Legislative declaration

16-12-302. Legislative declaration. (1) The general assembly finds and declares that: (a) An effective criminal justice system requires that crime laboratory employees act with integrity and that crime laboratories have controls to prevent and detect knowing misconduct and violations of procedures and properly investigate and report misconduct when it occurs; (b) Prosecutors, defendants, and victims deserve transparency and to be notified of misconduct by crime laboratory employees who handle evidence used in criminal cases; (c) The criminal justice system must provide an opportunity to timely and fairly litigate cases in which there was misconduct by a crime laboratory employee that could affect, or did affect, the outcome of a case; and (d) Defendants must be afforded the right to counsel, the right to full disclosure of the misconduct, and the right to an evidentiary hearing in order to adequately address the impact of misconduct by crime laboratory employees. (2) The general assembly intends that this part 3 be interpreted to accomplish the policies declared in this section. Source: L. 2025: Entire part added, (HB 25-1275), ch. 352, p. 1891, � 1, effective June 2.