“I felt the Innocence Project was an excellent way to teach students about investigative reporting. It involves interviewing witnesses, searching public records, reviewing case files, public information requests and reading court transcripts. These are all elements of investigative reporting,” said Casarez.

The UST Innocence Project is affiliated with two different innocence organizations: the University of Houston Law Center’s Innocence Network and the Innocence Project of Texas, which is made up of six affiliated schools across the state of Texas, including Texas Tech, Southern Methodist University, University of Texas-Arlington, South Texas College of Law and Texas Wesleyan.

“Instead of just writing about campus events, this offers students a way to do interesting work and trains them in the skills they’ll need to be reporters,”  said Casarez.

Classes are typically small with student interest varying from semester to semester. The program has received help from alumni who continue to be active.

“Cases don’t go away, they are ongoing. A semester is not that long a time period when you consider that the students need to get up to speed during that short time span. Most alumni do it because they are truly interested in the program. I feel truly blessed that many of my students come back to help,” said Casarez.

The Innocence Project is just one example of Service Learning at UST. The mission of service learning is to expand opportunities for public and community service in higher education and to advocate the importance of civic responsibility in students’ learning.

"The Innocence Project is an outstanding model of an academic project that uses service-learning while also showcasing the values of the University of St. Thomas and Catholic Social Teaching,” said Dr. Jean-Philippe Faletta, Director of UST Service Learning Program. “Students learn the theory in the classroom and then go out into the field where they use experiential learning to fuse theory with practice.”

“These are real situations. We are taking what is learned in class and applying it to a real person who is hoping for help in his or her case. Even if we don’t actually meet the inmates, we may be the only people helping them,” said Casarez.

One case that has received national attention has been UST’s work with the Anthony Graves case. He was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in 1994 for the murder of six people in Somerville, Texas, a small rural town northwest of Houston. In March of 2005, his conviction was overturned by a Panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The state of Texas has chosen to re-try his case. Graves is now sitting in a Burleson County Jail awaiting trial. Graves asked Casarez to join his legal team, largely due to her familiarity with the case. While her classes are no longer working on the case, several alumni are assisting in his new trial.

The work of the UST group in the Graves’ case has garnered national attention through profiles on the A&E television series, “The Innocence Files” and the PBS program “NOW.”

While the class has been a good training ground for future journalists, it has also inspired many to continue on to law school.

“There is a pre-law connection in the class and the Innocence Project is a way for them to get experience doing legal research, reading cases and getting their feet wet,” said Casarez.

For more information about the Innocence Project go to www.innocenceprojectoftexas.org.