Too often we forget that many people are languishing in jails for crimes they did not commit whose wrongful conviction cannot be detected by DNA testing. The New York Times today reports on such a case:J udging a Mother for a Crime by Someone Else

"Tabitha Pollock was sleeping when her boyfriend killed her 3-year-old daughter. For failing to anticipate that crime, Ms. Pollock was convicted of first-degree murder and has served 7 years of her 36-year sentence."

"Last month, the Illinois Supreme Court overturned Ms. Pollock's conviction, saying the prosecution's theory -- that she should have known that her boyfriend, Scott English, who is serving a life sentence, was going to murder her child -- has no basis in the law. Barring something unusual, she will be released from the prison here in the next few weeks."

"Ms. Pollock's first appellate lawyer gave up her case as hopeless in 1999 and declined to appeal it to the State Supreme Court. Ms. Pollock will go free only because "a student plucked her letter from among the 17,000 that the law school clinic at Northwestern University receives every year, and the clinic persuaded the Supreme Court to hear an appeal filed after the deadline had passed. The court reversed the conviction outright rather than order a new trial."

"Illinois and many other states accept the notion that parents may be held legally accountable for the deaths of their children when they have witnessed or otherwise know of grave threats to their safety. Ms. Pollock's case differed in that she was held responsible on what lawyers call a negligence theory — that she should have known of the potential danger, even if she did not. A negligence standard is seldom used in the criminal law. "

Ms. Pollack's conviction is especially egregious considering that at trial, the prosecution produced no witness who had suspected her boyfriend of prior abuse. "How could I have known he would murder my precious baby girl?" Ms. Pollock wrote. "I did not know, yet I received 36 years in prison for not being a mind reader."

Innocence Project Clinics have been formed at law schools in several states in recent years. It is important that these new clinics accept not only cases where factual innocence can be proven by DNA testing, but also cases where the conviction was wrongfully obtained, such as through a false confession, incompetent counsel, police or prosecutorial misconduct, or the lone word of a jailhouse informant.

We couldn't help thinking as we read of Ms. Pollack, how many more prisoners like her are out there, serving double-digit or life sentences, who have no lawyer or law or journalism student to raise these claims?