Criminal Procedure Bill to be Heard by Committee

JEFFERSON CITY — State Sen. Joseph Keaveny’s, D-St. Louis, criminal procedure bill, Senate Bill 732, will be heard by the Senate Judiciary and Civil and Criminal Jurisprudence Committee at 6 p.m., Monday, Feb. 24, in the Senate Lounge, located on the third floor of the Missouri Capitol.

“This is very important legislation that has the potential to change the way law enforcement organizations across the state record testimony, adopt policies on obtaining eye witness testimony, and preserve evidence,” Sen. Keaveny said.

Professors Paul Litton and Rodney Uphoff of the University of Missouri School of Law and members of the assessment team that compiled the American Bar Association’s 2012 assessment report, Evaluating Fairness and Accuracy in State Death Penalty Systems, will join Sen. Keaveny in testifying on the bill. Josh Kezer, a Missouri man who was declared innocent because of the preponderance of evidence after spending 16 years in prison, will also testify during the hearing.

This bill has three parts aimed at reducing wrongful convictions:

• It improves the taping statute in regards to custodial interrogations, because false confessions are in 25 percent of cases of exonerations.

• It requires longer preservation of biological evidence so there is more focus on scientific evidence, and less on eyewitness identification.
• It requires police departments to submit procedures for eyewitness identifications because mistaken identifications are the leading cause of wrongful convictions.

For more information regarding this legislation, contact Sen. Keaveny’s Capitol office at (573) 751-3599 or follow the legislation online at www.senate.mo.gov/keaveny.