No deprivation of liberty is more total than what can be imposed by the criminal justice system. Tragically, America’s system is deeply flawed, producing in staggering numbers the ultimate miscarriage of justice: wrongful convictions of the innocent.

Since 1992, the Innocence Project has fought to exonerate the wrongfully convicted and implement reforms designed to reduce the number of wrongful convictions and impose accountability on a system that regularly produces them. Since then, the Innocence Project has freed 232 people who were falsely convicted and collectively spent 3,555 years behind bars for crimes that they did not commit.

The Innocence Project’s founders, Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, realized early on that if DNA technology could prove people guilty of crimes, it could also prove that people who had been wrongfully convicted were innocent. The organization has since pioneered the use of DNA evidence to overturn wrongful convictions, including for many people wrongfully convicted of murder and sent to death row.

The injustice of wrongful convictions is profound, and the Innocence Project’s cases involve heart-wrenching tales of tragedy and lives forever changed. The average age at the time of a wrongful conviction is 27; the average age at the time of exoneration and release is 43.

In 1980, Malcolm Alexander was convicted of rape based on a deeply flawed photo lineup. Alexander, who is black, came to the attention of police and was included in the lineup after a consensual encounter with a white woman. His lawyer, who was subsequently disbarred for neglecting dozens of other cases, did not present even the most basic elements of a defense. After a one-day trial, Alexander was sentenced to life in prison.

The Innocence Project took on Alexander’s case in 1996. In 2013, the crime lab discovered new evidence, enabling DNA testing that ultimately exonerated Alexander. In 2018, after nearly 38 years of incarceration, prosecutors filed a motion to dismiss the charges, and Alexander was released.

Alexander is the Innocence Project’s longest-serving exonerated client, but he is far from alone. In courtrooms across the country, the Innocence Project’s lawyers fight, often for years, to overturn convictions, which are often built on debunked, pseudo-scientific forensic methods, profoundly flawed trials, coerced guilty pleas, and wholly inadequate defense attorneys.

The organization’s work is not limited to litigating individual cases. The Innocence Project also works through strategic litigation, legislative advocacy, and various efforts to directly support its clients upon release. As an example, working with the Cato Institute, the Innocence Project recently helped secure passage of a Missouri law allowing prosecutors to seek dismissal of charges against a convicted person, which prosecutors had previously been restricted from doing even in cases of clear exoneration. The Innocence Project also advocates for laws to compensate innocent victims of wrongful convictions.

Wrongful convictions harm the victims and their families most, but they also undermine the principles of a free society. This corruption of the proper role of limited government comes with deep moral harms and erodes public confidence in the criminal justice system. In the spirit of the Declaration of Independence and the tradition of constitutionally limited government, the exercise of arbitrary power over individuals is inherently unjust. No power can be more arbitrary and unjust than destroying innocent lives on the basis of false convictions, whether obtained through malice, negligence, or lack of due process.

In recognition and gratitude for its work to ensure liberty and justice for all, the Cato Institute is pleased to award the 2021 Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty to the Innocence Project.

The Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty, named in honor of perhaps the greatest champion of liberty in the 20th century, is presented every other year to an individual who has made a significant contribution to advance human freedom. Nominations are now closed for the Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty. More information and registration for the event will be available soon.

The late Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman agreed in 2001 to lend his name to the prize, which has become the leading international award for acknowledging contributions to the promotion of individual liberty. In a statement at the time he said: “Those of us who were fortunate enough to live and be raised in a reasonably free society tend to underestimate the importance of freedom. We tend to take it for granted. It has made us in the West more complacent, so having a prize emphasizing liberty is extremely important.” Dr. Friedman died in 2006.