AIDWYC is a nonprofit legal organization that has developed a well-earned reputation as the advocate for wrongly convicted Canadians. Our clients are mostly poor, forgotten and have exhausted all of their legal avenues for relief. While one of AIDWYC's main goals is to champion the cause of factually innocent persons who have been wrongly convicted, we also work tirelessly to prevent their occurrence through legal education and reform.

AIDWYC's offices and core legal team of over 30 lawyers is located in Ontario. A formal AIDWYC chapter exists in Manitoba, and informal chapters are currently forming in Newfoundland and Calgary. AIDWYC Ontario provides guidance to these provincial chapters and ensures that consistent procedures are used in the review and handling of cases.

At present in Canada there is no system in place for an independent review of claims of wrongful conviction. AIDWYC fills this gap, attracting some of the top legal experts in Ontario to identify these cases and, where warranted, prepare an application for ministerial review to the Criminal Conviction Review Group of the Federal Department of Justice, known as a Criminal Code "Section 696.1 application". For detailed information on this process and on the history of Canada's approach to addressing claims of miscarriages of justice, see Addressing Possible Miscarriages of Justice: History of the Power to Review Criminal Convictions by the Department of Justice Canada.

The majority of AIDWYC's cases emanate from Ontario. The cases AIDWYC adopts are currently limited to murder convictions where the accused is "factually innocent"; that is, where proof exists (through DNA or other means) that the person was not involved in any way with the murder. Due to resource restrictions, AIDWYC is currently only able to handle homicide cases.

In addition to facilitating the case review role, AIDWYC is the forerunner in raising issues related to wrongful convictions. The criminal justice system is a human enterprise; it sometimes fails. The cost, inevitably, is the loss of liberty and livelihood for the tragic victims of these systemic errors. The cases of those exonerated disclose disturbing fissures in Canada's criminal justice system.Sadly, these errors also leave true perpetrators on the streets while the innocent are incarcerated.

Unfortunately, individual exonerations do not end the problem--they prove its existence and illuminate the need for reform. The lessons learned from these exonerations must be used to prevent all wrongful convictions. Examples of the leading causes of wrongful conviction include:

• mistaken identification
• serology over-inclusion
• police misconduct
• tunnel vision
• prosecutorial misconduct
• defective or fraudulent science
• bad lawyering
• now-discredited hair matching methodology
• false eye-witness testimony
• jailhouse informants
• false confessions
• mishandling of alibi witnesses

AIDWYC is the key organization in Canada that coordinates the work of wrongful conviction applications and the legal experts who pursue these reviews. It provides a forum for raising public awareness on this issue and working toward systemic change. Additionally, AIDWYC provides education and mentorship for young lawyers interested in developing skill and experience on wrongful conviction cases and s.696.1 applications. All Canadian citizens stand to benefit from AIDWYC's efforts to reform the justice system and safeguard its integrity. Wrongful convictions are not easily corrected. The resistance to AIDWYC's efforts is formidable and the correction of miscarriages of justice always hard-won.