House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda

Amends Title 18 (Crimes and Offenses) defining "exoneration" and further defining "expunge" to include the removal, destruction or erasure of records posses by the commonwealth or a political subdivision, including fingerprints, photos, and data for the crime for which the defendant has been conclusively proven to be innocent. The bill further provides for expungement by stating arrest data would be expunged when a person 18 years of age or older who has been convicted of a crime and is later exonerated has petitioned the court of common pleas having jurisdiction over the conviction seeking expungement. Upon review of the petition, the court may order the expungement of all criminal history record information and all administrative records relating to the conviction. The following shall trigger automatic expungement when occurring as a result of the presentation of DNA evidence: a reversal or vacation of a conviction; a withdrawal of a guilty, no contest or nolo contendere plea; a dismissal of information or indictment; and a retrial where the defendant was found not guilty.

Examples of wrongful convictions:

Arizona: Ray Krone, released in 2002

• Spent 10 years in prison in Arizona, including time on death row, for a murder he did not commit. He was the 100th person to be released from death row since 1973. DNA testing proved his innocence.

North Carolina: Jonathon Hoffman, exonerated in 2007

• Convicted and sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of a jewelry store owner. During Hoffman's first trial, the state's key witness, Johnell Porter, made undisclosed deals with the prosecutors for testifying against his cousin. Porter has since recanted his testimony, stating that he lied in order to get back at his cousin for stealing money from him.

Factors leading to wrongful convictions include:

• Inadequate legal representation
• Police and prosecutorial misconduct
• Perjured testimony and mistaken eyewitness testimony
• Racial prejudice
• Jailhouse "snitch" testimony
• Suppression and/or misinterpretation of mitigating evidence
• Community/political pressure to solve a case