NEW YORK, NY May 04, 2007 —DNA evidence has been a key factor in overturning wrongful convictions in recent years. WNYC's Kathleen Horan reports on several bills introduced in Albany that lawmakers say will update the way that critical evidence is handled.

REPORTER: Over the last 16 years, 23 people in New York state were wrongly convicted and finally exonerated through DNA testing. The lawyers, with the Innocence Project, who fought for their release and a group of state assemblymen say new legislation would help fight crime. It would do so by making sure those wrongly accused could have greater access to evidence by creating a universal database for DNA.

Alan Newton spent 21 years in prison for rape robbery and assault. He maintained his innocence the whole time and fought to the DNA evidence from the NYPD.

NEWTON: I knew the evidence would exonerate me, but they couldn't produce it. They claimed it was lost or destroyed.

REPORTER: The NYPD's Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne says they've already issued a request for proposals for a million dollar project to overhaul and modernize storage retrieval at their facilities, including bar coding DNA samples and other advances. For WNYC, I'm Kathleen Horan.