IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — Iowa’s one-year-old wrongful conviction division is getting a new director, following the departure of its first leader this fall.
The State Public Defender’s Office tells The Associated Press that it has hired Illinois assistant appellate defender Erica Nichols Cook to lead the division.
A Drake law school graduate, Cook is expected to start in December. The division was formed to investigate cases in which Iowa inmates claim they are innocent.
The hiring comes after the previously unannounced September resignation of director Audrey McGinn, who returned to a job with the California Innocence Project.
The division is investigating more than 100 cases, including dozens from the 1980s and 1990s that may involve discredited hair evidence. It has yet to make any filings that seek to challenge convictions or obtain new testing.
