Committee Weighs Narrow Exception to New‑Trial Deadline After Exoneree and DOJ Testimony

The House Judiciary Committee heard HB 14‑22, a bill that would permit limited exceptions to New Hampshire’s three‑year bar on motions for a new trial when newly discovered, material evidence or new scientific testing warrants reopening a case.

Sponsor Representative Tom Manning framed the measure as a narrow, remedial change aimed at ensuring innocent people have access to court when new evidence surfaces. He described the legislature’s moral obligation to provide a process to correct wrongful convictions and said the bill preserves legal standards while only adjusting the timing rule.

The Department of Justice cautioned the committee about language in the bill. Thomas Velarde (Associate Attorney General) told lawmakers that New Hampshire courts already have channels — habeas corpus, coram nobis, and other remedies — that can reach cases beyond the three‑year new‑trial bar, and he urged clearer statutory language to avoid unintended consequences. DOJ recommended removing an ambiguous phrase that would allow evidence "subject to new scientific understanding," and suggested clarifying victim‑services reactivation language.

Innocence Project advocates and exonerees urged adoption. Winnie Yee of the Innocence Project said the state has only three recorded exonerations and that procedural bars prevent meritorious claims from reaching a judge. Exoneree Michael Von Allman recounted his own wrongful‑conviction case, explaining how advances in DNA and investigative work ultimately led to vacatur after years behind bars. Attorneys for wrongfully convicted people told the committee that many non‑DNA cases have no practical path to a second look without a statutory timing exception.

Safeguards in the bill

The proposal includes a prima facie screening step: a court would review petitions and dismiss without hearing if a petitioner does not make an initial showing that the new evidence is material and could not have been discovered with due diligence earlier. Petitions that pass the prima facie filter would receive fuller hearings. The bill also contemplates reactivation of victim services when a petition proceeds. Supporters and some legal experts told the committee that those guardrails — plus existing judicial standards for materiality and diligence — limit frivolous filings.

Next steps

Committee members asked for clarifying edits to the bill to tighten definitions (for example, make "newly discovered evidence" and the prima facie standard explicit) and to align victim‑services language with existing procedure. Testimony indicated broad support among innocence‑reform advocates and some criminal‑justice stakeholders for a narrow, well‑drafted change that preserves judicial safeguards while creating a consistent statutory path for meritorious late‑arriving exculpatory evidence.