State to review cases for possible wrongful convictions

SACRAMENTO >> California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced on Friday a review of criminal cases statewide to search for possible wrongful convictions, pledging to look for new evidence and scrutinize prosecutors' conduct that could prompt a new round of exonerations for people in prison.

Bonta said the Post-Conviction Justice Unit within the California Department of Justice will have “broad discretion” to investigate wrongful or improper convictions. He said the unit will partner with local district attorneys, many of whom already have their own teams that review wrongful convictions. He said the unit will pay particular attention to cases in counties where local prosecutors do not have what he called a “conviction integrity unit.”

“We can't be knee-jerk every time at all times, blindly defending convictions when they're indefensible because of innocence, or because of error, or because of an excessive sentence,” Bonta said.

Prosecutors have historically not gone out of their way to overturn convictions secured by their offices. But technological advances in DNA testing and other forensic evidence have brought forward lots of new evidence on old cases, raising questions about the convictions.

Nationally, exonerations have been increasing steadily since 1989, with a peak of 282 recorded in 2022, according to the National Registry of Exonerations, a project of the Newkirk Center for Science & Society at University of California Irvine, the University of Michigan Law School and Michigan State University College of Law. The project has recorded 3,381 exonerations since 1989, according to its website.

State and local prosecutors across the country have established internal review units to evaluate this evidence, including Minnesota and New York. In California, prosecutors in Contra Costa and Sacramento counties have similar units.