E22 Sandbar

Hallway Murrells
Inlet, SC 29576
5/5/16
Mrs. Crist
Saint James High School
10800 Hwy 707
Murrells Inlet, SC 29576
Dear Senior Exploration Judges:
Hello, my name is Carlee OBrien.I am currently working to complete my 4th year at Saint
James High School. I have a little brother who is 14 years old and will be a freshman at St. James
next year. After school and on the weekends, I work part time at Firehouse Subs in Surfside
Beach. Due to struggling with anxiety, I was on homebound for my first semester at St. James
High School. With the help and support of the amazing teachers and staff at St. James, I was able
to start coming to school full time my second semester of freshman year. I struggled with my
grades and attendance for my first 3 years of high school, but my teachers never gave up on me.
They always made sure I was caught up on my work and without their support I would not be
where I am today. My grades and attendance in my senior year have been better than they have
been in my whole high school career. On June 3rd 2016, I will graduate high school and start
attending Horry Georgetown Technical College in the fall. I am very grateful for the staff at St.
James, and I am very excited to start my life after high school.
When we started working on our Senior Exploration projects in English 4 back in January, I had
a very hard time picking a topic that I knew that I would be excited to learn more about. One day
after school, I was watching a documentary series on Netflix called Making a Murder. This
documentary was about a man named Stephen Avery who has been wrongfully imprisoned for
crimes he did not commit twice in his lifetime. Learning about Stephen Avery inspired me to
learn more about why innocent people are put in prison, how they are released, and how being
wrongfully imprisoned changes their lives. The more I researched this topic, it became more and
more clear to me that the idea that The United States has a flawless criminal justice system is
completely false. This project really made me realize just how many people have everything
taken away from them for crimes they did not commit.
The research part of this project was very interesting to me. I really enjoyed learning about some
of the victims of wrongful imprisonment, and what kind of efforts are being done to try to put a
stop to innocent people being put in prison. I had a hard time deciding how to complete my
service hours, but I finally found a local attorney at Grand Strand Law Group named Jarrett
Calder who was kind enough to let me spend the day with him in his office and let me interview
him on what it is like to be an attorney who specializes in representing innocent people. I had a
really amazing and life changing real world experience while completing my service hours, and
it turned out to be my favorite part of my whole project.
Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to participate in my Senior Exploration
project and reading a little bit about my life and the process of how I completed my project. You
are greatly appreciated for your services, and thank you again for your time.

Sincerely,

Carlee OBrien
Carlee OBrien