Bill Addresses Pima County Ban on Conversion Therapy kawc.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from kawc.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Bill gives wrongfully convicted new chance at freedom
Arizonans who contend they were wrongfully convicted could get a new way of trying to exonerate themselves.
Without dissent, members of the House Committee on Criminal Justice Reform approved legislation Wednesday that sets up procedures by which an inmate can seek forensic examination of items that were not tested at the time of the trial because the technology was not available at the time. SB1469, already approved by the Senate, now goes to the full House.
There is precedent for the proposal by Sen. Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert.
In 2010 lawmakers agreed to allow someone who has been convicted to ask a court to conduct DNA testing of evidence from a crime scene. That same law also allows a judge to put that evidence into a national database to see if there are any “hits.”
Capitol Media Services
PHOENIX Arizonans who contend they were wrongfully convicted could get a new way of trying to exonerate themselves.
Without dissent, members of the House Committee on Criminal Justice Reform approved legislation Wednesday that sets up procedures by which an inmate can seek forensic examination of items that were not tested at the time of the trial because the technology was not available at the time. SB 1469, already approved by the Senate, now goes to the full House.
There is precedent for the proposal by Sen. Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert.
In 2010 lawmakers agreed to allow someone who has been convicted to ask a court to conduct DNA testing of evidence from a crime scene. That same law also allows a judge to put that evidence into a national database to see if there are any hits.
Arizona Prisons kjzz.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from kjzz.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
House panel OKs criminal sentencing changes
State lawmakers took the first steps February 3 to reversing decades of tough-on-crime policies.
Without a single dissent, members of the House Committee on Criminal Justice Reform voted to restore some of the discretion taken away from judges more than four decades ago to determine what is an appropriate sentence.
HB2673 does not scrap all of the mandatory sentencing laws.
In order to divert from the code, a judge would need to find that a mandatory sentence would be an injustice to the defendant, that it is not necessary to protect the public, and that the person was not convicted of a serious or dangerous offense. And judges would have to explain their decision on the record.