The New York
State Bar Association (NYSBA) House
of
Delegates has approved
a report
from the Task Force on Wrongful Convictions that recommends the establishment
of
conviction integrity
units (CIUs) in each of New
York’s 62 counties, as well
as a change to the current criminal law that would
allow a new evidence claim
after a guilty plea, and also calls for new legislation to improve
the quality of forensic science
admitted into evidence.
The current Task
Force on Wrongful
Convictions examined the critical issues
that have arisen in the criminal justice community
over the past decade: conviction integrity
units; forensic issues; actual
innocence; the implementation of new
statewide legislation; and the use of jailhouse
informants. A NYSBA task force on this
issue formed in 2009
identified primary factors
responsible for wrongful
conviction in its report, released in 2009.
“Over the last decade, we have
seen an increased
awareness on the issue
of
wrongful convictions and the unreliability of forensic evidence.
This task force’s recommendations, if implemented, will
give wrongfully convicted
persons additional recourse for
exoneration and will make
it less
likely that some wrongful convictions will
occur in the first place,” said
NYSBA President Michael
Miller. “The members of this task force
and its co-chairs, former
judges Barry Kamins and Robert S. Smith have made a great contribution on a profoundly
important topic and are to
be commended for their diligence in making
recommendations.”
Conviction Integrity Units
The report includes the recommendation that each district
attorney’s office in the state
have a CIU or conviction review
program that follows comprehensive best
practices established by the task force. It also
recommends the establishment of a statewide fund to support the creation
of CIUs and review of individual
cases, while also asking the Legislature to grant the judiciary the power to issue investigative subpoenas
connected to any ongoing CIU review.
Forensic Issues
Citing a report from the Innocence
Project which has found that “misapplication of forensic science is the
second most common contributing
factor to wrongful
convictions, found in
nearly half (45 percent) of DNA exoneration cases,”
the task force recommends new legislation to improve
the quality of forensic science
admitted into evidence.
The new statute would
only be applied
in criminal cases and would require expert testimony
to be the product of reliable
principles and methods,
based on sufficient facts
or data and, when scientific evidence is offered,
the experts’ method
must be shown to be
reproducible and accurate by empirical studies.
Actual Innocence
The task force report recommends
adding a new section to New
York Criminal Procedure Law that would
permit a newly discovered evidence claim after
a guilty plea.
The
current section requires “probability that had such evidence been received
at the trial the verdict would
have been more favorable
to the defendant.” The task force
recommends that where a
defendant pled guilty, a newly
discovered evidence requires “a substantial probability that the defendant was actually
innocent of the offense of
which he or she was convicted.”
Implementation of Statewide
Legislation
The report recommends further
collection of statewide data to better understand how the new laws regarding eyewitness identification and recording of interrogations
to better determine if additional training or resources
are
needed and to determine if evidence is being collected in the way the ensures the intent
of
the law is being realized.
Use Jailhouse
Informants
The report also recommends further study to
determine whether additional
protections to ensure informant safety are needed before implementing the model policy
for the county-based tracking and disclosure of jailhouse
information and testimony. Task force members determined that additional study is needed
by the State Bar
regarding the establishment of a
statewide tracking system by an as- yet-to-be-determined centralized
agency.
About New York
State Association
The New York State Bar Association is the largest voluntary
state bar association in the
nation. Since 1876, the Association has helped
shape the development of law, educated and
informed the legal profession and the public, and championed the rights
of
New Yorkers through advocacy
and guidance in our
communities.
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Contact: Brendan Kennedy
[email protected]
518-487-5541
