MORGANTOWN, WEST VIRIGINA—West Virginia University Associate Professor of Law Valena Beety has been elected to serve on the board of directors of the Innocence Network.
The Innocence Network is an affiliation of national and international organizations dedicated to providing pro bono legal and investigative services to individuals seeking to prove their innocence of crimes for which they have been convicted. Innocence Network organizations also work to address the causes of wrongful convictions.
Beety has several years of experience working with the Innocence Network. She was a staff attorney for the Mississippi Innocence Project from 2009 to 2012, and she became the director of the West Virginia Innocence Project when she joined the WVU College of Law faculty in 2012.
The WVIP serves incarcerated persons in state and federal prisons in West Virginia, investigating potential cases and providing free legal representation to individuals with meritorious claims of innocence. It also advocates for criminal justice reforms including the implementation of safeguards for eyewitness identification, the prevention of flawed forensic techniques, and the recording of the entire police interrogation process.
Beety teaches courses in criminal procedure, post-conviction remedies, prisons and civil rights, and criminality and identity. She is also the deputy director of the WVU Clinical Law Program.
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kc/05/19/14
