The Running for Innocence team was, quite literally, born inside the visiting room of MCI Norfolk, the medium security prison located in Norfolk, where my friend and former client Victor Rosario became a long-distance runner while incarcerated for 32 years for a crime he did not commit. Upon his release from prison in 2014, Victor's running journey -- which eventually led him to complete a full-length marathon by running a staggering 76 laps of the inner perimeter track -- became the inspiration for the two of us establishing a mission-driven running team to support the work of all the three Massachusetts-based innocence organizations by defraying the costs of hiring the experts and investigators needed to fight wrongful conviction cases.
This year marks the team's tenth year participating in the Genesis HR Battlegreen Run. In that time, RFI has grown into something neither Victor nor his fellow team members could ever have anticipated, bringing together lawyers and students and social workers and investigators and directly impacted people to support the creation of an inclusive community for all those impacted by the harms of wrongful convictions. Funds raised by the RFI team have directly supported the costs of hiring experts and investigators in more than four dozen innocence clients, thirteen of whom have gained their freedom and six of whom have been fully exonerated. RFI funding has also enabled more than a dozen exonerees and their loved ones to attend the national Innocence Network conference. Each year, as we gather to run together, team members joyfully celebrate the recently released new team members while also honoring the many men and women still fighting for freedom from behind the wall. And each year, we are reminded of the remarkable resilience of the human spirit, as well as the importance of building a community that recognizes and reckons with the human cost of wrongful convictions.
Last year, the RFI team embarked on a brand new chapter in its history, when another wrongfully convicted man at MCI Norfolk -- Brian Peixoto -- was approved to host a special event at MCI Norfolk, the prison's first ever "Walk for Innocence." On November 1, 2024, RFI leaders had the privilege of going "behind the wall" to the very track at MCI Norfolk where Victor trained for and completed his first marathon. There, we were welcomed by more than one hundred MCI Norfolk prisoners who eagerly gathered to learn about how the RFI team and its partners have helped support the reentry needs of wrongfully convicted men and women following long term incarceration. This year, Victor himself will have the opportunity to participate in the Walk for Innocence himself, returning to the very place where the team was first born.
While there are many worthy causes, I hope that you will consider making a donation to the 2025 RFI fundraiser. Thank you!
