Sam Watson-Stevens ’27 reflects on summer internship with Exoneration Project in Chicago
Watson-Stevens discusses his summer internship, how Carleton helped him prepare for it, the meaning in his work, and the future.
There’s a running stereotype on campus that Carleton students can’t help themselves from doing a little bit of everything and staying constantly busy. That’s certainly true for Sam Watson-Stevens ’27, a studio art major who spent ten weeks of his summer in Chicago as an intern for the Exoneration Project.
The Exoneration Project is a nonprofit organization that does private, pro-bono (free or low-cost) legal work for incarcerated individuals seeking exoneration. Their stated mission is to “fight to free the wrongfully convicted, exonerate the innocent, and bring justice to the justice system.” For interns like Watson-Stevens, this looks like reviewing applications from incarcerated people, recommending or passing on them, and attending court hearings to observe and assist attorneys.
Another job of the summer interns was research projects assigned by attorneys from the organization. In Watson-Stevens’s case, that included having to find the TV schedule for August of 1999 to fact-check a story. But, as it turns out, Carleton helped prepare him for this.
“I’ve taken two history classes with [Associate Professor of History Rebecca] Brückmann, and she’s an incredible professor,” Watson-Stevens said. “She expects us to use primary sources in our research. For my last class, we were looking for old newspapers from Cuba from the eighteenth and nineteenth century, and she recommended we use the research assistants at the library. She gave us a bunch of directions to pursue, and that definitely gave me the confidence to just start searching for something [and keep going] until you find it.”
Watson-Stevens’s experience at Carleton was also partly responsible for his choice to intern with the Exoneration Project in the first place. Inspired by his course, POSC 225: Prisons and Punishment, he said it “was really impactful for me to learn about the prison system … from a philosophical perspective, [which] made me want to do more on-the-ground work that actually impacts people in a concrete way.”
“The [most meaningful part of the work] is just seeing how hopeful [clients] are in the different ways they’ve taken action in the face of such horrible injustice,” Watson-Stevens said. “A lot of them do incredible art and have gotten law degrees. That’s been really inspiring and moving for me. Also, when we go to court to represent somebody, their whole family comes out, and we get to meet all of them. We’re all just so excited to be there.”
This isn’t Watson-Stevens’s first experience in justice-focused, legally minded work, either. He is also a member of Carleton’s Community Board on Sexual Misconduct, where he said the practice of considering all perspectives and reading difficult accounts helped prepare him for his internship.
For other students interested in competitive programs like this, Watson-Stevens’s application advice is to be as personal as possible; don’t rely on a broad, bland cover letter that could apply to multiple internships. Plus, embrace being a Carl! Apply that signature Carleton work ethic, and take advantage of the opportunity to explore interdisciplinary interests before graduation.
“I didn’t realize until now how lucky I’ve been at Carleton to be able to pursue all of my different interests at once,” he said.
What’s next for Watson-Stevens? Now that his internship is over, he wants to finish his degree at Carleton before pursuing a year-long internship or job in the realm of public defense before committing to his decision of applying to law schools.
“I think [public defense] is closer to the intersection of the philosophical stuff we learned about in [class] and the issues that the prison system has, even for people who are ‘rightly incarcerated’,” Watson-Stevens said. “There’s something really radical about representing everyone, not just people we have a strong case for.”
Due to the slow nature of litigation, most of the cases Watson-Stevens worked on during his internship are still ongoing. But —
“I do feel like I have done meaningful work,” Watson-Stevens said. “It’ll be exciting to keep in touch with the Exoneration Project for the next few years and see the end results or exonerations on the cases that I’ve worked on.”