BILL ANALYSIS �
SB 980
Page 1
Date of Hearing: August 6, 2014
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Mike Gatto, Chair
SB 980 (Lieu) - As Amended: August 4, 2014
Policy Committee: Public SafetyVote:
5-0
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
Yes Reimbursable: No
SUMMARY
This bill revises processes related to court orders authorizing
post-conviction DNA testing. Specifically, this bill:
1)Provides that upon request of the defendant, and upon order of
the court, the prosecution shall make reasonable efforts to
obtain, and law enforcement and labs shall make reasonable
efforts to provide, specified information, including copies of
DNA lab tests, reports and evidence logs. If the evidence has
been lost or stolen, the custodian of the evidence shall
report to the prosecution and the defense as specified.
2)Provides that in determining whether to grant DNA testing, the
court shall not decide whether the test results would
ultimately require relief from the conviction.
3)Requires testing to be conducted by a lab that meets FBI
quality assurance standards, as specified, and authorizes the
lab to communicate with both parties during the testing
process.
4)Provides, when the court grants a motion for DNA testing, and
a DNA profile of an unknown person is generated, the court may
conduct a hearing to determine if the DNA profile should be
uploaded into the state and national DNA index systems. The
court may order the upload of a DNA profile if:
a) The source of the DNA profile is attributable to the
putative perpetrator of the crime.
b) The DNA profile meets all requirements for inclusion in
the state and national index systems, as specified.
SB 980
Page 2
c) Defense counsel provides written notice to DOJ and the
prosecution 15 court days prior to the hearing.
5)Changes the period after which a government entity may destroy
biological material related to a criminal case before a person
is released from incarceration from 90 days to one year after
specified notifications regarding potential motions.
FISCAL EFFECT
1)Potentially moderate ongoing nonreimbursable local costs to
district attorneys to the extent this bill results in a
significant increase in the number of post-conviction DNA
testing cases. For order of magnitude purposes, the L.A.
D.A.'s office estimates they handled about 102 such petitions
since 2002. If this bill increased this frequency by 20% - and
it is not at all clear that it would - that would mean an
additional case or two per year. Extrapolating statewide, this
would be an increase of about 10 cases per year, which could
range from tens of thousands of dollars to hundreds of
thousands of dollars.
2)Minor ongoing GF costs to DOJ to the extent this bill results
in an increase in the number of post-conviction DNA testing
cases handled by DOJ.
3)Unknown, likely minor state and local crime lab costs,
depending on the caseload increase and the number of ensuing
DNA index uploads.
4)Unknown, likely minor state trial court costs for additional
hearings to the extent when the court grants a motion for DNA
testing, and a DNA profile of an unknown person is generated,
the court opts to conduct a hearing to determine if the DNA
profile should be uploaded into the state and national DNA
index systems.
5)Minor potentially state reimbursable local costs, and minor
state costs to DOJ, for additional evidence storage, to the
extent extending the period an entity must retain biological
evidence from 90 days to one year after a person is released
from incarceration, pending specified notifications regarding
potential motions, requires additional storage capacity.
6)Minor non-reimbursable (as it is permissive to the courts to
SB 980
Page 3
so order) local costs to provide additional evidentiary
information.
7)Potential GF savings to the extent additional DNA testing
results in reduced incarceration, offset by erroneous
conviction payments and cold DNA hits on the actual
perpetrators.
COMMENTS
1)Rationale . The author and sponsor, the California Innocence
Projects, address what they see as modest updates and reforms
to the statute related to DNA testing of convicted felons.
SB 1342 (Burton), Statutes of 2000, created post-conviction
discovery in California and a process for allowing courts to
evaluate whether a defendant should have post-conviction DNA
testing. According to proponents of this bill, obtaining DNA
testing remains difficult and time consuming and courts have
struggled to interpret the law.
According to the author, "In 2000, California became one of
the first states to create a process by which an incarcerated
person who had been convicted of a felony could obtain DNA
testing to prove innocence. Fourteen years later, however,
California's post-conviction DNA testing process is in need of
some commonsense but crucial reforms.
"These reforms would provide greater access to available
evidence for people requesting DNA testing. They give courts
the ability to order DNA profiles to be run through the
national DNA database, making it possible to find the real
perpetrators of crimes. They establish more consistent and
thorough protocols for the preservation and destruction of
evidence after conviction, enabling more innocent people to
get testing."
2)Clarifying Post-conviction DNA Testing Standard . Existing law
requires that a person requesting testing must "raise a
reasonable probability that, in light of all the evidence, the
convicted person's verdict or sentence would have been more
favorable if the results of DNA testing had been available" at
trial. According to the author and proponents, courts have
interpreted this language differently, leading to confusion.
Some courts have denied a request for testing, because they
SB 980
Page 4
believe they must determine whether the testing will match
someone else or because they believe they have to assess
whether the defendant would be entitled to a new trial based
on the evidence.
This bill adds to the existing standard, language derived from
Richardson v. Superior Court (2008) that specifies a person
making a motion for post-conviction DNA testing need not show
that a favorable test would conclusively establish innocence.
3)Existence and Availability of Physical Evidence . Current law
requires a person requesting DNA testing to show the court
that the evidence is available and testable. The law, however,
is not clear whether a person requesting testing is entitled
to find out if evidence is available and testable. This bill
clarifies that law enforcement must make all reasonable
efforts to provide defense counsel information related to
existence and availability of physical evidence necessary to
any effort to investigate whether a motion for DNA testing is
proper.
4)Evidence Retention . Current law requires law enforcement to
retain all biological evidence while a person is incarcerated;
if they wish to destroy the evidence, law enforcement must
provide the defendant 90 days to request evidence be
preserved, and 180 days to file a motion for testing. This
bill extends the notification time and the time to file a
motion to one year. The rationale is that notices are not
always sufficiently timely and the filing of a motion for DNA
testing takes time.
5)Unmatched Profiles and the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) .
Under current law, if DNA evidence does not match the
defendant, there is no process to ensure the evidence is
uploaded to CODIS, unless the D.A. pursues it. This bill
authorizes, when the court grants a motion for DNA testing,
and a DNA profile of an unknown person is generated, the court
to conduct a hearing to determine if the DNA profile should be
uploaded into the state and national DNA index systems, and
authorizes the court to order the upload of a DNA profile if
the source of the profile is attributable to the putative
perpetrator and the DNA profile meets all requirements for
inclusion in the state and national index systems, as
specified.
SB 980
Page 5
6)Support . According to the California Innocence Projects, this
bill will make post-conviction DNA testing more efficient,
more effective, and more consistent, ensuring wrongful
convictions are remedied quickly, and true perpetrators are
brought to justice.
"Rather than burdening the courts, prosecutorial agencies or
law enforcement, SB 980 will provide clear guidelines on the
preservation of evidence and standards for post-conviction
testing. In the end, all constituents of the criminal justice
system, including the public, can have more confidence in
convictions."
7)Opposition from law enforcement appears to have been largely
muted by the August 4 amendments. The CA District Attorneys
Association will continue to work with the author while this
bill is on the Suspense File to fine-tune the language in PC
1405(g), which establishes the threshold for determining
whether the court should grant a motion for post-conviction
DNA testing.
Analysis Prepared by : Geoff Long / APPR. / (916) 319-2081