By Bay City News.
California Set to Remove Barriers to Overturning Wrongful Convictions After Gov. Gavin Newsom approved legislation last week that seeks to simplify the exoneration process.
Newsom signed Senate Bill 97, proposed by Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, which removes a number of important barriers to overturning wrongful convictions, Wiener's office announced Saturday.
The Golden State leads the nation in exonerations of wrongfully convicted people, overturning more than 200 convictions between 1989 and 2013. However, the process to overturn a wrongful conviction in the state remains complex and unnecessarily arduous, according to Wiener's office.
To address this, SB 97 will expedite the process for wrongfully accused people to have their convictions overturned, the office added.
“Allowing innocent people to avoid unfair criminal penalties strengthens our justice system,” Wiener said in a statement. “I thank the Governor for supporting this necessary reform.”
The bill will, among other things, direct judges to place great weight on a prosecutor's concession that a person has been wrongfully convicted, eliminate obstructive technical requirements to ensure that courts can fairly and completely examine the evidence newly discovered and will give an exonerated person the ability to have continued counsel if tried again.
SB 97 also requires that those wrongfully convicted be provided with adequate counsel throughout litigation.
The bill is sponsored by the California Innocence Coalition.
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