Students will enter the case review project by meeting the California Innocence Project, examining a redacted case file, and beginning to understand how evidence, testimony, and legal records can reveal whether a conviction deserves reexamination. They will build initial empathy for the people affected by criminal legal decisions while practicing first-round source analysis, timeline thinking, and question generation that will guide later case memo work.

Students will define a focused evidence-review problem for their redacted case by identifying the most consequential contradictions, gaps, and procedural questions in the file, then turning those findings into a team problem statement and investigation plan that will guide later timeline building, document analysis, and case memo drafting.

Students will compare possible evidence-review methods, generate multiple defensible pathways for analyzing a redacted case file, and select a team approach for a case memo packet that is grounded in corroboration, credibility, chronology, and uncertainty.

Students will turn earlier evidence sorting and inquiry questions into a first-draft case memo packet by refining legal reasoning, building a defensible case timeline, drafting evidence-based recommendations, and revising their work through structured peer critique.

Students will pressure-test their draft case memo packets and evidence displays by using a feedback protocol, collecting peer and partner critique on document analysis and recommendations, and revising claims based on contradictions, uncertainty, and legal accuracy concerns.

Students will use structured critique protocols to strengthen their case memo packets, test the clarity and credibility of their evidence analysis, and revise their recommendations before the Evidence Review Forum.

Students will present their final case memo packets and Evidence Review Forum materials, gather authentic feedback from the California Innocence Project and other visitors, document how their analysis changed through critique, and reflect on next investigative steps and what careful document review revealed about fairness and justice.