Erica Nichols Cook

Erica Nichols Cook has been the Director of the Wrongful Conviction Division of the Iowa State Public Defender since December, 2016. She developed the new division into a member of the national Innocence Network in 2022. In January 2020, Erica founded the inaugural Wrongful Convictions Clinic at Drake Law School and serves as a Clinician in Residence.

Prior to returning to Des Moines, Iowa, she practiced criminal trial, appellate and post-conviction law in Illinois. She began investigating wrongful convictions as an undergraduate student at the University of Illinois-Springfield and received her Bachelor’s in Arts Degree. She earned her Juris Doctorate Degree from Drake Law School. She has been a public defender in Cook County, Illinois; a state appellate defender and a staff attorney for the Illinois Innocence Project. She has taught students at University of Illinois-Springfield and Southern Illinois University Law School.

Erica is passionate about justice and wrongful convictions and frequently presents and teaches about the causes of wrongful convictions, post-conviction relief law and unreliable forensic science. She was lead counsel for William Amor in his post-conviction proceedings to overturn his 1995 murder and arson conviction, where the court found that Mr. Amor’s confession was scientifically impossible based on developments in fire investigation science. Erica was a part of his trial team in 2018 when Mr. Amor was acquitted of first-degree murder and arson after spending 22 years in prison for a crime he did not commit.