Pennsylvania Innocence Project Weblog

Pennsylvania Crime Lab Bill Moves Forward

Legislation that would enable crime labs run by counties in Pennsylvania to receive a share of the costs incurred from people convicted of crimes moves forward in becoming a law.

House Bill 1769 is sponsored by Representative Frank Farry and was approved by the state House of Representatives and will now move to the Senate for review.

According to Farry’s office, Bucks County in Pennsylvania could stand to receive up to $300,000 should the bill be approved. Representative Farry said,

“The passage of this bill is an important step that will save counties that operate their own crime labs thousands of taxpayer dollars.”

The major benefit of the legislation, according to David Hecker, Bucks Country District Attorney, is that it will allow crime labs to keep up with the latest technology, should it pass. This fact will hopefully lessen the amount of wrongful convictions overall and increase the number of solved crimes as advances should increase accuracy in the testing of crime labs.