JACKSON (AP) — Some Mississippi lawmakers want to improve the way DNA evidence is collected and preserved in criminal cases.

The Senate Judiciary B Committee passed a bill on Wednesday that would create a task force to develop a protocol for collecting DNA evidence. The bill is awaiting debate of the full Senate.

The move comes as efforts are under way to exonerate a Noxubee County man after DNA evidence showed he didn’t commit the rape and murder of a 3-year-old girl in 1992. Kennedy Brewer was sentenced to death in 1995 for the slaying of Christine Jackson.

In 2001, the DNA tests from the original blood samples linked another man, Justin Albert Johnson, the slaying. Brewer was released on bond last August pending a new trial. Johnson was arrested last week.

A hearing is scheduled Friday in Noxubee County Circuit Court to hear a district attorney’s motion to vacate Brewer’s conviction.

Johnson also allegedly confessed to an earlier child murder for which another man, Levon Brooks, was convicted and sentenced to life. Attorneys with the New York-based Innocence Project are trying to exonerate Brooks, as well.

The Mississippi Supreme Court has granted a post-conviction petition for Brooks, sending his case back to circuit court. Inmates use post-conviction petitions to claim they have discovered new evidence that might win them a new trial.

Senate Judiciary B Chairman Gray Tollison, D-Oxford, alluded to the Noxubee County cases during the committee meeting, saying two wrongly convicted men had served prison time, ‘‘and the guilty person has been out for 18 years.’’

Under the bill, the chief justice of the Mississippi Supreme Court would convene a task force that includes prosecutors, defense attorneys and court officials to recommend policies and procedures to improve how DNA is handled in Mississippi. The task force would also determine how much an improved system would cost, Tollison said.

District Attorney Ronnie Harper, who represents Amite, Adams and Franklin counties, said there needs to be uniformity among agencies in DNA collection.

‘‘In my district, the agencies are not very big and don’t have many assets and it’s real difficult for them to be able to do that,’’ Harper said.

Harper said testing for DNA is expensive. He said it becomes an issue of ‘‘attempting to do DNA in a situation where it might be there, but it’s probably not. You have to weigh the expense of it.’’

Tollison said he hopes to eventually have DNA collected from everyone who is arrested and stored in a database.

‘‘You could get a hit possibly that the person has committed another crime,’’ he said. ‘‘If there’s somebody who happens to be innocent and serving for another person’s crime, they need to be out of jail.’’

Tollison said the commission would seek out funding sources, including any federal funds.

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The bill is Senate Bill 2619.



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