Is an Indigent Petitioner Entitled to Have the State Pay for Postconviction DNA Testing?
The special New York and Illinois postconviction DNA statutes[12] require the State to pay for testing if the petitioner is indigent and there is a reasonable basis to believe that postconviction DNA testing could produce substantial evidence of innocence. There are no reported decisions as of this date mandating that indigent petitioners receive funds for postconviction DNA testing that could establish innocence. It is, however, our experience that once a court decides that postconviction DNA testing should be performed, or the prosecution and defense agree that testing is appropriate, funds for testing have been provided either by the court (just as it funds pretrial expert fees for an indigent defendant), by the public defender’s office, or by the prosecution. Increasingly, as State and local crime laboratories develop the capacity to do DNA testing, postconviction DNA testing is simply referred by all parties to the public laboratory, which does it “free.” Nonetheless, concern that
