Assistance program
Capital Case Litigation Initiative
$45.7 Million committed in FY2018–FY2026
- Agency
- Office of Justice Programs, Justice, Department of
- Assistance
- Project Grants
- CFDA number
- 16.746
- What it does
- Goals: Capital Case Litigation Initiative (CCLI) • Provide training and technical assistance to prosecutors and defense attorneys’ litigation capital cases. Wrongful Conviction Review Program • To enhance and/or expand the capacity of wrongful conviction review (WCR) entities and conviction integrity units (CIUs) and their criminal justice and victim services partners to better identify, assess, and manage post-conviction claims of innocence and preventing future errors to ensure while bring justice for victims. Objectives: Capital Case Litigation Initiative (CCLI) - In an effort to improve the quality of legal representation and to ensure reliable jury verdicts in state capital cases, the CCLI seeks to improve the quality and effectiveness of representation in death penalty cases through training for both the prosecutors who represent the public and the defense attorneys who represent indigent defendants in state capital cases. Performance Measure: Number of individuals who received training or technical assistance Wrongful Conviction Review Program - The Upholding the Rule of Law and Preventing Wrongful Convictions Program (URLPWC) ensures all grantees over the project period have access to the resources needed to support the effective implementation of their projects to: Increase the number of case review requests received by the program. Increase and document the number of case reviews that result in an innocence exoneration by the program. Develop and enhance strong partnerships between entities and other criminal justice organizations and victim services. Develop and implement a wrongful conviction risk assessment process. Enhance capacity to identify and review high-risk cases. Enhance the expertise of the entities to support quality post-conviction and appellate legal representation in the identified cases. Enhance the ability to demonstrate the value of identifying appropriate suspects when convictions are overturned. Enhance the ability to demonstrate the value of seeking to overturn challenged convictions. Enhance the collection and analysis of data to support the prevention of error and enhance efforts to review and manage claims of innocence. Performance Measure 1: Number of cases received, Performance Measure 2: Number of cases reviewed, Performance Measure 3: Number of cases reviewed resulting in innocence exoneration, Performance Measure 4: Number of new or established partnerships between an innocence organization (IO) that partners with a conviction integrity unit (CIU) or CIU that partners with an IO.