Mass. Lawmakers Consider DNA Access Bill

Updated: 6/14/11

A Massachusetts legislative committee heard testimony today on a bill that would allow convicted people to seek DNA testing on evidence that could prove their innocence. The state is one of just two in the country (Oklahoma is the other) without any law granting post-conviction DNA access.

Exoneree Dennis Maher

writes in today’s Boston Herald

about the 19 years he spent in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.  He writes:

On behalf of the nine Massachusetts DNA exonerees and those innocent people who may now be wrongly incarcerated or may be in the future, I ask the Legislature to join 48 other states and pass this critical legislation. We have all waited long enough.

A 2009 report

from the Boston Bar Association called on lawmakers to provide post-conviction DNA access.

Learn more about the bill pending before the Massachusetts legislature

here

.