Innocence advocates and Attorney General office differ on testing, compensation rules; panel urges statutory fixes

Advocates and the Attorney General’s Office told the Law & Justice Committee on June 4 that Washington’s wrongful‑conviction compensation law and procedures for post‑conviction DNA testing need legislative clarification to deliver consistent relief.

"We don’t have a function in Washington state criminal law to declare somebody actually innocent," Laura Zaretsky, executive and policy director of the Washington Innocence Project, told the committee. She and colleagues said unclear statutory language and procedural barriers have made compensation and access to testing slower and more contentious than the drafters intended.

Why it matters: the Wrongfully Convicted Persons Act was intended to provide a pathway to compensation and services for people proved actually innocent. Advocates said only a small share of expected claimants have received compensation and that litigation over testing requests consumes court and lab resources.

How the statute has functioned and where it bottlenecks. Sean Hillman (Criminal Justice Division, Washington Attorney General’s Office) explained the claim process and provided the office’s case counts: 36 claims filed since 2013, 22 dismissed (abandoned or ineligible), 14 found to be eligible for adjudication, 11 resolved. Of the resolved claims, the Attorney General conceded eight and the average payout across conceded claims was roughly $361,000; individual payouts ranged from about $11,000 to $600,000.

Advocates want clearer presumptions on testing. Lara Zaretsky said post‑conviction DNA testing frequently requires substantial litigation to secure laboratory analysis. She proposed reversing the present practical presumption: allow testing on newly discovered evidence unless the state shows by clear and convincing evidence that testing could not establish innocence. Zaretsky said courts currently speculate about what DNA might show before testing is done and that removing that predictive step would save court, counsel and lab time in many cases.

On the limits of DNA. Zaretsky cautioned that DNA results are not self‑interpreting: “DNA testing can show who was the contributor … but it can’t tell you when DNA was deposited,” she said. She added that in many requests (about 40% in their experience) test results do not ultimately generate a further remedy because results can be inconclusive or not exculpatory.

Attorney General’s practical concerns and fixed issues. Hillman said the office is charged with following the statute as written and noted several points the office believes should be clarified: whether claimants are entitled to interest on judgments, eligibility when sentences were concurrent, and what the procedural standard should be for dismissing claims that fail statutory prerequisites. He provided the case and payout counts above and stressed the office’s obligation to use the statute’s “actual innocence” standard.

Ending: committee members asked for follow‑up drafting ideas. Witnesses and the Attorney General’s Office identified statutory clarifications (testing presumption, interest, eligibility language and a summary‑judgment/ dismissal procedure) that could reduce litigation and better deliver the act’s intended relief. No votes or policy changes were adopted at the session.