The Loevy/EP/R2R Contingent at the 2025 Innocence Network Conference
Every year, The Innocence Network—a national coalition of organizations dedicated to freeing the innocent and preventing wrongful convictions—holds a three-day conference bringing together the wrongfully convicted and advocates for justice. As the Innocence Project says, “it’s part strategy session, part healing circle, and part long-awaited family reunion.”
This year, the conference was held April 3–5 in Seattle, and the roughly 1,100 people who attended included 16 clients of Road 2 Reentry (R2R), a nonprofit jointly operated by Loevy + Loevy and our sister organization The Exoneration Project (EP). As its name implies, R2R provides vital services to help exonerees reclaim and rebuild their lives: everything from meeting immediate needs like clothes, food, healthcare, and I.D., to securing longer-term employment, education, and housing.
“The Exoneration Project sets them free, and Loevy + Loevy gets them justice,” says Thommy Purnell, who manages the program with volunteer Reyna Hernandez. “I like to say R2R is the bridge between those two, helping our clients figure out everything else they need.”
The 16 R2R clients who flew with our staff and attorneys to the conference all have very different stories, but they were all freed through the efforts of the EP, and most have pending lawsuits through Loevy + Loevy. Beyond that, as wrongfully convicted individuals, they share in common a knowledge and a kinship that makes them family.
“This year’s conference was a blast,” says Reyna. “As part of the client support team, we were in charge of managing logistics: getting our clients ready to travel, navigating the airports and getting to the hotel, and planning our welcome dinner, among other things. Most fulfilling for us, it meant spending time with our clients and fostering the community we want to build with them. Whether at conference sessions and events or during outings to explore Seattle, it was a memorable experience for all of us.”
Thommy Purnell, Reyna Hernandez, Oscar Soto, and therapist Tatiana Duchak present a panel at the conference
For many of the exonerees, this was their first time traveling in decades, or—for a few of them—ever.
“To be a part of a team that strives to introduce exonerees to first time experiences many of us take for granted is both humbling and inspiring,” says Thommy.
“To me, it’s a big party,” says R2R client Robert “Big Rob” Hill, who was attending the conference for the second time. “The word I use is ‘fellowship.’” Rob was wrongly convicted for a 2005 murder; his conviction was overturned in 2017, and the case was officially dismissed in 2021. This week, he purchased his first home, with a lot of help in navigating the process from Thommy. “Big Rob” is already planning the big party he’ll host there next year, when the Innocence Network Conference comes to Chicago.
Exoneree Oscar Soto shared his story on a panel at the conference. He was framed by Chicago police in 1997 for a murder he did not commit, and—though innocent—pled guilty in exchange for a reduced sentence. Oscar walked out prison twenty-five years ago, but only got his conviction overturned last year. During the panel discussion, he mentioned that he now wishes he could thank the unknown inmate who saved his life when, in a moment of despair, he attempted to hang himself in his cell.
“That was me!” his fellow R2R client, Louis Robinson exclaimed, and the two men embraced. (Louis was framed for a 1996 murder, and spent 27 years in prison—for a while, as Oscar Soto’s cellmate—before being exonerated in 2023.)
The latest exoneree on the trip, Robert Johnson, had barely begun to adjust to life on the outside, after nearly 29 years in prison. He had been free barely 40 days when he boarded the flight to Seattle, and it was less than 48 hours since he’d learned that all charges against him were officially dropped. Wrongfully convicted at just 16 years of age, the trip was Robert’s first time on an airplane, and—more importantly—his first time being in a community of so many people who understood his story.
“It changed me,” Robert says, smiling. “I felt different when I got back. You know, when you’re behind those walls all those years, it feels like everyone in the world is just working to keep you locked up. You don’t know that there are good people out there working for you, actually advocating to get you free.”
Recent exoneree Robert Johnson enjoys the view from the Space Needle in Seattle
After nearly three decades in prison, R2R is helping Robert adjust to a world he says sometimes feels like a different planet. For the moment that means helping him get a driver’s license and a job. But Robert’s longer-term plans include becoming a paralegal, and going into the business of helping people with stories like his.
“I never had any faith in the system,” he says. “But this whole thing has given me back some faith in people.”
