Partnership for Postconviction Testing of DNA Evidence to Exonerate the Innocent

As submitted by the proposer: The proposed Iowa Hair Analysis, Review, Testing, and Litigation Project, will be administered by the Iowa Office of Drug Control Policy (ODCP) and conducted by the Iowa State Public Defender’s Wrongful Conviction Division (WCD), the Midwest Innocence Project (MIP), and the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigations Criminalistics Laboratory (DCI Lab), will review cases where microscopic hair analysis was performed by the DCI Lab, and conduct new DNA testing on evidentiary hair and concomitant biological evidence, in order to litigate actionable cases of factual innocence and wrongful conviction. Supported by major state entities and the Innocence Project of Iowa, this project represents the first collaboration of its kind that will utilize the practice of forensic science technology to assist in increasing the number exonerations within the Iowa criminal justice system. ca/ncf