Provides resources to help pay for postconviction case review, locating evidence, and DNA testing in violent felony cases where results may demonstrate actual innocence.
Apply directly on grants.gov, no state intermediary. State, county, city and special district governments and public universities are the eligible applicants, so a lab applies through its government or a university partner.
Official program pageState and local government entities that can conduct postconviction case review and coordinate DNA testing. Typically involves prosecutor offices partnered with forensic labs.
FY2025: 19 applications received, no awards made yet.
Awards per year: FY2021 13 · FY2022 10 · FY2023 4 · FY2024 9 · FY2025 none yet
Round totals: DOJ Office of Justice Programs award data. Award lists: USAspending.gov, plus DOJ’s own award list for rounds USAspending is missing.
General advice for this program, not taken from the notice. The notice’s own review criteria are what reviewers actually score, so check these against it.
Provide a comprehensive, step-by-step narrative of how biological evidence has been stored and will be handled during postconviction testing, demonstrating your lab's ability to maintain evidentiary integrity from retrieval through analysis.
For each case included in your application, explicitly document that the convicted individual meets all statutory eligibility criteria under the Innocence Protection Act, including that DNA testing could produce new evidence affecting the conviction.
Do not submit a project timeline that lacks specific milestones for evidence retrieval, testing, and reporting, as BJA reviewers will penalize applications that cannot demonstrate a realistic and accountable workflow.
Failing to include documented coordination agreements with prosecutors, defense attorneys, and courts is a critical omission that signals your lab lacks the inter-agency partnerships necessary to act on postconviction DNA results.
A starting list, not the official one. Each notice ends with its own application checklist, and that is the list to work from once a round opens.
