Missouri

At a glance

Oversight body

The Crime Laboratory Review Commission, a standing body in the Department of Public Safety since 2009 (RSMo 650.059). Its five members are the department director or a designee as chair, a senior manager of an accredited Missouri crime lab, a law enforcement manager, a prosecutor and a criminal defense attorney; members other than the director are appointed by the Governor with Senate consent for 4-year terms. It covers state and local crime labs that receive state-administered funding. It may assess lab capabilities, authorize independent outside investigations into “serious negligence or misconduct” substantially affecting the integrity of forensic results, issue reprimands, recommend changes in procedure, and recommend to the director whether to revoke or suspend grant funding. It must meet at least once a year and report each year to the Governor. Whether it has met or reported since 2023 was not checked.

Lab accreditation

Required for court work. On or after December 31, 2012, a crime lab that provides reports or testimony to a state court on forensic analysis must be accredited or provisionally accredited by an accreditor the Department of Public Safety approves (RSMo 650.060). The prosecution may still offer analysis produced before that date. The department names approved accreditors by rule and monitors compliance.

Analyst licensing

None. No statute licenses or certifies forensic analysts. The cyber crime grant panel sets “minimum training standards for detectives and computer forensic personnel participating in the grant program” (RSMo 650.120.6); it applies only to grant participants and is not a license.

Admissibility standard

A statutory test modeled on the pre-2023 Federal Rule 702 (RSMo 490.065.2). It applies in criminal cases. The expert may testify if the knowledge will help the trier of fact, the testimony rests on sufficient facts or data, it is the product of reliable principles and methods, and “the expert has reliably applied the principles and methods to the facts of the case.” In a criminal case the expert may not give an opinion on whether the defendant had a mental state or condition that is an element of the crime or a defense. Missouri has not adopted the 2023 change to Federal Rule 702: the statute has no “more likely than not” burden. It was last amended in 2017.

Post-conviction forensic relief

No changed-science statute. Two routes to relief. (1) A person in the custody of the Department of Corrections may seek DNA testing if the evidence was not tested before for a listed reason, identity was at issue, and there is a reasonable probability of non-conviction with exculpatory results (RSMo 547.035). If testing shows innocence, a motion for release follows (547.037). (2) A prosecutor may move to vacate or set aside a judgment “at any time” on information that the person “may be innocent or may have been erroneously convicted.” The court must grant it on “clear and convincing evidence of actual innocence or constitutional error at the original trial or plea that undermines the confidence in the judgment” (547.031). The Attorney General may appear and, on appeal, intervene. Two related provisions do not themselves give relief from a conviction: an optional, advisory conviction review unit (547.500) and compensation after exoneration (650.058).

DNA database scope

Convictions plus listed arrestees (RSMo 650.055). Samples come from anyone found guilty of any felony or any chapter 566 sexual offense; anyone 17 or older arrested for first- or second-degree burglary or a felony under chapters 565, 566, 567, 568 or 573; sexually violent predators; and registered sex offenders. There is no right to refuse. Arrestee profiles are expunged when charges are declined, withdrawn or dismissed, no probable cause is found, or the person is acquitted, unless another basis applies. Last amended in 2021.

Facial recognition

None found. No Missouri statute on police facial recognition was located in the chapters checked. A keyword scan of the 2023 to 2026 enacted-bill summaries found none, but that scan could not be repeated for this page.

Changes, 2023 to 2026

• Aug 28, 2025

  Wrongful-conviction compensation no longer limited to DNA exonerations

  HB 495 (2025), RSMo 650.058Signed March 26, 2025; effective August 28, 2025

  The act struck “solely as a result of DNA profiling analysis” from the eligibility rule. A qualifying finding of innocence may now come from “an evidentiary hearing and finding in a habeas corpus proceeding or a proceeding held pursuant to section 547.031.” The daily rate rises from $100 to $179 for each day of post-conviction incarceration, and the annual payment cap rises from $36,500 to $65,000. Nonmonetary relief, such as counseling, housing assistance and financial literacy help, may be awarded. The 2021 sentence exempting a person found actually innocent from costs of care under section 217.831 does not appear in the current 650.058.1; whether it was moved elsewhere was not checked.

  For practitioners: A client exonerated through habeas or a prosecutor’s motion to vacate, including in a non-DNA forensic case, may now qualify.

  RSMo 650.058 2021 version

• Aug 28, 2024

  Motions to vacate go where charges were filed; a conviction review unit is authorized

  SB 754 (2024), RSMo 547.031 and new 547.500Signed July 9, 2024; effective August 28, 2024

  Under 547.031.1, the prosecutor who may file, and the court that hears, a motion to vacate are now those in the jurisdiction “in which charges were filed,” not where the person was convicted. Nothing else in the section changed. New 547.500 says the Missouri Office of Prosecution Services “may establish” a conviction review unit to investigate claims of actual innocence, including from people who pleaded guilty. If set up, the unit would have two experienced attorneys, an investigator, a paralegal and administrative staff, and the office’s executive director sits on it as an ex officio member. Applications must be sworn, fees must be waived for indigent applicants, and an application must rest on “newly discovered and reliable evidence of actual innocence not presented at a trial,” and that evidence must establish actual innocence by clear and convincing evidence. The prosecuting office “is not required to accept or follow” the unit’s findings, and a prosecutor may still file a 547.031 motion before the review ends (547.500.8). Unit records are closed; only its findings and recommendations become open, after the prosecutor declines to file a 547.031 motion or those proceedings end (547.500.7).

  For practitioners: After a change of venue, a motion to vacate belongs to the prosecutor and court where charges were filed. No source shows the review unit has been set up or funded.

  RSMo 547.031 RSMo 547.500

Pending bills

Checked and unchanged