Despite successes, DNA project fights for survival.

After spending more than half his life in prison for a brutal rape he did not commit, Wilton Dedge is the latest embodiment of the use of high-tech DNA testing that finally cleared his name.

On August 12, after serving 22 years in prison, 42-year-old Dedge walked out of a cell in Brevard County a free man, with nothing but a few possessions in a plastic bag.

It's the kind of headline-grabbing, editorial-inspiring example of justice delayed that justifies the existence of the Innocence Project, which took on Dedge's case as its first in Florida, and helped launch the Florida Innocence Initiative, housed at Florida State University's College of Law.

Just as Dedge didn't even get the $100 that Florida gives ex-cons who serve their time, the Innocence Initiative program that labors to free the wrongly convicted gets no funding from the state.

This summer, Jenny Greenberg, the lawyer who runs the Innocence Initiative on a shoestring budget with one other employee, was packing boxes and wiping away tears because a money crunch threatened to shut the doors.

"So many people rely on us. What they rely on is one almost broke lawyer in Tallahassee. We are in crisis. I constantly have this feeling: Do other lawyers just not care?" Greenberg asked, admitting she felt angry and exhausted about this important mission without steady funding.

Coming to the rescue was Sandy D'Alemberte, chair of the board of directors of the Innocence Initiative, who wrote a personal check for $1,000 that brought tears to Greenberg's eyes.

And then D'Alemberte, former president of FSU and the ABA, got busy dialing for dollars.

One of those calls was to The Florida Bar.

Bar President Kelly Overstreet Johnson responded with a $25,000 contribution from the Florida Lawyers Association for the Maintenance of Excellence (FLAME) fund.

"Just as it is horrible to think an innocent person has been wrongly convicted and has been languishing in prison, it is equally horrible to realize the real violent criminal is still at large," Johnson said.

"The Florida Innocence Initiative, with very limited resources, carries out an essential mission in ferreting out the truth with DNA evidence and is most worthy of the Bar's assistance. This contribution from FLAME funds will help further the fair administration of justice."

The Bar's contribution is a lifeline to the struggling, but dedicated, group that is part of the national network of the Innocence Project, founded in 1992 at Cardozo School...