The University of Wisconsin Law School's Innocence Project , working closely with the State Public Defender's Office, won the exoneration of wrongly convicted ex-police officer Evan Zimmerman on April 29, 2005, when the presiding judge dismissed a murder charge in mid-trial. This is the third exoneration won by efforts of the Wisconsin Innocence Project law students and attorney supervisors.

Co-director of the project, UW law professor Keith Findley, who served as one of Zimmerman's attorneys, told the Associated Press, "This is just a wonderful day for Evan Zimmerman, to be exonerated after five years of quite an ordeal."

Zimmerman, who had been convicted of the February 2000 murder of former girlfriend Kathleen Thompson, is a Monona native. "There was no evidence against Evan Zimmerman," Findley said, "very, very little evidence. But early on, the investigation locked on him and then everything that happened after that was filtered through this lens of trying to find guilt."

Eau Claire County District Attorney Rich White moved for dismissal on grounds that there was not enough evidence to prove Zimmerman's guilt.   Eau Claire Circuit Court Judge Benjamin Proctor approved the motion for dismissal at the start of the fifth day of what was expected to be a two-week trial. 

For more information, see Wisconsin State Journal and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel articles at

http://www.madison.com/wsj/home/local/index.php?ntid=38172&ntpid=3

and

http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/apr05/322376.asp .

For more information on the Wisconsin Innocence Project, see the Project's page on the UW Law School Web site at http://www.law.wisc.edu/FJR/innocence/index.htm .

Submitted by on May 3, 2005

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