On April 13, the Tennessee House of Representatives joined the Tennessee Senate in unan­i­mous­ly approv­ing a bill that would man­date the preser­va­tion of bio­log­i­cal evi­dence in cas­es involv­ing a death sen­tence. The House vot­ed 94 – 0 in favor of the bill after the Senate had passed the bill on April 4 by a 31 – 0 vote. If the gov­er­nor signs the bill, such evi­dence must be held until the defen­dant is exe­cut­ed, dies, or is released from prison. Destruction of evi­dence will be han­dled as crim­i­nal con­tempt. At the House hear­ing for the bill, Ray Krone (pic­tured), who was exon­er­at­ed from Arizona’s death row and now lives in Tennessee, tes­ti­fied to the impor­tance of DNA evi­dence. Krone was exon­er­at­ed after DNA from the vic­tim’s shirt was test­ed and was found to match nei­ther the vic­tim nor Krone. ​“That DNA not only saved my life.” Krone said. ​“It also, because it was pre­served by the Phoenix Police Department, it iden­ti­fied the true mur­der­er.” DNA test­ing also played a key role in the Tennessee death row exon­er­a­tions of Paul House and Michael McCormick. A March 2007 Tennessee Death Penalty Assessment Report by the American Bar Association’s Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project (now the ABA Death Penalty Due Process Review Project) had found that Tennessee death penal­ty law failed to com­ply with ABA rec­om­men­da­tions on the col­lec­tion, preser­va­tion, and test­ing of DNA and oth­er evi­dence. The ABA Death Penalty Due Process Review Project has found that only 2 of the 14 states whose death penal­ty pro­ce­dures it assessed com­plied with the ABA rec­om­men­da­tions on preser­va­tion of bio­log­i­cal evi­dence in death penalty cases.

(J. Knutson, ​“Bill Aims To Maintain Evidence Until Sentencing Or Execution,” NewsChannel 5, March 30, 2016; S. Hale, ​“Senate Committee Advances Bill Mandating Evidence Preservation in Death Penalty Cases,” Nashville Scene, March 22, 2016.) View the leg­isla­tive his­to­ry for SB 2342/​HB 2377 here. See Innocence, Recent Legislative Activity, and Studies and Additional Resources.

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