 Fighting wrongful verdicts a passion New to Utah: Lawyer brings professional, personal experience to the Innocence Center By Elizabeth Neff The Salt Lake Tribune
Jensie Anderson, RMIC president and a University of Utah law professor, said Monroe's hiring marks a turning point for the group. In the past, a part-time staff attorney handled most of the cases, with a few outside attorneys assisting. The group now hopes to increase its work in Nevada and Wyoming, from where it has drawn fewer cases than Utah. Monroe comes to Utah from The Constitution Project, a Washington, D.C., organization that unites bipartisan committees to find common ground on charged issues, such as the death penalty. Monroe recently finished working on the Project's judicial independence initiative. She said she enjoyed the work of building consensus and wants to contribute at the innocence center in a similar way. "One of the most important things is to realize that law enforcement, victims and criminal defendants all have the same goal in mind: to make sure that we get the right person," she said. Monroe said she hopes to work closely with others in the justice system. "I really want to nurture relationships with police and prosecutors because that's where the future of this lies," she said. "Our mission is to help people in prison establish their innocence, but part and parcel of that is education about how wrongful convictions occur and what can be done to prevent them." The experience of her mother going to prison has given Monroe a taste of the harsh realities of the justice system. "It takes very little time to rush to judgment," she said. "But to free someone wrongfully convicted takes a lot of time." Her siblings could not fathom that Beverly Monroe could be convicted of murder after the death of Roger de la Burde, found on a couch with a fatal gunshot wound to the head from his own handgun. But Monroe worried. As an attorney, she knew there was a chance their mother could be convicted. Regardless, "Nobody wants to believe innocent people go to prison." In overturning Beverly Monroe's conviction a decade later, a federal court would call the case a "monument to prosecutorial indiscretions and mishandling." Shawn Armbrust, executive director of the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project and a former colleague, said Monroe is a rare find for the RMIC. "She brings to it not only a lawyer's ability to analyze, but also her personal experience, which is something I don't think any other innocence project has," said Armbrust. "It's rare to find someone who has the instincts she does - who is smart and passionate and who is also the nicest, most down-to-earth person you will meet." The RMIC receives between 15 and 20 requests for help each week from convicts and their families, according to Anderson. To date, the group has succeeded in getting post-conviction DNA testing done in four cases in Utah. One resulted in the release of Bruce Dallas Goodman, who served 19 years in prison for the murder of Sherry Ann Fales Williams, 21, of Salt Lake City, in November 1984. Monroe said she hopes one day the justice system can ensure her job won't be necessary. "Put us out of business," she said, "please." Katie Monroe, 41 Originally from Virginia, moved to Utah from Washington, D.C. Education: George Mason University School of Law; Randolph-Macon College Career: Clerked for the U.S. Attorney's office and the Virginia Court of Appeals; attorney advisor to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights; founder and director of the Beverly Monroe Committee for Justice; initiative director at The Constitution Project Family: Married with a son |
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