California Post Conviction DNA Assistance Program

Under this program, BJA provides funding to help defray the costs associated with postconviction DNA testing for violent felony offenses (as defined by state law) in which actual innocence might be demonstrated.

The California DNA Assistance Program seeks to identify cases amenable to advanced DNA testing methods and analysis, including forensic genealogical DNA testing, touch-DNA testing, and probabilistic genotyping. The California DNA Assistance Program will target 4,000 case reviews during the grant cycle and will identify cases from new inmate requests, screening of the California Innocence Project's closed case databases, prison outreach, and continued investigation of cases from previous grant cycles. The project has four goals:

(1) Identify postconviction cases of violent felony offenses.
(2) Review identified cases to determine whether DNA testing can prove actual innocence.
(3) Locate evidence associated with such cases.
(4) Perform DNA analysis of evidence.

CA/NCF