Michelle Berry, '06

There may never be another story that better illustrates an inspirational French saying from Saint Exupery's The Little Prince-which reads "L-essential est invisible pur les yeux." (What is essential is invisible to the eyes). In this case, unwavering hope, constant determination, and luck.

On December 15, 2005, the Ohio Innocence Project/Rosenthal Institute for Justice, led by the clinic's lead counsel and Director, Professor Mark Godsey,won its first exoneration?a rare legal miracle. Clarence Elkins walked free from the Mansfield Correctional Institution after serving nearly eight years of a life sentence for a double rape and murder that he didn't commit.

Elkins was convicted in 1998 based solely on the testimony of the surviving victim, his six-year old niece, who thought her attacker may have "looked like her Uncle Clarence." The case's first major development broke in 2002 when newly available DNA testing of the victims' rape kits showed that the male DNA collected from both victims matched one another and excluded Mr. Elkins. Despite the strength of the DNA evidence, and the victim's recantation, the Summit County Court denied Mr. Elkins' new trial motion.

The OIP began working on Elkins' case in the spring of 2004 with UC Law students David Laing and Scott Evans. In summer 2005, I along with fellow UC Law students Meghan Anderson and Un Kyong Ho took over the case. And after these combined 18 months of trial, error, dead ends, frustrations, undying determination, and luck-the stars finally aligned.

After investigating several leads to identify the true criminal, the OIP learned that an inmate named Earl Mann not only was in prison for attacking other young girls, but also had gone missing from a treatment facility only days before the attack. He even was living in the same Barberton, Ohio neighborhood where the attacks took place, on that very June night. Amazingly, Earl Mann was assigned to the same cell block with Mr. Elkins, who covertly procured one of Mann's cigarette butts for DNA testing. In September 2005, DNA testing of the cigarette butt showed that Mann's DNA matched the DNA extracted from the victims' rape kits.

When Attorney General Jim Petro learned that the prosecution still refused to drop all charges against Mr. Elkins, in the face of undeniable scientific evidence of his innocence, he announced his public support of Elkins, Mark Godsey and the OIP, Pierre Bergeron and the attorneys at Squire Sanders & Dempsey, and Weil Gotshal & Manges?all who provided pro bono assistance in the case.

On December 15, 2005, after initially refusing to temporarily release Mr. Elkins on bond for the holidays, the prosecution announced that it had dropped all charges against him. Mr. Elkins walked free, and the rest, as they say, is history.

The most amazing part of the story isn?t even the miraculous string of destiny, coincidence, and legal expertise that fell into harmony at just the right time. Instead, the most amazing part of the Clarence Elkins story is the simple enduring truth that as human beings, our job is to help each other with that something inside of us that makes us each unique.Anyone who has met Clarence Elkins knows that he will go on-at length-thanking the people who helped him along the way. But at the same time, people who meet Mr. Elkins can't help but be inspired by his remarkable spirit in spite of an experience-horrific beyond comprehension. But it's an inspiration that I'm truly blessed to have experienced, one that I've deeply internalized and will carry with me as I begin my legal career, all the way until I retire, and beyond.