The gala of well-dressed individuals milling through silent auction art before a sit-down dinner at the Four Seasons Hotel did not appear different from any other charity event hosted in Denver, except for the multiple individuals who attended after wrongfully spending decades incarcerated.
The Korey Wise Innocence Project at the University of Colorado Boulder Law School has helped wrongfully convicted people appeal their sentences — and sometimes win their freedom — for over two decades.
Originally the passion project of a former CU Law grad, the program had humble volunteer roots in 2001. By 2010 it moved to the law school, but continued to rely exclusively on volunteers. That meant fairly little help could be offered in the complex cases that help bring release to those wrongfully imprisoned. Only off-hour help here and there arrived, often without the commitment necessary to overturn convictions based on lengthy trials.
That did not sit well with my one-time law professor Ann England. Dedicated to just causes and blessed with both charisma and tenacity, England arrived at CU Law during my two-and-a-half years there. She helped guide the criminal clinic program and supported the mock trial teams.
But England always had an eye on doing more to help the most needy.
By 2014 she proposed a plan to transform the program from its part-time volunteer status into a full-time, professional effort. That required funding. Calls to law firms were followed by fundraising events and more calls to more law firms.
Eventually, England secured a multi-year grant from Korey Wise.
If Wise’s name sounds vaguely familiar, it may be because it was splashed in headlines across the country in 1989. Along with four other Black and Latino teenagers, he was imprisoned for attacking and raping a jogger in New York’s Central Park. Sensationalized by the media, the police rushed their investigation and pressured the boys, all between 13 and 16 years old at the time, with tactics that amounted to torture, into giving false confessions.
The public captivation rose to such a level that even future President Donald Trump, always drawn to any limelight, took out a full-page ad in newspapers calling for the death penalty. In words eerily familiar to those he employs today, he declared that the five minority boys would “rape and maim and kill once again” and that “I want to hate these muggers and murderers … they should be executed … I want them to be afraid.”
Of course, Trump defends his words to this day, despite the overwhelming proof that they were innocent.
As it turned out, Wise was imprisoned with a man who admitted to the crime. Between that admission and eventual DNA-proof, Wise and his fellow members of the group dubbed The Central Park Five (now known as The Exonerated Five), were released after nearly a decade and a half behind bars. Netflix eventually made a captivating limited run series — When They See Us — based on their harrowing story.
For their mistreatment, stolen youth, and wrongful imprisonment, the five eventually received a settlement from the city exceeding $40 million in 2014.
The next year Wise agreed to England’s pitch to help others facing similar plights. The multiyear gift allowed KWIP to realize its potential and hire its first full-time employees. That in turn allowed the program to begin addressing thousands of applications from across Colorado to help with court cases. Though many applications did not meet the screening criteria for aid, many others did.
Over the next several years, KWIP began helping successful applicants and growing its own ranks. Success begets success. With a staff dedicated to righting wrongful convictions, multi-year efforts began to bear fruit. Multiple people have been exonerated after years in prison.
One of those individuals was Jason Hogan, convicted of robbery and kidnapping at the Cherry Creek Shopping Center and sentenced to 77 years post-trial. Beginning in 2019, KWIP and Hogan found that police and prosecutors had withheld information about a similar crime committed five days after the one Hogan had been convicted for. Combined with multiple other errors, the Denver DA’s Office eventually offered Hogan an Alfred plea (admission to a lesser crime and sentencing to time served). Faced with years more to have his appeal heard, Hogan accepted the bargain.
He was released in May 2023.
And this past Thursday night, Hogan spoke to hundreds of guests gathered to raise funds for those still facing the dire circumstances he endured.
Every ticket and chicken dinner, every piece of inmate-made art sold, every bead bought for a chance to win Nuggets tickets, will help KWIP to combat flawed forensic science and mis-identifications in Colorado. They will help provide costly DNA tests that might set someone free and set them back into the families and communities they have been separated from for too long.
We know that our criminal justice system is not perfect. We know that people end up in jail for crimes that they did not commit. Thanks to programs like KWIP — and the people who have dedicated their careers to its success and patrons like Korey Wise — we also know that there is still hope for the wrongfully convicted.
Mario Nicolais is an attorney and columnist who writes on law enforcement, the legal system, health care and public policy. Follow him on BlueSky: @MarioNicolais.bsky.social.
The Colorado Sun is a nonpartisan news organization, and the opinions of columnists and editorial writers do not reflect the opinions of the newsroom. Read our ethics policy for more on The Sun’s opinion policy. Learn how to submit a column. Reach the opinion editor at opinion@coloradosun.com.
Follow Colorado Sun Opinion on Facebook.