CHEYENNE - A bill that would provide the wrongly convicted a legal mechanism to clear their names with DNA evidence easily passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday.

The committee also adopted a bill that would allow parolees to earn "good time" off their sentences.

Senate File 65 would bring Wyoming in line with about 40 other states that allow the improperly incarcerated to seek their freedom with DNA evidence.

Current Wyoming law only allows prisoners to seek exoneration through the regular appeals process, which typically expires two years after conviction, or a rare governor's pardon.

More than 200 former convicts have been freed by DNA evidence in the United States since the 1990s.

SF 65, which was drafted with help from prosecutors and the state public defenders office, would allow a judge to order DNA testing and a new trial if genetic evidence appears to clear the prisoner.

The bill also would require the state to maintain genetic evidence for five years from the original conviction date.

The committee deleted a provision that would have allowed state prosecutors to test DNA samples from people who are not considered suspects, a practices known as "third-party" DNA testing.

Prosecutors had argued that third-party testing would allow them to use genetic evidence to eliminate potential suspects.

State Attorney General Bruce Salzburg issued an opinion recently that said third-party testing raises "several serious constitutional issues."

Supporters of SF 65 have said that few prisoners will qualify for DNA testing if the bill becomes law, and only a tiny fraction might be freed by genetic evidence.

The bill does not provide a mechanism to compensate prisoners who are freed, but the Legislature is likely to take up that issue in the future, officials have said.

Another measure approved Wednesday, Senate File 32, would extend "good time" to Wyoming prisoners who have been released on parole.

At present, prisoners incarcerated in Wyoming can see their minimum sentences trimmed by a certain number of days per month if they maintain good behavior. Parolees, meanwhile, are not eligible for "good time."

As a result, between 30 percent and 40 percent of prisoners don't apply for parole, opting instead to win "good time" in prison so they can leave the control of the Department of Corrections sooner, said Patrick Anderson, executive director of the Wyoming Parole Board.

If SF 32 becomes law, corrections officials expect to see more prisoners seek parole, which will free more beds in the state's overcrowded prison system.

That would mean heavier workloads for already strapped parole officers, but the anticipated 200 additional parolees would represent a small fraction of the existing caseload, officials said.

A second provision in the bill would provide state parole officers with another option for handling parolees who don't follow the rules.

Parole officers now essentially have two options: Hand out warnings, or "violate" parolees and send them back to prison.

SF 32 would allow them to impose highly restrictive sanctions similar to those imposed under the existing intensive supervised parole system, or ISP.

ISP sanctions can include frequent drug testing, loss of privileges, county jail time and other restrictions for bad behavior. It can be an effective tool that allows parole officers to change behavior without sending the parolee back to prison, Anderson said.

The shortage of prison beds has resulted in around 500 prisoners housed out of state. A new medium-security prison is being built in Torrington to absorb the overflow.

The bills are now headed to the full Senate for debate.

Reach capital bureau reporter Jared Miller at (307) 632-1244 or at jared.miller@trib.com.