Nearly All Lawmakers On Board For DNA Bill

A majority of Colorado lawmakers are sponsoring a bill ordering a new trial for Clarence Moses-EL and any other prisoner whose case DNA is destroyed by authorities despite a court order to preserve the evidence.

The legislation, filed Wednesday and signed by 82 House and Senate members out of 100 — including several former police officers — could mark the first time state leaders have attempted to reverse a criminal conviction, according to legislative librarians. And veteran lawmakers called the number of backers unusually large.

If the support stands, the vote would surpass the two-thirds needed to override a veto.

Moses-EL has spent 20 years in prison for a 1987 Denver rape. But in 1995, after Moses-EL's previous attorney didn't retrieve case evidence in the weeks after a court ordered it taken for DNA testing, Denver police threw away the victim's clothing and swabbings of her body. The tests that Moses-EL argues would prove him innocent have never been conducted.

"You don't throw away people's lives accidentally," said Sen. John Morse, D-Fountain, a former police chief who signed on as a sponsor of the measure. "Clearly, some in the criminal-justice system will say he (Moses-EL) had his day in court, but we don't know whether we found the truth. I believe you must have truth to win justice."

The Denver Post