BOISE - A program in Idaho aiming to exonerate innocent people wrongly convicted of crimes has lost federal funding and won't take new cases even as it continues to work on existing ones.

The Idaho Innocence Project distributed form letters to inmates seeking its help, advising them it's no longer taking on new clients, the Spokesman-Review reported.

The effort, housed at Boise State University and run by biology professor Greg Hampikian, plans to continue work on existing high-profile cases with coming hearings.

Those include a woman, Sarah Pearce, seeking a new trial following her 2003 assault conviction.

Associated Press

and Christopher Tapp, convicted in 1996 of murder in Idaho Falls.

Hampikian is seeking alternative sources of funding, now that his grants from the U.S. Department of Justice's Wrongful Conviction Review Program have evaporated.