Governor Patrick Signs DNA Access Bill

Article and info provided by the Office Of State Senator Patricia Jehlen:

Governor Patrick signed a bill that will allow certain individuals convicted of crimes to access DNA evidence to help overturn their convictions, Senator Patricia Jehlen announced.  The law puts Massachusetts in line with 48 other states in providing a way to use DNA testing to exonerate wrongfully-convicted people.

“This long overdue bill will help those in the horrifying position of being locked up in prison for a crime that they did not commit,” said Sen. Jehlen.  “We should use our knowledge of science to ensure that innocent people are not imprisoned and that the guilty are convicted.”

Before this bill, access to DNA evidence to overturn convictions often could only be achieved through negotiating with the sentencing judge or the prosecutor.  Different prosecutors and judges had different standards leading to confusion and inequitable outcomes.  This bill will standardize the process to get access to DNA evidence.

The bill would allow individuals who have been convicted of a crime to file a motion with the courts requesting access to evidence for forensic testing that could prove their innocence.  Defendants would have to meet certain standards that show that the material in question has not been tested previously in the way sought, testing was not available at the time of conviction or the material itself was unavailable, and the evidence is admissible in court.

Similar bills had failed in the legislature in previous sessions.  For this session, many stakeholders, including prosecutors, police officials, defense attorneys, and judges, were brought in to help craft a bill that would be acceptable to all groups.

Senator Jehlen has worked on wrongful convictions for years.  When she was in the House of Representatives, she was the lead sponsor of An Act to Provide Compensation for Certain Erroneous Felony Convictions.  This bill, which provided a cause of action for certain individuals wrongfully convicted, was passed and signed into law in 2004.

While working on that bill, Sen. Jehlen met men who remained in prison for years after requesting DNA tests.  When those tests were finally granted, they proved that the men in prison were innocent.  In one case, the test even led to catching the real criminal.

One such individual was Dennis Maher.  Mr. Maher was convicted of two rapes and a sexual assault.  Nine years into that sentence, in 1993, he first heard about DNA testing.  Knowing he was innocent of the crimes he thought this could be a way out of the nightmare of wrongful imprisonment.  He fought through procedural hurdles for a decade before finally getting his DNA results back in 2003, which proved that he was innocent.  He spent over 19 years in prison for a crime he never committed.  The last 10 of which were due to a confusing and arbitrary DNA testing policy.