In 2011, our largest single area of focus was criminal justice and we devoted over 15,000 pro bono hours to matters in the criminal defense and wrongful conviction area alone.

• We serve as Counsel to the New York State Justice Task Force, one of the first permanent task forces on wrongful convictions in the United States, created by Chief Judge Lippman in 2009. The Task Force includes representatives from all participants in the criminal justice system – judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, police chiefs, legislators, executive branch officials, forensic experts, victims’ advocates and legal scholars – from across the State. Its purpose is to examine the causes of wrongful convictions and make recommendations for changes to the criminal justice system in New York to safeguard against any such convictions in the future.
  
  By the end of 2011, the Task Force had issued four reports that made recommendations to: (1) improve eyewitness identifications, (2) videotape custodial interrogations to identify and prevent false confessions, (3) expand the law regarding access to DNA testing and databank comparisons, and (4) expand the New York State DNA Databank.
  
  In March of 2012, the New York State Assembly and Senate passed a bill to establish an “all-crimes DNA database” in New York. This bill, which requires DNA samples be collected from anyone convicted of a felony or penal law misdemeanor in New York State and input in a new database , is a direct result of the work of the Justice Task Force, to which Davis Polk serves as counsel. The bill makes New York State the first “all crimes DNA” state in the nation and expands defendants' access to DNA testing and databank comparisons both before and after conviction in appropriate circumstances, as well as to discovery after conviction to demonstrate their innocence.
  
  
  
• We also work with The Legal Aid Society and the Office of the Appellate Defender to maintain an ongoing docket of criminal defense appeals. One appeal from The Legal Aid Society led to a three-year-long pro bono effort in which a team of Davis Polk lawyers won an acquittal on all charges in the jury trial of Lonnie Jones, a client who had been wrongfully convicted of murder in the second degree and sentenced to 37 years to life. After extensive investigation, the Davis Polk team produced evidence that the prosecution’s sole eyewitness at the trial could not have witnessed the crime.
  
  At the new trial, three eyewitnesses testified that this witness was in a different location at the time of the crime. The jury in the new trial deliberated for just two hours before finding Mr. Jones not guilty of the crimes charged. The verdict led to Mr. Jones’ immediate release after having spent five and a half years in prison. Following his acquittal, Davis Polk represented Mr. Jones in a civil case against the State of New York for his wrongful conviction.
  
  After a two-day trial in 2009, the New York Court of Claims awarded Mr. Jones $1,798,691 – the third-highest amount ever awarded under New York's compensation statute – for lost wages, pain and suffering, loss of liberty and emotional distress as a result of the time he spent in prison.
  
  
  
• In addition to criminal appeals, we work with The Legal Aid Society on resentencing petitions for inmates sentenced pursuant to the Rockefeller Drug Laws, under the Drug Law Reform Act.
  
  
  
• We also sponsor a full-time six-month externship with The Legal Aid Society through which associates represent indigent individuals in need of criminal representation.
  
  
  
• We have worked closely with The Innocence Project and other organizations designed to prevent wrongful convictions. Among other things, we recently secured parole for a man who served 20 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, and filed an amicus brief in support of a successful motion to vacate the murder conviction of a man who was subsequently exonerated and released after 18 years of incarceration.
  
  
  
• We partner with the Bronx Defenders to work on trial and motion practice.
  
  
  
• In addition to our criminal pro bono work in state court, a Davis Polk partner and counsel serve on the SDNY Criminal Justice Act Panel and represent indigent defendants in criminal cases in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.