Professor Emily Ryan is the leader of the Hudson University Innocence Coalition in charge of attempts to exonerate murderer and hate criminal Cedric Stuber. Her tactics involved having student Lisa Klein bribe witness Rodrigo Diaz to falsely testify, then blackmailing former student and case prosecutor Michael Cutter for not gaining all degrees to pass the legal bar for his legal license.
When she was still persistent, Cutter himself blackmailed Stuber with testifying about his age speech, which he’d argue would be grounds for hate crime charges to never let him walk free. Stuber pleaded to manslaughter and was sentenced to 25 years in prison, while Ryan’s cases were reviewed to determine if she secured exonerations by vetting her students for results by any and all means. (L&O: “Innocence”)