JARED MILLER Star-Tribune capital bureau | Posted: Friday, February 29, 2008 12:00 am
CHEYENNE - A House committee Thursday gave its unanimous support to a bill that would allow wrongly convicted prisoners in Wyoming to use DNA evidence to prove their innocence.
Senate File 65 would put Wyoming in line with about 40 other states that already allow DNA-based exoneration.
Under current state law, innocent prisoners who have used up their two-year appeals period have almost no legal remedy to seek release. The exception is a rare governor's pardon.
"Right now if a person was to show us that in 1987 they were convicted of rape and they shouldn't have been, we would have no way to correct that," said Michael Blonigen, president of the Wyoming Prosecutors Association and district attorney in Casper, during testimony to the House Judiciary Committee.
SF 65 was crafted with the help from a coalition of prosecutors, defense lawyers and the Rocky Mountain Innocence Center in Utah, a nonprofit group that works to free innocent prisoners in the West.
The bill would allow convicts to petition the court to consider new DNA evidence. Supporters say stringent requirements in the bill will prevent all but the strongest cases from advancing.
Bob Lampert, director of the Wyoming Department of Corrections, said he expects a "very limited" number of prisoners to seek their freedom if the bill becomes law.
A judge would ultimately decide whether to grant a new trial in each case. The local prosecutor would have the power to refile the charges, or to simply allow the prisoner to go free.
The committee made one change that would specify that prisoners must appeal to the local prosecuting attorney, not the attorney general. The bill had said that prisoners must apply to both, and Rep. Keith Gingery, R-Jackson, was concerned that the requirement could cause confusion or turf wars.
"I think we need to pick one point, and I'd rather it was the person out in the field," Gingery said.
The committee also removed a provision that would have required an annual report to the Legislature on the impacts of the bill.
More than 200 wrongly convicted prisoners in the United States have been freed by genetic evidence since DNA testing became a widely used law enforcement tool in the 1990s.
The bill now moves to the full House for consideration. The Senate already passed the measure.
Reach capital bureau reporter Jared Miller at (307) 632-1244 or at {M3jared.miller@trib.com.