Friday, May 20, 2016 | 11:59 a.m.
The Clark County District Attorney’s Office is creating a special unit to review cases where new evidence suggests innocent people might have been convicted.
The County Commission this week approved a budget for next fiscal year that includes three positions for the Conviction Integrity Unity — a chief deputy district attorney, a paralegal and an investigator, District Attorney Steve Wolfson said today.
The purpose of the unit is to reexamine convictions where new evidence indicates a person has been wrongly convicted and to guard against future errors by adopting prosecution best practices, officials said.
Several large jurisdictions nationwide have similar units, but this would be the first of its kind in Nevada, officials said.
“I am looking forward to finally getting this team in place,” Wolfson said. “It is essential to have a formal mechanism in place to allow cases to be reviewed when evidence of innocence surfaces. We stand by all of our convictions. But, if something is brought to our attention, we will look into it.”
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