Late changes snag inmate DNA bill

BY MARC CAPUTO

TALLAHASSEE - The idea was simple: Allow all Florida inmates to get DNA tests to prove their innocence.

But as a bill to do so sailed unimpeded through the Legislature, it proved to be too simple for some powerful lawmakers in the conservative Florida House of Representatives, who made last-minute changes that could make it difficult for inmates to reduce unfairly long sentences and restrict who can access the tests in the future.

The changes came as a shock to the Florida Innocence Initiative -- which has helped exonerate some of the five wrongly convicted Floridians freed after DNA tests -- and the sponsor of the bill in the Senate, Miami Republican Alex Villalobos. DNA tests have exonerated 175 people nationwide.

''A kid could figure this bill out: Should people be punished for something they didn't do? Why they had to make these changes at the last committee when no one else raised these issues is suspect,'' Villalobos said Wednesday.

But Rep. Don Brown, a Defuniak Springs Republican who chairs the State Administration Council, said he made the changes last week to ensure that inmates don't abuse the court system.

Brown's changes forbid a future inmate from getting a DNA test if he or she pleads guilty after July 1 and refuses a DNA test at the time. Inmates locked away for long sentences because of ''aggravating'' circumstances -- namely the commission of multiple crimes -- would also be forbidden from getting DNA tests to prove they didn't commit those other crimes in order to lessen their prison terms.

Brown, acknowledging ''I'm not a lawyer,'' said he didn't intend to block people trying to mitigate their sentences from getting the tests.

Brown said he inserted the mitigation language to discourage inmates from refusing to take a DNA test ``in the hopes that the DNA evidence would either be lost or degraded, and then ask for the DNA test 10 or 15 years later. . . . They could then make the claim that their sentences can be reduced because of the doubt.''

Villalobos, one of the Legislature's leading legal minds, said Brown just didn't understand the complexities of criminal justice law. Villalobos said the issues Brown raised never came up until the bill hit the committee chaired by Brown, who was one of only two legislators to vote last year against compensating a man wrongfully imprisoned for 22 years.

''If he wants to stop these alleged abuses, there are better ways to do it,'' Villalobos said.

Villalobos and Jenny Greenberg of the Florida Innocence Initiative said they were also concerned about prohibiting a person who pleads guilty from getting a DNA test after a judge asks a series of questions about the tests to the defendant, his defense attorney and prosecutors.

''If we go through that whole process, we're back to where we start for a lot of poor people: They don't have the money to hire a good lawyer, they don't understand the process and they plead guilty because they're scared or don't understand things, not because they're guilty,'' Greenberg said.

Brown said Greenberg's concern ``violates common sense.''

But Greenberg pointed to one real-world example: Jerry Townsend, a mentally retarded Broward County man, who confessed to six murders and four rapes he didn't commit. He spent 22 years in prison and was freed in 2001 after DNA tests.

The House sponsor of the bill, Republican Rep. Ellyn Bogdanoff of Fort Lauderdale, said nothing publicly when Brown altered her bill, and told The Miami Herald earlier this week that it was having no problems. Bogdanoff acknowledged Wednesday that there was at least one ''glaring'' change -- regarding the mitigation issue -- but said she'd fight to change it.