This Fact Sheet from the U.S. Justice Department’s Bureau of justice Assistance (BJA) presents the goals and some accomplishments of BJA’s Testing of DNA Evidence Program.
The goals of this program are 1) to identify potential postconviction DNA testing cases; 2) to review appropriate postconviction cases to identify those in which DNA testing could prove the actual innocence of a person convicted of a violent felony offense as defined by state law; 3) to locate biological evidence associated with such postconviction cases; and 4) perform DNA analysis of appropriate biological evidence. Some accomplishments of this BJA program are the granting of 107 funded awards amounting to $71,838,116 total funding. Although exonerations are not the sole measure of program success, 56 exonerations have resulted from the program, and just over 150,000 cases have been reviewed. About 300 profiles have been uploaded into CODIS.