Carmody joins “Making a Murderer” attorneys in forensic nonprofit

James P. Carmody is not a criminal defense attorney. Nor is he a prosecutor. He’s a principal at Carmody MacDonald in Clayton and specializes in family law — primarily divorce-related matters.

So how did he end up on the advisory board of the Center for Integrity in Forensic Science, a nonprofit organization launched by Dean Strang and Jerome Buting — the Wisconsin lawyers made famous by the wildly popular Netflix documentary series, “Making a Murderer”?

Turns out Carmody was at a Starbucks at the right moment — and has a fascination with true-crime stories.

“I didn’t have expertise,” Carmody said in an interview, “but I had a level of interest and a willingness to contribute time and effort, so we just started talking about it, and it’s grown and evolved.”

The first season of “Making a Murderer” centered on the story of Steven Avery, of Manitowoc County, Wisconsin. Avery spent 18 years in prison for a sexual assault he did not commit, then was exonerated and released. He filed suit against local authorities, alleging wrongful conviction. Two years later, he was arrested again by local law enforcement, this time for murder, and was convicted in 2007. The filmmakers aimed to cast doubt on the validity of that conviction.

After the series first streamed on Netflix in 2015, Avery’s attorneys, Strang and Buting, quickly became legal celebrities for their spirited advocacy of his case. They caught the attention of Rich Ryffel, a senior lecturer at Washington University’s Olin Business School.

“I was a ‘Making a Murderer’ fanatic,” Ryffel said. So the following year, Ryffel contacted Strang and asked him to speak at the university. Strang agreed, and in September 2016, he gave a lecture at Wash U on criminal justice reform. After the speech, Ryffel took Strang out to dinner and asked if he would use his new-found fame to improve the world. Strang said he had some ideas, and he asked Ryffel for help.

One idea that came to fruition was the launch of the Center for Integrity in Forensic Science, which Strang and Buting helped to develop under the leadership of Keith A. Findley, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School. The goal of the nonprofit is to foster greater scientific rigor within the criminal justice system and to educate the public about it.

Ryffel, a former financial advisor and banker, had experience getting new entities off the ground. He joined the group’s advisory board and helped to define the board’s role. Yet he wasn’t a lawyer. He wanted to recruit board members with legal backgrounds. Thus he reached out to Carmody.

They had met by coincidence about two years earlier: Ryffel is an avid runner who worked out on Saturday mornings with a running group that would finish at the Starbucks on Wydown Boulevard at at South Hanley Road in Clayton. Carmody often was there at the same time getting coffee. As they repeatedly crossed paths, the two got to chatting.

“I knew he was connected in the legal community,” Ryffel said. “He’s intellectually curious, and he’s inclined to try to find a way to make things better. Frankly, I was thrilled he wanted to get involved.”

Carmody said he agreed in part because he has long had an interest in true-crime cases: the Zodiac Killer, the Black Dahlia murder, the Golden State Killer — and yes, to some extent, “Making a Murderer” (though his legal training made him suspect there was more to the story than what its filmmakers had included).

In addition, Carmody believed in the mission of CIFS. It wasn’t about winning exonerations or convictions, he said, but rather, finding the truth with more reliable methods.

“Our motto is that we’ll go where the science takes us,” Carmody said.

He started joining CIFS’s monthly conference calls. These days, he said, the group boasts a website and an administrative director. They are also developing a course syllabus for the University of Wisconsin with which law students will learn about the intersection of forensic science and the law.

More recently, Carmody helped arrange a CIFS fundraiser at Carmody MacDonald on the evening of Nov. 14. The group’s founders were there, along with Washington Post reporter and book author Radley Balko, who spoke about criminal-justice reform efforts. Carmody said that about 70 people attended. Many were criminal defense attorneys, though there were also physicians, business professionals and local high school students. Carmody declined to say how much was raised, but he said it “did very well.”

Carmody said that as CIFS matures and adds people with more expertise, he will likely recede into the background on the board. He would be willing, however, to donate his energies to help a criminal defense attorney work on a Missouri-based case if CIFS is interested in it.

Said Carmody: “I definitely intend to stay involved and contribute my time.”