Congressional lawmakers have proposed legislation that would create federal grants to establish forensic science standards in an effort to reduce wrongful convictions.
The Forensic Science and Standards Act is sponsored by Sen. Jay Rockefeller and Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson. The bill includes $200 million over five years for forensic science research and $100 million for the National Institute of Standards and Technology to develop standards for forensics.
Sen. Rockefeller told The Hill that the bill is partly a reaction to a 2009 National Academy of Sciences report stating that most forensic sciences are inaccurate and the recent Washington Post articles about wrongful convictions based on faulty forensic sciences.
Read the full article here.
