Ed Magarian, Partner at Dorsey & Whitney LLP, is one of the Great North Innocence Project’s (formerly the Innocence Project of Minnesota) founding Board members. In all, Ed served on the Board off-and-on for almost two decades. He actively worked on GNIP cases and provided advice and guidance on others, including the case of GNIP’s first freed client, Sherman Townsend. He also was involved in the first round of lobbying in what ultimately would become Minnesota’s wrongful conviction compensation statute.
When Ed joined the Board, the organization was not much more than a vision in the collective consciousness of a handful of attorneys inspired to fill a crucial gap in the Upper Midwest–the need for pro bono representation for people wrongfully convicted of crimes they did not commit.
“Our first goal was to get a structure in place and raise money and start finding clients who would be appropriate for our services,” Ed recalls.
Building a nonprofit organization from the ground up is no easy task. Before hiring any staff, the intrepid group of Board members served many roles: directors, thought leaders, fundraisers, litigators, and more. Ed enjoyed the collaboration.
“It was a collegial group of folks, a really good group. In the beginning, it was a heavily working Board.”
Ed and the team got to work putting together the structure of the organization, including defining its mission statement and envisioning how they would begin fundraising and vetting cases.
“The idea is that we would partner with law firms because we didn’t have attorneys on staff yet, and we would try and get firms to contribute pro bono legal services. Dorsey contributed, and other firms did as well.”
With the structure and mission in place, Ed and his fellow Board members hired their first employee, Erika Applebaum, to serve as executive director, and got to work vetting cases. Soon after, Julie Jonas would join as legal director.
There were challenges in the early years. It was difficult to publicize the new organization’s services to people living in correctional facilities, and applications were initially slow to trickle in. But Ed persevered, believing in the purpose of the organization. And eventually, applications did begin to flow.
In 2007, GNIP experienced its first win by securing freedom for Sherman Townsend, who had served 10 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. Ed worked with Julie to represent Sherman pro bono.
“It’s so rewarding to work on those cases, and to be working with the people who are working on those cases. Every time we had an exoneration, that was a great moment and made me very proud of the work that I was doing to support the organization and very proud of the people who were standing up to support it.”
Ed also contributed to GNIP’s mission in other ways, including teaching, fundraising, and building relationships. He taught a course about wrongful convictions at Hamline University, played a key role in building pro bono relationships with Minnesota law firms, and helped Julie make inroads with important stakeholders at the Minnesota Legislature.
Ed’s Board service concluded in 2019. However, he still serves as a pro bono attorney with GNIP and follows the organization’s progress. He is excited about its future, particularly because of the ongoing scientific and technological advancements that enables GNIP to evaluate cases with more precision and clarity.
“When looking at a case, you must always make sure to question, question, question. We should not take anything at face value when a human’s life and/or liberty is at stake. What we think happened, what appears to have happened, may not be the case. That is true even if the overwhelming majority of the scientific community thinks in a certain way. We have learned that science advances and changes over time.”
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