The Innocence Network is pleased to announce that Johnnie Lee Savory and Steven Drizin have been co-awarded the 2026 Champion of Justice Award. The Champion of Justice Award honors those who have gone above and beyond in championing the efforts that free the wrongfully convicted and reform the criminal justice system to prevent future wrongful convictions.

Mr. Savory was nominated for this award by Jeanne Segil, the assistant director of the Korey Wise Innocence Project; Rob Warden and Larry Marshall, the co-founders of the Center on Wrongful Convictions; and Eric Zorn, a journalist for the Chicago Tribune. Mr. Savory has tirelessly advocated to address wrongful convictions and promote justice, worked on policy in Illinois that helped pass a bill prohibiting the use of deception in police interrogations of children, and has continued efforts to improve Illinois’s compensation statute. By sharing his story and amplifying the stories of others, Mr. Savory has ensured that exoneree voices are at the heart of the innocence movement.

Mr. Drizin was nominated by Lauren Kaeseberg, the legal director of the Illinois Innocence Project, and Laura Nirider, the co-founder of And Justice For All. Mr. Drizin has worked to expose, challenge, and transform the systems that have allowed false confessions and wrongful convictions to persist. His advocacy in the courtroom has helped many young people who had been coerced into false confessions secure their freedom, including Mr. Savory. His research moved the Supreme Court to formally acknowledge that children are more likely than adults to give false confessions, and his public advocacy demystified false confessions for millions.

Mr. Savory and Mr. Drizin join the ranks of past Champion of Justice Award winners, including the Texas House of Representatives Criminal Jurisprudence Committee; Norris Henderson, the founder and executive director of Voice of the Experienced; the Comité Exijimos Justicia and Innocence Demand Justice; Larry Hammond, founder of the Arizona Justice Project; John Thompson, founder of Resurrection After Exoneration; and Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative.

The Innocence Network is pleased to announce that Alison Flowers and her team, including Erisa Apantaku, Dana Brozost-Kelleher, Ellen Glover, and Jonah Newman, have been awarded the 2026 Jim Dwyer Award for Journalism. The Jim Dwyer Award for Journalism honors outstanding reporting about wrongful convictions and the reform of the criminal legal system.

Ms. Flowers and her team were nominated for this award by Lauren Myerscough-Mueller, senior staff attorney of the Exoneration Project, for the remarkable work their yearlong investigation did to uncover significant new evidence in Robert Johnson’s case and start him on the path to exoneration. Their work was the blueprint for his legal team’s investigation, and the groundwork they laid allowed his legal team to progress Mr. Johnson’s case much faster, which saved him years of wrongful imprisonment.

Ms. Flowers and her team joins the ranks of past Jim Dwyer Award winners, including Dan Slepian of NBC News; Susan Simpson, Jacinda Davis, and Kevin Fitzpatrick of the Proof podcast; Elisha Anderson of the Detroit Free Press; Luke Nozicka of The Kansas City Star; and Liliana Segura of The Intercept.

The Innocence Network is pleased to announce that Clarissa Glenn has been awarded the 2026 Impact Award. The Impact Award honors an exonerated or freed person who raises awareness of wrongful convictions and policy issues, or who assists others post-release. Their work demonstrates a commitment to improving the criminal legal system and its outcomes or reducing the harm caused by the criminal legal system by working to help other freed people after their release.

Clarissa Glenn was nominated for this award by Josh Tepfer, the co-director of the Exoneration Project, for her incredible bravery standing up to a corrupt group of police officers led by disgraced former Chicago Police Sergeant Ronald Watts. Ms. Glenn’s efforts to speak out and expose their corruption led to her own false arrest, but she remained undeterred. Her persistence ultimately led to her own exoneration, as well as the exonerations of 250 others.

Ms. Glenn joins the ranks of past Impact Award winners Amanda Knox, an activist and author; Andrew Wilson, founding donor of the Los Angeles Innocence Project; and Calvin Duncan, co-founder of Rising Foundations.