Michael "Mike" Semanchik is the Executive Director of The Innocence Center (TIC) and former Managing Attorney at the California Innocence Project (CIP). As part of his work with CIP, he has been involved in many cases involving the exoneration of previously convicted prisoners, working closely with the organization's director, Justin Brooks, and also preparing petitions for many of CIP's clients. After working at CIP while still a law student at California Western School of Law, following graduation in 2010 he became an investigator and then a staff attorney there.
He was involved in the high-profile case of star linebacker Brian Banks, and was instrumental in Banks' exoneration in 2012 from a wrongful 2002 conviction as a sex offender, which had destroyed Banks' promising career as a high-school athlete. As a result of his work on this case, the (now defunct) California Lawyer Magazine named Semanchik Attorney of the Year in 2013.
In the Spring of 2013, Semanchik and two other CIP attorneys walked over 700 miles from San Diego to Sacramento in an event called The Innocence March, a public protest against the incarceration of twelve California inmates they considered innocent, which also served to bring awareness to the problem of wrongly convicted prisoners. They also presented twelve petitions to California Governor Jerry Brown, demanding clemency for the twelve.
Semanchik has spoken at a number of conferences relating to investigations and his work with the California Innocence Project. He has appeared in the media relating to this work over three dozen times. He has also authored essays relating to the criminal justice system, advocating for reform. In 2014, the San Diego Daily Transcript recognized Semanchik in its list of "Top Attorneys."
Legal training In 2008, while still attending CWSL, he joined CIP as a clinic student, through which he investigated claims of innocence under staff supervision. Following his year as a clinic student, Semanchik assisted director Justin Brooks in drafting the first Wrongful Conviction Casebook. In 2010, Semanchik graduated cum laude from California Western School of Law.
Innocence work
Responsibilities As Managing Attorney of the California Innocence Project, Semanchik's responsibilities included drafting, filing and litigating habeas petitions and motions for DNA testing in California State courts. He also supervised and oversaw law students in the clinical program. He has interviewed and hired as many as 60 interns a year. He also managed CIP's social media presence and website, and produces film and videos for promotional materials. He coordinated with news agencies around the world to maximize CIP's media exposure. He located, around the U.S., witnesses for cases, and interviews potential clients in prisons all over California.
Prominent cases
Brian Banks The 2002 conviction of All Star linebacker Brian Banks on false charges of rape and kidnapping was dismissed in 2012, directly due to the efforts of the California Innocence Project. Following his initial arrest for the alleged crimes, Banks, despite his protestations of innocence, faced a possible conviction, if the case had gone to trial, of 41-years-to-life, and reluctantly agreed to a plea bargain. He was then given an unexpectedly harsh sentence of six years in prison (of which he served five years and two months), followed by five years' probation and registration as a sex offender.
After his release on probation, he arranged for a meeting with his accuser, Wanetta Gibson (who had contacted him through Facebook), at which she admitted on video that there had been no rape or kidnapping in 2002, and that their encounter had been completely consensual. The video evidence was not admissible in court, because the video had been made without Gibson's knowledge or consent and was not accompanied by a signed confession from the young woman. However, Semanchik was instrumental in putting together additional evidence supporting Banks' story, which led the district attorney to dismiss all charges against him and release him from sex-offender status, allowing him to resume his aborted sports career.
Banks supports CIP in its efforts on behalf of the wrongly-convicted, including participating in CIP's 2013 Innocence March (see below). He often wears a shirt with the lettering "XONR8" ("exonerate"). Semanchik, as a result of his work on this case, was named by California Lawyer Magazine as Attorney of the Year in 2013.
Guy Miles Semanchik helped defend Guy Miles, who was wrongly convicted of robbery. Semanchik explained in a television interview why the eyewitness identifications in this case were unreliable, and why standards regarding such testimony must be strengthened. "The detective [in the case] took six-pack lineups… and he put more than one suspect in the six-pack, which is an absolute no-no… he also put various sizes of people in the same six-pack, various hair styles… the five fillers [non-suspects] are supposed to look somewhat similar to what the suspect looks like," but in this case, they did not.
However, despite the fact that Miles had numerous witnesses to provide an alibi for his whereabouts at the time of the crime, and the fact that the two men indisputably guilty of the robbery confessed that Miles had had absolutely nothing to do with the crime, the judge in the case refused to exonerate Miles, maintaining that the eyewitness identifications were strong and rejecting the argument of California Innocence Project attorneys that they were not. Miles was finally freed in June 2017 after 18 years in prison, following a second hearing that reversed his earlier conviction.
Kimberly Long Kim Long was convicted of murdering her boyfriend in 2003, and her case was received by the California Innocence Project in 2009. After many years of extensive investigation, research and forensic testing, the CIP became certain of Kim's innocence. The case was assigned to CIP attorney Alissa Bjerkhoel. The prosecution's case hinged on the testimony of a single witness, a friend of Long's, who had claimed that, on the night of the murder, he had dropped Long off at the apartment that she and the victim shared, at a time which the prosecution claimed would have allowed Long a window of opportunity sufficient to have committed the crime – and concealed her involvement – before calling 911 to report the death. (Since the witness himself had died in an unrelated accident shortly after providing his testimony, he could not be cross-examined.)
However, the CIP provided forensic proof that the victim had been killed prior to the witness' alleged drop-off time for Long (that is, before the earliest possible time of her return to the apartment), and that, even if the victim had actually been killed after that point in time, Long would not have had enough time to murder her boyfriend and hide evidence of that fact from police. DNA from an unknown male was also recovered at the crime scene. The evidence of her innocence was so compelling that the very same judge who heard the original case reversed the conviction in June 2016.
William Richards William Richards was convicted in 1993 for murdering his wife Pamela and served 23 years in prison. Part of the reason he was convicted of the murder was because an expert testified that an apparent bite mark on the victim's body was made by Richards. The expert later recanted his testimony. In addition, testing revealed that the DNA on the murder weapons and the hairs under the victim's fingernails belonged to neither Richards nor the victim.
When he was released, Richards, 67, was broke, homeless, without a job and suffering from prostate cancer. Wendy Koen, a student who had worked on Bill's case and subsequently became a lawyer, offered to give Bill a place to stay upon his release. Semanchik and CIP have since tried to obtain compensation from the state for the decades he spent wrongly incarcerated.
Reggie Cole In 1994, Reggie Cole was convicted of the shooting of Felipe Angeles after being misidentified by an eyewitness, a local brothel owner. The police allege that the killer was shot in the leg upon leaving the scene and, after finding a gunshot wound in Cole's leg, concluded that he was the perpetrator. However, despite the fact that medical records were produced that proved Cole had actually received his leg wound six years prior, he was convicted.
In 2010, due to the efforts of the California Innocence Project, Cole's conviction was thrown out due to ineffective assistance of counsel, and five years later he was found "factually innocent." Semanchik appeared in the 2018 documentary, Survivors Guide to Prison, in relation to his work on the Reggie Cole case.
Michael Hanline In November 1978, the body of truck driver J.T. McGarry, who had been shot multiple times, was found over 25 miles from his Ventura County home. Michael Hanline was suspected of having murdered him, with the help of an accomplice, because he and McGarry had both been involved with the same woman. Largely on this woman's testimony, Hanline was sentenced to life without parole in 1980. CIP eventually discovered that a since-deceased attorney named Bruce Robertson had attempted to implicate Hanline in order to direct suspicion away from his own clients, and had intimidated potential witnesses. A witness had even placed Robertson at McGarry's home on the night of his murder. In addition, DNA testing pointed to Hanline's innocence, and it was established that the woman who testified against him had been on drugs, both on the night of the murder and at the time of her testimony.
On November 24, 2014, Hanline was released from Ventura County Court a free man, and in April of the following year, a judge dismissed all charges against him, as the district attorney had decided not to retry the case. Having served 36 years behind bars, Hanline was the longest-incarcerated person whose conviction was reversed in the history of the State of California until Craig Coley was exonerated in 2017.
Scott McMahon Scott McMahon is a United States citizen who was wrongfully imprisoned in the Philippines from April, 2011 to August, 2016. Dolores San Pablo Vermeulen, the wife of an acquaintance, had previously called in the police to raid McMahon's home in search of her husband, an action that had an extremely traumatic effect on McMahon's son. McMahon then brought a lawsuit against Vermeulen for child abuse. Vermeulen in turn accused McMahon of having raped her in February 2010, though she had brought no charges until six months after the alleged rape. A medical examination of Vermeulen showed no sign of rape, and McMahon could prove that he was on vacation hundreds of miles away with his family at the time of the alleged assault. Despite lack of evidence of any crime, McMahon was arrested.
The California Innocence Project partnered with the David House Agency to represent McMahon, who was held in prison without bail in conditions described as "filthy and overcrowded with an overpowering stench." Semanchik, who attended some of McMahon's bail hearings, commented, "If the authorities in the Philippines would have done even a shred of an investigation, they would've quickly realized that Scott couldn't have done this." Finally, on August 2, 2016, a Filipino judge acquitted McMahon of all charges. However, McMahon could not leave the country, because the Filipino Bureau of Immigration demanded that he pay them $1000 for every year since his visa expired, despite the fact that the only reason he let it expire was because he had been imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit. Due to heavy U.S. government pressure, McMahon was allowed to return home to Seattle on September 4, 2016.
Horace Roberts