In United States federal criminal law, the Innocence Protection Act is the first federal death penalty reform to be enacted. The Act seeks to ensure the fair administration of the death penalty and minimize the risk of executing innocent people. The Innocence Protection Act of 2001, introduced in the Senate as S. 486 and the
House of Representatives
House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...
as H.R. 912, was included as Title IV of the omnibus Justice for All Act of 2004 (H.R. 5107), signed into law on October 30, 2004 by
President
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George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
as public law no. 108-405.
The Justice For All Act is the product of a bi-partisan, bicameral compromise led by then-Senate Judiciary Chairman
Orrin Hatch
Orrin Grant Hatch (March 22, 1934 – April 23, 2022) was an American attorney and politician who served as a United States senator from Utah from 1977 to 2019. Hatch's 42-year Senate tenure made him the longest-serving Republican U.S. senato ...
(R-UT), Ranking Member Senator
Patrick Leahy
Patrick Joseph Leahy (; born March 31, 1940) is an American politician and attorney who is the senior United States senator from Vermont and serves as the president pro tempore of the United States Senate. A member of the Democratic Party, ...
(D-VT), Sen.
Arlen Specter
Arlen Specter (February 12, 1930 – October 14, 2012) was an American lawyer, author and politician who served as a United States Senator from Pennsylvania from 1981 to 2011. Specter was a Democrat from 1951 to 1965, then a Republican fr ...
William Delahunt
William David Delahunt (born July 18, 1941) is an American lawyer and politician from Massachusetts. He is a former U.S. Representative for , serving from 1997 to 2011. He is a member of the Democratic Party. Delahunt did not seek re-election ...
(D-MA). It passed the House by an overwhelming vote of 393 to 14 on October 6, 2004 and the Senate by voice vote three days later.
The text of the Act amended the United States Code to include procedures for post-conviction DNA testing in federal court. Through the
Kirk Bloodsworth Kirk Noble Bloodsworth (born October 31, 1960) is a former Maryland waterman and the first American sentenced to death to be exonerated post-conviction by DNA testing.
He had been wrongfully convicted in 1985 of the 1984 rape and first-degree mur ...
Post-Conviction DNA Testing Program, the act established a federal grant program to provide money to states to defray the costs of post-conviction DNA testing. The program is named for the first man to be exonerated by use of post-conviction DNA testing. The act additionally contains provisions for increasing the quality of representation for
indigent
Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little
The Innocence Protection Act is the first federal death penalty reform to be enacted. The United States Supreme Court in 1972 suspended use of existing death penalty statutes because of inconsistencies in how they were applied. It ordered the states to pass new legislation to address its concern, and affirmed a case in 1976 under new law, essentially allowing states to again sentence convicted persons to death under their laws. But by 2002, more than 100 people have been released from death rows across the United States after it was found that they were wrongfully convicted because of procedural errors or newly discovered evidence of their innocence.
The Innocence Protection Act is a first attempt in federal legislation to ensure that innocent people are not put to death. Thirty-six states and the federal government have enacted legislation that permits the courts to impose death as a criminal sentence.Punishment fro Bureau of Justice Statistics Of those thirty-six states,
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...
executed the most inmates during 2009 with 24 executions. The total number of executions in the United States in 2009 was 52. In 2009, the total number of inmates serving a death sentence in the United States was 3,173. Many executions are delayed as inmates seek appeals to overturn sentences or convictions.
Post-conviction DNA testing
Advances in science and in particular, DNA testing, have yielded more accurate forensic evidence. In some cases, post-conviction testing has helped innocent people establish that they were wrongfully convicted and to gain exonerations. In the process, comparisons to state and federal databases have sometimes led to identification of the perpetrators of such crimes.Post-conviction DNA Testing fro DNA Initiative DNA testing is a predominant forensic technique which makes it possible to obtain conclusive results in cases in which previous testing, such as analysis of hair or fingerprints, had been inconclusive or flawed. Post-conviction testing has been requested not only in cases in which DNA testing was never done (because it did not exist as a practice before the late 1980s), and also in cases in which the more refined technology of the early 21st century may result in indisputable evidence.
The Innocence Protection Act allows convicted individuals access to DNA testing if they meet certain conditions, such as the possibility that testing could produce new material evidence that would raise a reasonable probability that the individual did not commit the offense."Attorney General Issues Memoranda to Improve Use of DNA Evidence". ''States News Service'', Nov 18, 2010, pNA Among other restrictions, it limits new testing to evidence that was not previously tested and generally requires it to be done within 36 months of conviction. All fifty U.S. states have passed statutes related to access to post-conviction DNA testing. It may be harder for inmates to access such testing in some states than others."Access to Post-Conviction DNA Testing ,
The Innocence Project
''The Innocence Project'' is a television drama series created by BBC Northern Ireland and first broadcast on BBC One on 9 November 2006.
The series follows the work of Professor Jon Ford (Lloyd Owen), who sets up ''The Innocence Project'', pe ...
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...