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If You Want Us To Help Prove Your Innocence, Start With This Checklist

If You Want Us To Help Prove Your Innocence, Start With This Checklist

The year 2022 closed out with many readers reaching out to me with cases that they think deserve more scrutiny. I’m flattered and I would like to help. But, on occasion, the outreach I receive is a little light on foundational documents.

I’m kicking off 2023 with a guide that anyone can use if they’re looking for help on a criminal case from a journalist or trying to help a prisoner reduce their sentence.

This is what you should do before and while seeking any journalist's assistance on a criminal case or post-conviction challenge.

Come correct: Collect all your information before reaching out: docket numbers, copies of court files (never walk out of court with original records; that’s a crime), lawyers’ names and all of their contact information (physical and email addresses as well as office telephone numbers and cell phone numbers).

All correspondence between the defendant/prisoner and lawyers can illuminate what happened. An inmate file would be helpful if the person is incarcerated. A signed release of information allowing attorneys to speak with the reporter should be handed over up front. It can accelerate our research.

Write a timeline: As Tennessee Senator Howard Baker asked former White House Counsel John Dean about Watergate: “What did the president know, and when did he know it?”

Often it’s the order of events that matters in these cases because it either confirms or challenges what people know. This is key. Without a linear depiction of what happened and when, it’s hard to see who knew what and when. Because criminal cases aren’t just about actions but also the accused persons’ state of mind, seeing the events spatially can be essential to any inquiry.

Get transcripts: Transcripts are tricky to take to a reporter because technically they’re not public records; court reporters/monitors own them privately. Their private nature makes them costly. Courts can grant fee waivers for transcripts to applicants who qualify (an incarcerated person, friends and family members with limited means). The clerk in the courthouse where the hearing or trial was held can provide these forms; they vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

Courts won’t approve these fee waivers for journalists and news outlets. We have to pay for these volumes and it’s an expensive gambit if they don’t reveal much to assist with the investigation.

The effort of applying for the waiver and having master copies of testimony is worth it. Sometimes you might wonder if the judges who write appellate opinions even read the transcripts at all when you see the way the testimony (the content of the transcripts) appears in a court’s opinion. Those inconsistencies provide fertile ground for someone other than a lawyer to find a reversible error.

We did exactly that here at The National Memo in 2022; we found false evidence in the trial transcripts of Melissa Lucio, the only Hispanic woman sentenced to death in Texas. Her execution was paused pending a hearing after her attorneys included our reporting in a petition to the court. Read the Lucio series here.

Keep a copy: Do this for all paperwork you complete, like fee waiver applications you file, rejections to requests for records.

Sometimes agencies don’t cooperate and it may seem impossible to get the documents you need. But that may be part of the story and we’ll need that proof.

Don’t be offended when a journalist doesn't take your word for it: When we ask for confirmation of a part of the story, it’s not because we suspect you of misrepresenting anything. We need confirmation for our editors.

If there’s no other evidence besides your knowledge of a particular situation, then turn that knowledge into evidence. It can be done relatively easily. In that case, use this template to make out an affidavit. An affidavit — sworn, out-of-court testimony — can be used as evidence. It doesn’t prove that the facts within are true, but it does show the witness’ willingness to expose themselves to perjury charges if the contents of the statement are proven false. Often journalists can use these statements in their reporting.

Find a therapist: This isn’t a layperson diagnosis of mental illness. I’m not pointing out flaws in those people seeking justice for friends, family members or even prisoners. It’s quite the opposite.

Wrongful convictions, lengthy incarceration, waiting for a languid bureaucracy to fix mistakes they made in a millisecond are traumatic experiences even for bystanders. Trying to explain the facts and the trauma to a journalist wastes time and asks them to act as an advisor of sorts. We know — and especially I know — how harmful injustice is, not just to the defendant or inmate, but also people close to them.

But explaining to us how stressful all of this doesn't help anyone — we’re supposed to be investigating — but it’s also pointless because we’re not trained to assist in those ways. Finding a professional with whom you can work out your feelings will enhance your ability to secure attention — and therefore assistance for your cause. Find A Therapist is just one source of information on service providers in your area.

Be Patient: Getting new records or finding the best witness can take time. It won’t happen overnight.


Be Realistic: While pressure from the press can break logjams and even expose innocence, it’s not always possible. We’d love to clear some names and spring some bodies from custody but we’re not magicians.


Chandra Bozelko did time in a maximum-security facility in Connecticut. While inside she became the first incarcerated person with a regular byline in a publication outside of the facility. Her “Prison Diaries" column ran in The New Haven Independent, and she later established a blog under the same name that earned several professional awards. Her columns now appear regularly in The National Memo.

Want To Save Investigative Reporting? You Can Help

Want To Save Investigative Reporting? You Can Help

If you’re reading this column over the holidays, then you’re probably concerned about the future of American journalism. And you probably know all too well that the dwindling fortunes of the newspaper industry, the devolution of television news, and the rise of Internet news sites have raised big questions about where and how our trade will continue to underwrite and produce quality reporting – especially investigative reporting that takes on social issues too often neglected in our media.

Exactly how to preserve and promote investigative reporting in a changing world is a complicated problem that has preoccupied publishers, reporters, readers, and concerned citizens for years now. While the news industry sorts itself out financially, solutions are under construction in the non-profit sector, where advertising, clicks, and infomercial media don’t overwhelm journalistic values.

That is why, during the last few days of 2013, I ask you to consider supporting an important institution that ensures the kind of journalism we value most can thrive: The Investigative Fund. (Here I should disclose that in addition to my other work, I have served proudly at the Fund for several years as editor-at-large.)

With donations from individuals and foundations, the independent and non-profit Investigative Fund supports the craft of investigative reporting across a broad swath of American media, from magazines like The Nation, The Washington Monthly, Harper’s, Mother Jones, The New Republic, Glamour, Elle, GQ, Time, and The New York Review of Books to major broadcast and Web outlets such as NPR’s Marketplace, Slate, The Huffington Post, PBS, and Fusion-TV, to name only a few.

Over the past year, its grants have again produced stunning stories – including an undercover probe of the sickening conditions suffered by children who work in this country’s tobacco fields. Yes, there are kids too young to buy cigarettes who are hired to harvest the killer crop for a pittance – and get poisoned by the nicotine leaching from its leaves under the broiling sun.

The Fund has sent reporters into all kinds of places where the light of serious journalism rarely shines – such as the shipping warehouses where holiday temp workers toil en masse for low wages until their hands bleed; or the homes where orphaned children are abused by the dozen under the stern oversight of devoutly “religious” adoptive parents; or the obscure places along the U.S.-Mexico border, where innocent people have been wounded and even killed by the Border Patrol for no apparent reason at all.

Since its founding as a pilot project in 1996, the Investigative Fund’s stories have sparked resignations of public officials; triggered FBI probes, grand jury investigations, congressional hearings, and federal legislation. Still others have changed the debate around a key issue or exposed previously hidden forms of abuse and exploitation. Investigative Fund stories have won some of journalism’s top prizes: the George Polk Award, the National Magazine Award, the Sidney Hillman Award, medals from Investigative Reporters & Editors, and many more.

Gratifying as recognition from peers is, what matters more is how the Investigative Fund serves the enterprising reporters who now often struggle to practice their craft. At the Fund, they can obtain the kind of support they need to work on the kind of stories we need. Along with grants for travel, research, reporting, and other expenses, the Fund’s editors provide professional editorial guidance and, when necessary, legal support too.

When a young reporter probing suspicious deaths in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina ran into a stonewall at the parish coroner’s office, the Fund hired local counsel who sued for access to hidden documents – and won. When police in Fiji suddenly arrested another young reporter, who was investigating the depletion of that country’s resources to produce luxury bottled water, the Fund reached out to U.S. diplomats – and ensured her safety.

While fearless in its choice of stories, the Fund is rigorous, too, with every article or broadcast fact-checked before distribution. In an era when uninformed and scabrous opinion too often overshadows real reporting, upholding traditional journalistic standards is a critical part of the Fund’s mission.

Should you wish to support the Investigative Fund’s work with a tax-deductible contribution, please visit www.theinvestigativefund.org — where you can first read some of the hundreds of stories made possible by such donations, and learn about their impact as well. This is an investment in the kind of journalism that remains vital to democracy and decency.

Photo: Allen Ormond via Flickr