable to find attorneys willing to look into his case.

The Northern California Innocence Project and the California Innocence Project are part of the National Innocence Network of similar projects nationwide. Innocence Project students work alongside practicing criminal defense lawyers to seek the release of wrongfully convicted inmates.

“This ruling is a victory for the Northern California Innocence Project and the students at Santa Clara law school who worked hard on the Stoll case,” said Linda Starr, legal director of the Northern California Innocence Project.

For more information, see www.scu.edu/law/socialjustice/ncip_home.html.