Innocence Blog

Editorial applauds work of Colorado evidence preservation panel

Posted: December 3, 2007 9:47 am

An editorial in Saturday’s Colorado Rocky Mountain News praises Colorado officials for taking steps toward a comprehensive policy on the preservation of evidence. The editorial comes on the heels of a preliminary report issued last week by the state’s new task force formed to consider preservation of evidence.

In September, the high-profile plight of one state prisoner - and other cases in which the mishandling of evidence has proven problematic - spurred Gov. Bill Ritter to set up a task force to examine how evidence is preserved in Colorado's criminal cases. Equally important was to establish standard procedures that cut across the various police and sheriff's departments that currently set their own rules about the handling of evidence.

Based on what we learned earlier this week, the task force appears to be on the right track.

Read the full editorial here. (Rocky Mountain News, 12/1/07)