(CNN) -- During the past two decades, the Innocence Project and other advocates have been utilizing rapid advances in the scientific testing of genetic materials.

DNA testing of evidence in criminal cases has resulted in freedom for hundreds of prisoners across the United States who were wrongfully convicted.

The Innocence Project was founded at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University in 1992, and became an independent nonprofit organization (still closely affiliated with Cardozo) in 2004. Since the organization’s founding, 311 people have been exonerated through DNA testing in the United States, including 18who were at one time sentenced to death. In most of these DNA exonerations, the Innocence Project either was the attorney of record or consulted with the defendant’s attorneys. Our unique combination of science, law, and social justice has created a cohesive and powerful program for individual freedom and policy reform.