Founders of the Innocence Project will receive the 2009 Thomas Jefferson Foundation medal in law.
Barry C. Scheck and Peter J. Neufeld created the Innocence Project in 1992 as a nonprofit legal clinic in New York City, according to the U.Va. Web site. The organization advocates for post-conviction DNA testing to exonerate the wrongfully convicted and pushes for other reforms that might prevent future wrongful convictions.
The Innocence Project runds a network of clinics across the country, including one launched by the U.Va. law school in 2008.
