Clinical Work
The clinic provides supervised assistance to persons claiming to have been wrongfully convicted. Cases are carefully pre-screened based on established principles and policies of The Innocence Project and Osgoode Hall. Reviews of new applications for assistance from The Osgoode Hall Innocence Project involve as many as five stages:

Stage 1: Technical review of eligibility - Some of the criteria on which applications are accepted or rejected include:

• A conviction for a serious offence - The applicant must have been convicted of a serious criminal offence. No indictable offence is prima facie excluded. Summary conviction offences are excluded unless the Innocence Project feels there are compelling reasons why the application should proceed further.
• All rights of appeal have been exhausted - Prospective clients must normally have appealed their conviction(s) to the applicable court of appeal of the province.
• A claim of factual innocence is seriously advanced - Cases are only accepted if, on his/her own facts, the applicant is not guilty of the offence at issue or any included criminal offence(s). Other policy considerations may also be considered.
• Alternative resources are unavailable - The Osgoode Hall Innocence Project must limit itself to assisting individuals who do not have the resources necessary to pursue a remedy privately.

Stage 2: Initial practical assessment - If an application passes Stage 1, an assigned student will review background materials in an effort to determine whether the Project may be able to assist.

Stage 3: Group assessment - Current Innocence Project students and faculty jointly decide whether the Project can theoretically and practically assist and whether the case merits devotion of Project time and resources.

Stage 4: Investigation - Cases that pass stage 3 will be reinvestigated in an effort to locate and substantiate exculpatory evidence.

Stage 5: Final decision - Based on the results of the re-investigation, the Osgoode Hall Innocence Project decides whether or not to officially accept a file and formally advocate on the client's behalf to the appropriate authority.

Please note that until Stage 5, the Innocence Project has not agreed to advocate on a client's behalf and may choose to reject a file at any time under the discretion of the Director or Associate Director. Our ultimate decision will depend on numerous factors, including the availability of required resources. We must limit ourselves to cases where our efforts and resources can be most appropriately applied.

Please be advised that the application review process can be a lengthy one. Although we endeavour to be as expeditious as possible, we can offer no assurances as to when an application review will be complete. It will almost certainly be several months.

Selected cases are exhaustively analyzed and reinvestigated based on the individual nature of each wrongful conviction. The process involves many hundreds of student hours of attempting to locate evidence to prove a miscarriage of justice to the satisfaction of the Minister of Justice (under PART XXI.1 of the Canadian Criminal Code: Applications for Ministerial Review - Miscarriages of Justice), or to compel some other appropriate remedy. In the normal course, a remedy can only be obtained based upon new significant evidence.

If you believe that your claim of wrongful conviction falls within this mandate please visit our Apply Online page to learn more about ways in which to contact The Innocence Project for assistance.

Legal Research
In addition to assisting those wrongfully convicted, The Osgoode Hall Innocence Project studies the workings of the criminal justice system as it pertains to the issue of wrongful convictions. Academic work includes research on the larger issues raised by The Innocence Project's clinical investigative/advocacy work, including the symptoms and causes of, and potential remedies for, wrongful convictions. The Osgoode Hall Innocence Project also engages in law reform advocacy, including any number of activities designed to educate the public and, ultimately, curtail and eliminate conviction of the innocent.