Innocent In Prison Project International

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Vermont: A model for comprehensive reform

The passage of Vermont’s Senate Bill 6 put a particularly comprehensive set of reforms into motion. Innocence Project staff and local advocates (including exoneree Dennis Maher) worked closely with legislators to craft the reforms and testified in support of the bill.

As passed, Senate Bill 6 grants post-conviction access to DNA testing that can prove innocence. The bill also provides compensation to wrongfully convicted people after they are exonerated (up to $60,000 for each year of wrongful incarceration).

The Vermont bill also establishes two important study committees: a Preservation of Evidence Study Committee and an Eyewitness Identification and Custodial Interrogation Recording Study Committee. Both of these committees will report their findings on best practices and make recommendations to the Vermont Legislature for the next legislative session.
http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/635.php#vt

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Vermont — In the coming days, leading criminal justice experts will issue recommendations on policies regarding eyewitness identification procedures, recording of interrogations and the preservation of evidence. These recommendations could lead to critical reforms during the 2008 legislative session. Vermont was among the leaders in passing groundbreaking reforms in 2007, enacting laws providing access to DNA testing and compensating the wrongfully convicted.

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