Most Americans likely believe that the combined weight of “beyond a shadow of a doubt” and DNA testing would prevent innocent people from being sent to jail.

But don’t be too sure.

That’s the lesson students taking Lawrence C. Marshall’s Wrongful Convictions seminar have learned. Yes, it’s true, Virginia, innocent people still wind up in prison—even with DNA evidence on their side.

On the evening of August 17, 1992, Juan Rivera was at home—unable to go anywhere freely due to the electronic monitoring bracelet firmly wrapped around his ankle. He was a 19-year-old with a history of petty crimes. That night, two miles from Rivera’s home, an 11-year-old girl was raped and murdered. Working on a tip from an informant who said that Rivera might have information about who committed the crime, investigators questioned Rivera in tag-team fashion.  The interrogations were so intense that Rivera, who had a history of mental illness, experienced an acute psychotic episode—banging his head against the wall and tearing out pieces of his scalp. He eventually signed a confession to the crimes, which he later recanted.

In December 1993 Rivera was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. The case was appealed twice. A DNA test in 2005 eliminated Rivera as the source of the semen recovered from the victim; the conviction was vacated in 2006 and a new trial was ordered. Rivera’s case was taken up by Northwestern Law’s Center on Wrongful Convictions.  After yet another conviction in May 2009, the case was brought to Marshall, co-founder and former legal director of the center, who in 2005 joined Stanford as professor of law, associate dean for clinical education, and David & Stephanie Mills Director of the Mills Legal Clinic.

“I agreed to take it on because it was clear to me that this was a wrongful conviction, and I felt I could involve our students here in a useful learning exercise working with me on it,” says Marshall.

The seminar, held last year, involved students in extensive research and writing as they prepared the brief. A few students, including Kathryne Young, JD/PhD ’11, visited their client in Stateville Correctional Center in Illinois.

“Meeting Juan inspired us to work even harder,” Young says. “He rises early daily to exercise, read, and study religion.  We asked him how he does it and he said that making himself a better person was the best way he could thank us for working on his case.”

“It’s really an astonishing case in the sense that it pits a confession, which we know at times can be completely false, against very conclusive DNA evidence. There was no physical evidence, no eyewitness evidence.  And there is extraordinary evidence proving his absolute innocence,” says Marshall.

“Working on this case reminded me why I went to law school,” says Young.

Marshall says that he will continue his involvement with the case, as will several of the students. “It is impossible to imagine giving up until Juan Rivera is exonerated and, hopefully, the actual murderer and rapist is identified.”