The Innocence Project today announced the opening of an office in their New Orleans center to serve Mississippi.

We have already received more than 100 applications from inmates seeking assistance," said Emily Maw, a staffer for the Mississippi project. A case in which two sisters, Jamie and Gladys Scott, were sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of taking about $10 at gunpoint is among those being reviewed.

The Innocence Project was instrumental in winning a new trial last year for former Mississippi death-row inmate Kennedy Brewer. Local lawyers handled the case for the national Innocence Project.

....Mississippi ranks second only to Louisiana in the number of individuals incarcerated per 100,000 people, according to the Innocence Project. "If the system's failure rate is a mere one percent, 215 people in prison in Mississippi are innocent," the project says.

Another group, the Mississippi Justice Project will work with the Innocence Project to get information and applications to inmates.

....The project will be looking at questionable convictions in which inmates received more than 20 years in prison.

The goal is one project in every state. We'll keep reporting on the progress.