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Exoneration Using DNA Brings Change in Legal System - New York Times: State lawmakers across the country are adopting broad changes to criminal justice procedures as a response to the exoneration of more than 200 convicts through the use of DNA evidence.

All but eight states now give inmates varying degrees of access to DNA evidence that might not have been available at the time of their convictions. Many states are also overhauling the way witnesses identify suspects, crime labs handle evidence and informants are used.

At least six states have created commissions to expedite cases of those wrongfully convicted or to consider changes to criminal justice procedures. One of them, the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice, will hold a hearing this month on remedies for people who have been wrongfully convicted.

Laws in several states, including Illinois, New Jersey and North Carolina, have bipartisan backing, with many Democrats supportive on civil rights grounds and Republicans generally hoping that tighter procedures will lead to fewer challenges of convictions.

“Technology has made a big difference,” said Margaret Berger, a DNA legal expert who is on a National Academy of Sciences panel that is looking into the changing needs of forensic scientists. “We see that there are new techniques for ascertaining the truth.”

Maryland, North Carolina, Vermont and West Virginia passed legislation this year to create tougher standards for the identification of suspects by witnesses, one of the most trouble-ridden procedures.

Nationwide, misidentification by witnesses led to wrongful convictions in 75 percent of the 207 instances in which prisoners have been exonerated over the last decade, according to the Innocence Project, a group in New York that investigates wrongful convictions.

Legislatures considered 25 witness identification bills in 17 states this year, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers reported. Five states approved bills, while five states defeated them. Bills are pending in seven states.

“It’s become clear that eyewitnesses are fallible,” said Lt. Kenneth A. Patenaude, a police commander in Northampton, Mass., who is an expert on witness identification techniques.

(Read Original Article - Via New York Times .)