For several years, students in the Michigan Clinical Law Program have been taking turns trying to free Thomas Cress from a state penitentiary. Cress, a borderline-retarded father of three, has already served 22 years of a life sentence, without the possibility of parole, for the 1983 rape and murder of a Battle Creek teenager named Patricia Rosansky.

Cress has steadfastly maintained his innocence. There was no physical evidence linking Cress to the crime, and his confirmed alibi was never refuted at trial. He has taken and passed a polygraph test.

Another man, a convicted rapist and murderer named Michael Ronning, has since confessed to the crime for which Cress was convicted. Ronning has been linked to similar crimes in numerous cities across the country, including two officially "unsolved" Battle Creek murders that occurred within months of Rosanky's.

In 1992, the Battle Creek police chief asked the prosecutor who had won Cress's conviction to investigate the Ronning-Rosansky connection. Tragically, the prosecutor responded by ordering the destruction of DNA evidence that could have confirmed Ronning's guilt and exonerated Cress.

The Michigan Clinical Law Program typically handles a wide variety of cases for clients who could not otherwise afford legal representation - everything from landlord-tenant issues to minor criminal offenses. But Cress is without a doubt the program's most high-profile client. His case received national attention when Dateline NBC ran an hour-long special about it roughly seven years ago.

The Cress case has also inspired federal legislation. In 2004, Congress passed the Innocence Protection Act to prevent prosecutors from destroying DNA evidence after securing convictions. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), a sponsor of the act, specifically pointed to Cress as proof that the law was necessary.

In reference to Cress, Levin said: "It strikes me as an egregious violation of fundamental fairness for a prosecutor, when told by experienced detectives that a man is in prison who they believe is innocent of a crime another man has confessed to, and that justice requires a new trial at which physical evidence under the prosecutor's control would be highly relevant, to willfully and purposefully burn that evidence."

The clinic first became involved with the Cress case in 2003 when Prof. Bridget McCormack filed an amicus brief asking the Michigan Supreme Court to award Cress a new trial.

After a new trial was denied, McCormack became Cress's attorney and filed a federal petition for habeas corpus. But in April the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied the petition, thus exhausting Cress's last judicial remedy.

Cress's fate now rests on a grant of clemency. As Cress's latest student attorneys working under McCormack's supervision, we have been tasked with putting together a clemency petition that will reach Gov. Jennifer Granholm's desk before her term expires in January 2011. Although Granholm has not used her clemency power much to date, we are hopeful that she is seriously considering meritorious petitions for clemency at this time.

We want to distinguish Cress's petition from the thousands filed each year. Our goal is to create a multimedia clemency petition that will convince the parole board to recommend Cress's release.

For us to succeed, we need help. We are asking students, particularly those of you with experience producing films and designing websites as well as those of you with a strong interest in law or politics, to share your talents with us for the benefit of a man in need.

Just showing that a diverse group of University students has adopted Cress's cause may be enough to make all the difference.

Tim Kuhn and Doron Yitzchaki are third-year law students and members of the Michigan Clinical Law Program.