BOISE, Idaho — After hitting a funding hurdle, the Idaho Innocence Project has suspended its legal services, and will focus only on DNA research.
The group is responsible for multiple exonerations, including Chris Tapp, in the last decade.
- Executive Director, Dr. Greg Hampikian tells Idaho News 6 he is hoping connect with an innocence clinic in California. The goal would be the clinic focuses on the legal aspect, while the lab at Boise State continues to focus on the DNA aspect.
- In the meantime, Hampikian says prisoners with a claim of innocence can reach out to The Exoneration Project, or Centurion Ministries for help.
(Below is the transcript from the broadcast story)
In the Science building at Boise State University, Dr. Greg Hampikian is always looking for the DNA evidence that could change lives.
"And it ain't easy," Hampikian said. "People don't get out of prison easily."
Hampikian is the executive director of the Idaho Innocence Project. They've helped free multiple Idahoans including Chris Tapp, who was wrongfully convicted of rape and murder in the 90s and was exonerated 21 years later.
For years, lessons in the BSU science lab have given hope to the hopeless.
"You've lost, you're a loser, you've lost, lost, lost, and so my job is to go find losers, go find people who've lost all their appeals, and say maybe there's a way to go forward," Hampikian said.
But the Innocence Project hit a roadblock.
The money is running out.
"It's unnerving to have spotty funding, it's been crazy, and it's been that way the whole time I've been here," Hampikian said.
In the past, Hampikian has been able to hire lawyers or rely on their volunteers for the project's legal work, but after their last lawyer left for another job, he just doesn't have the funding to hire someone new, so the cases they're working on are on hold.
"It slows everything down, it gums up the works, it's not the way I want to work. You feel like a jerk, honestly," Hampikian said.
But, this group doesn't give up hope easily. While I was in his office, Hampikian was writing a grant to a California-based innocence clinic.
"We'll use our forensic justice project at Boise State to do the DNA Work, how about you guys do the legal work for us in Idaho," Hampikian said was his pitch to the innocence clinic.
He says if all goes well, they could be back up and running again by this Fall.
For people used to exposing a broken system, a funding shortfall is just another battle in a long fight for justice.
"The truth will find light, you just have to keep dusting around and find out where that shiny bright light is," Hampikian said.
