After 6 years in prison, Great North Innocence Project defies odds to free Javon Davis

MINNEAPOLIS – A group of lawyers in Minnesota are working tirelessly to get innocent people released from prison.

Since its inception in 2001, the Great North Innocence Project has helped free 10 people who were in prison for crimes they did not commit.

Those men spent a combined 113 years behind bars. 

April 12, 2014 was a normal night out for Javon Davis.

"I remember going to the nightclub that night," Javon said.

But soon after, police were looking for him.

"I'm like, 'What they looking for me for?' And they like, 'I don't know, they won't tell us. They said some assault.' So I'm like, 'Assault? I ain't assaulted nobody,'" Javon said.

He was arrested.

"I'm asking them like, 'What am I under arrest for? Why y'all arrest me?'" Javon said. "And one of the cops must have looked back and said something funny like, 'Oh, you know who you shot.' I'm like, 'Who I shot? I ain't shoot nobody.'"

Javon was accused of shooting two people who were leaving Target Field in downtown Minneapolis

"I wasn't nowhere near there at the time of the shooting. No, not at all," he said.

First, he waited.

"I sat in [Hennepin County Jail] for a year, one year, waiting to go to trial," he said. "[I was thinking] 'Why would God do this to me? Forget them, why would God put me in this situation?'"

Then, he was convicted.

"It wasn't real. I thought I was in a movie or something," he said.

Javon was sentenced to 33 years. 

"I didn't make peace with it," he said. "I was the angriest person in the world."

Two student lawyers from the Great North Innocence Project visited him in prison.

"And so I'm like, 'Who are y'all?' And they look so young, and I'm just like, 'Who are y'all?'" he said.

Javon wrote a letter to them, pleading his case. 

"At the end of the letter I remember writing, like, 'If anybody's Innocence Project-innocent, I'm Innocence Project-innocent,'" he said.

The team agreed, but they had a warning for Javon.

"This might not work," he said. "It doesn't work."

Lawyers told him overturning convictions, even if someone is innocent, is nearly impossible. But they did it. After nearly six years in prison, Javon walked free.

"I was so happy," he said. "I didn't even know what to do. I just sat there."

The team successfully proved Javon's trial attorney was ineffective. It was a rare victory for a team that reviews hundreds of requests for help every year.

Sara Jones is executive director for the Great North Innocence Project.

"Anywhere from 2-8% of people who are convicted of crimes are likely to be innocent," Jones said. "Let's say there's 9,000 people in prison, 5% would be 450 people."

Jones says several things went wrong for Javon.

"It was witnesses lying, it was supposed informants saying that Javon did it when they didn't, and getting some sort of deal for saying that," she said. "And Javon had an alibi. You know, he was on the phone, he was calling and texting, and there was never any attempt to find the text messages, the records of those and so forth."

But she says cracks in our system also played a part. The group has helped change laws to improve the use of eyewitness identifications and to track flaws with jailhouse informants. And they'll continue to work for people like Javon.

"I like to think that we get it right more often than not, but when we get it wrong, like the worst kind of wrong is what happened to Javon," she said.

"It means so much to me, like because people don't believe you, especially where I'm coming from," Javon said. "It's hard to put your neck out there for somebody that you don't know, and develop trust and love for them -- and they did that."

Javon is seeking compensation from the state. That is still in litigation.