February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
But Marcus Joyce may well be the first foreign intern to be cited in the lead paragraph of an article in the New York Law Journal.
Ahead of a year with London’s Inns of Court School of Law, the Renmore, Galway City native began summer work with the Innocence Project at the end of June. He wasn’t long making an impact.
Based on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, the group handles only cases where post-conviction DNA testing of evidence can yield conclusive proof of innocence.
It recently got a breakthrough in the case of a man sentenced to life in the stabbing murder of a woman in 1997.
A test using the latest DNA techniques showed that genetic material found under the fingernails of the victim did not come from her or the man convicted of her murder.
“We think the genetic material in all likelihood came from the real killer,” said Colin Starger, the Innocence Project’s attorney on the case. “The DNA results came back on Marcus’s first day. I gave him huge volumes of trial transcripts. His goal was to summarize the relevant testimony.”
Starger was particularly interested in the evidence — such as the position of her body and her wounds — that showed the woman put up a struggle before she was killed. The more sustained her self-defense, the more likely she scraped her killer.
Closely reading the text, Joyce “rediscovered” three hairs found on the slain woman that had been mentioned in court. Starger explained that when new legal teams take on revived cases, certain details get “lost” or forgotten about over time.
“He was very diligent and detail-orientated and had the good sense to know what was given to him had a context,” Starger said of the student.
When he made his discovery, the attorney said, Joyce knew it was relevant.
An early generation DNA test at the time showed the hairs belonged neither to the victim nor the accused. But the prosecution assured the jury that the strands, one found in her hand and two on her stomach, could have come from anywhere and were not relevant.
Now, in light of the new findings, the Innocence Project wants the authorities (it prefers not to name in what state at this point) to find the hairs and submit them a new test with the newer DNA techniques.
If they can’t be found, then there’s an alternative route: the genetic material from the fingernails should be tested using the old method.
“If that can be matched, then we definitely have the identity of this person [the real killer],” Starger said. He cautioned, though, that the campaign to release the man in its early stages.
The 24-year-old Joyce is happy to have played a role in the process. “You are given a lot of responsibility,” he said of the Innocence Project, which employed 18 interns this summer.
He argued that the New York Law Journal may have stressed his role in its Aug. 20 piece because it could refer to the “luck of the Irish” in the lead paragraph.
He added that the paper misreported it as a death-row case. The misunderstanding happened, he believes, because he spoke to the journalist at length about his opposition to capital punishment.
“I’ve always had an interest in these types of issues,” the intern said.
For that reason, he sought out the Innocence Project, which in its mission statement says it works for clients who are “poor, forgotten, and have used up all of their legal avenues for relief.” (Thousands of convicted prisoners are waiting to have their cases evaluated by the group.)
Leaving high school, however, Joyce had no ambitions to be a lawyer and thus had no interest in studying for a law degree, which is available to undergraduates at Irish universities.
Rather, as he’d always had a talent for languages, he elected to study French and Italian at the National University of Ireland, Galway. He then obtained a postgraduate degree in European studies at University College Dublin.
After a year working in England, Joyce began his legal studies, influenced by his girlfriend, who’s from Tribeca in Manhattan. Margaret Parvin is due to begin work as a trainee lawyer with a firm this fall.
“She’s taking the solicitor route,” Joyce said, referring to the type of attorney who, in the British and Irish systems, does not usually advocate in court.
A year behind her, Joyce will begin his own apprenticeship as a barrister in the fall of 2005 with Three Temple Gardens, a London firm specializing in criminal defense and family law.
He’s now set on a career as an advocate. “That’s the intention,” he said. “Criminal defense is my passion.”
Courtroom victories will have to wait, but his Manhattan internship has given him an unexpected foretaste of success.
“It’s a positive feeling,” he said.