For Florida prisoners, including death row inmates, who were convicted before DNA evidence was routinely tested, the state-imposed October 1 deadline to submit new claims is fast approaching. After that date, evidence may be destroyed and the chance for an exoneration extinguished. Yet the system is seriously backlogged and under-resourced. Noting that Governor Jeb Bush recently stated that any court in Florida or elsewhere would “immediately” review a prisoner’s claim of DNA evidence exonerating him, the St. Petersburg Times called for the passage of legislation to ensure relief for the wrongly convicted by extending the deadline:

If only it were so.

The governor must be unaware of the laws and recent history of his own state. Prisoners convicted before DNA was routinely tested have only until Oct. 1 to submit their claims. Those who pleaded guilty or no contest, as even innocent people sometimes do, are ineligible. There is no money to pay lawyers to file DNA petitions. Nearly 700 applications are backed up and will likely run afoul of the deadline. The governor’s office is lobbying the Legislature for a constitutional amendment that, among other things, would prevent the Supreme Court from reopening the window of opportunity.

“There is only one vehicle, and it’s dying,” warns Jennifer Greenberg, the sole lawyer for the Florida Innocence Initiative at Tallahassee, which appealed to Bush to support legislation (HB 247) extending the deadline and broadening eligibility.

More than simple justice depends on passage of the DNA legislation that Rep. Phillip J. Brutus, D-North Miami, is sponsoring. Legislation that President Bush signed last year provides federal aid to states with effective post-conviction DNA statutes. But Florida has yet to do what the president urged, which is to “make doubly sure no person is held to account for a crime he or she did not commit.”

(St. Petersburg Times, March 25, 2005). See DPIC’s Innocence. For more information see the Innocence Project.