Jarrett Adams tries not to think about the seven and a half years he spent in prison for a rape he didn't commit. Convicted in Jefferson County along with two others for an alleged 1998 sexual assault, Adams spent most of his 20s behind bars.

For six of those years, attorneys and law students from the Wisconsin Innocence Project worked to free Adams, who finally got out in 2007.

"I just thank God for the Innocence Project," Adams told a crowd of more than 150 gathered Friday to celebrate the project's 10th anniversary. "The only thing better than being exonerated is not being wrongfully accused at all."

The celebration at the University of Wisconsin Law School was actually about a year late, admitted Wisconsin Innocence Project co-director Keith Findley, noting the program started in 1998. The school nonetheless used the occasion to highlight the work of the Innocence Project co-directors, Findley and John Pray, associate professor Byron Lichstein, the 150 students who have cycled through the program and others who have donated their time to the program and to help the wrongfully convicted repair their shattered lives.

Twelve prisoners have been freed by the Wisconsin Innocence Project. Six of them were there Friday to be honored and watch for the first time an emotional 25-minute video about their cases. Three have died since their release. One, Steven Avery, was convicted of murder after he was released. The ceremony included two other Wisconsin men who were exonerated through the efforts of others.

Wisconsin's program started at a time when there were just a handful of such projects. Pray, Findley and Lichstein work with law students to investigate and litigate possible innocence cases among the 400 or so requests that come in each year.

In an interview, Findley and Pray discussed how the project works, its high points and heartaches.

To qualify for help, prisoners must claim absolute innocence and have no lawyer. The project looks for more information, witnesses, physical evidence, testing or "anything that might shed some light on what happened," Pray said.

"We're not looking for errors in the trial," Findley said. "We're looking to answer the factual question of guilt or innocence."

The project investigates cases even when its members aren't convinced a prisoner is innocent, Pray said. On the other hand, Findley said, "There are times when we are absolutely convinced a person is innocent, but we can't prove it."

Pray acknowledged he had doubts about Chris Ochoa, the project's first exoneree, who had falsely confessed to raping and murdering a woman while under intense police pressure. Ochoa was released from a Texas prison on the strength of DNA testing in 2001 after spending 11½ years behind bars. In 2006, he graduated from the UW Law School.

Ochoa was honored Friday for his work after exoneration to finish college and earn a law degree. He's now an attorney in Madison.

He recalls the $700 that students pressed into his hand as he walked out of prison. It was the only money he had.

"They helped me when I didn't have money for a toothbrush or clothes," Ochoa said. "They were there."

Although not well understood at the time, the phenomenon of false confessions has since been widely studied and accounts for an estimated one-fourth of wrongful convictions.

"If there's anything we've learned from the DNA exonerations of the past 20 years is that our best intentions and most firmly held beliefs can be wrong," Findley said. "No one can ever be too sure. We all have to be open-minded and skeptical and willing to re-examine everything."

The project operates out of a set of offices and cubicles cluttered with case files and adorned with photos of some of those freed through its efforts.

"There are few moments in an attorney's life that are better than the moment when a judge says, 'You're free to go,'" Pray said. "That's exhilarating. It's hard to beat that. We've been privileged to have that happen several times."

Both agreed the worst moment came in 2007, when Avery, a man they'd help exonerate four years earlier, was convicted of murdering 25-year-old Theresa Halbach. Although there's no doubt Avery had spent 18 years in prison for a rape he didn't commit, Findley said the murder "traumatized" him.

"We got a lot of hate mail ... saying we were responsible for that," Pray said.

In addition to case work, the Innocence Project has led successful efforts to reform Wisconsin's criminal justice system. Police in Wisconsin are now required to videotape interrogations of suspects arrested for serious crimes. Police also must follow certain methods when presenting witnesses with photos or line-ups to avoid the problem of mistaken identity, considered the leading cause of wrongful convictions.

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