Danielle Thomas said she experienced a surreal moment Jan. 10 as she sat in a packed classroom at DePaul University, where Governor George Ryan said he would be a friend to Death Row inmate Madison Hobley by granting him a pardon. That is because Thomas is one of several DePaul College of Law students in a Death Penalty clinic course—offered through DePaul’s Center for Justice in Capital Cases (CJCC)—who worked to help win Hobley’s freedom.

Hobley, 42, who spent 16 years on Death Row after being wrongfully convicted of setting a 1987 fire that killed seven people including his wife and son, will personally thank Thomas and the other students who worked on his case when he visits the clinic class at 4 p.m. Jan. 15. He also will talk about his experience of being an innocent man sentenced to death. The class will be held in the DePaul College of Law Courtroom, 25 E. Jackson Blvd., 6th Floor, O’Malley Building.

“My initial feeling when I heard what Gov. Ryan said was that finally someone has seen what we had seen,” said Thomas, a 24-year-old, third-year law student, who did such things as interview witnesses to help prove Hobley’s innocence. “To know that we were a small part of this effort was something very rewarding.”

As part of their Death Penalty clinic experience, Thomas and eight other students helped prepare court documents for one of Hobley’s appeals as well as prepared materials for his October 18, 2002, clemency hearing. Students pored over nearly 8,000 pages of trial transcripts; interviewed witnesses and jurors; researched and wrote portions of an appellate brief; and traveled to the Pontiac Correctional Center, where Hobley was incarcerated, to help provide counsel.

The students also helped produce a video explaining Hobley’s case. The 12-minute video, which was played during Hobley’s clemency hearing, featured evidence that pointed to his innocence.

“The goal of the clinic is to provide students with the type of experience they’ll need to one day represent clients in complex litigation, as well as to defend clients in capital cases,” explained Andrea Lyon, director of the CJCC, who, along with Kurt Feuer of the law firm Ross & Hardies, represented Hobley in his appeals. “Students work on actual cases and assume active roles in the defense of clients.”

The CJCC, which was established by the DePaul’s College of Law in 2000, currently provides representation in four other cases: John Bass, who has been federally indicted for capital murder and is awaiting trial in Michigan; Kylleen Hargrave-Thomas, who was granted a new trial this summer and released on bond in Michigan after wrongfully spending almost 10 years in prison for her boyfriend’s murder; and Yvonne Cryns, a midwife who was acquitted in Illinois for involuntary manslaughter of an unborn child. A separate count of manslaughter of an unborn child resulted in a hung jury. Paul Beibel, Jr., Chief Judge of the Criminal Division of the Cook County Circuit Court recently appointed CJCC on a capital case awaiting trial in Chicago. Students say that working in the clinic is especially fulfilling because it gives them a chance to make a difference—sometimes between life and death.

“When I initially started reading the Hobley transcripts, I kept thinking how could this be?” said Umeki Johnson, 26, a third-year evening law student who read though every transcript in the Hobley case and helped write his appellate brief. “There was so much doubt that I wondered how anyone could read the testimony and say that this person should die. It was clear no one went out of their way to seek the truth.”