PHOENIX -- The Arizona Justice Project is making headway clearing wrongfully convicted felons, according to DNA Project Manager Lindsay Herf.

So far this year, the project has helped get DNA evidence tested in five rape cases and one murder case.

Herf said 40 more cases are under review.

“Cases continue to come in the door,” she said.

The project was set up to help overturn wrongful convictions.

The Innocence Project, a national organization dedicated to exonerating innocent convicts, has estimated 2 to 5 percent of convicts are innocent.

Dennis Fritz was one of them. He is a real-life character in John Grisham’s book "The Innocent Man."

He spoke during a forum on false confessions at Arizona State University on Thursday night.

"My story is unique in that you know I was a 7th, 8th, 9th grade school teacher,” he said. “I wasn't the local bum on the street.”

Fritz was wrongfully convicted of murdering and raping a waitress in Ada, Okla.

”I was convicted, given a lift sentence without parole,” Fritz said. "They did try me for the death penalty, and I fell short of one vote of getting the death penalty."

He spent 11 years in prison before DNA evidence cleared him.

“My story sets the examples that you know that anyone can be convicted,” he said.

Herf is still waiting for results from DNA evidence the Arizona Justice Project had tested.

"If there is one more Dennis Fritz,“ she said. “I think it's our job, it's our state's job to find them and help them attain their freedom again.”