New York State’s new chief judge, Jonathan Lippman, will create a permanent task force to examine wrongful convictions and recommend ways to minimize them, the New York Times reports. Members of the task force will include prosecutors, defense lawyers, scientists and legislators. They will have a broad mandate to examine police procedures, court rules, and other issues involved in wrongful convictions. “We're going to take the raw material from all the cases here in New York and, for that matter, around the country, and see what we need to do to change the criminal justice system so this doesn't happen,” Lippman said.
A recent spate of high-profile cases have involved exoneration or overturned convictions, including those of Martin Tankleff, who was convicted in 1990 of bludgeoning his parents, and Jeffrey Deskovic, who was convicted that same year of raping and murdering a high school classmate. A report released last month by the New York State Bar Association said that 53 people have been formally exonerated in New York since 1964, about half through the use of DNA testing.