Evidence Reform Advocated

The New York-based Innocence Project urged Colorado's DNA task force Wednesday to pursue an overhaul of state law so that it spells out a duty to preserve evidence - taking cues from the federal government and a handful of other states.

"You don't have to save a whole car or couch" from crime scenes, said the group's policy analyst, Rebecca Brown, stressing that the federal Innocence Protection Act led to regulations defining biological evidence and guiding authorities on what they should retain to avoid bulging warehouses.

Like most states, Colorado doesn't impose uniform rules on DNA preservation, leaving decisions to individual police agencies that frequently face disorganized and cramped storerooms.

The state's post-conviction appeal law further complicates the issue because it creates "no duty" to preserve DNA - what the Innocence Project and other experts have branded as one of the weakest rules in the country.

The Innocence Project is the nation's leading advocacy group for the wrongly convicted, seeking exonerations through DNA analysis.

Brown stressed that any new effort to reform Colorado's statute also could aim to protect cold-case evidence, alluding to recent discoveries that crucial materials have been lost in dozens of unsolved cases.

"It's an incredible waste" of criminal justice resources, Brown said, to see crime-scene items lost or destroyed.

Most panel members - the vast majority appointed by Gov. Bill Ritter boast backgrounds in law enforcement - reached a consensus that uniform standards should be pursued.

State Sen. John Morse, a former police chief of Fountain, said he wanted to avoid evidence "disasters waiting to happen" across the state.

The Denver Post