Assembly Republicans and Democrats joined together Tuesday to unanimously pass the Avery Task Force legislation, reforms named in commemoration of Steven Avery, a falsely convicted man who spent more than 18 years in prison before his release in 2003.

Avery, convicted of sexual assault after a condemning identification made by the victim, was found innocent after DNA evidence proved the true perpetrator to be another man, Gregory Allen. Upon Avery's release, Chairman of the Assembly Judiciary Committee and State Rep. Mark Gundrum, R-New Berlin, formed the Task Force with the aim of reforming the criminal justice system.

Comprised of a bipartisan group of legislators, prosecutors, defense attorneys, victim advocates and law-enforcement officials, the task force first met in December 2003 to begin discussing and recommending reforms. Additionally, the UW Law School's Wisconsin Innocence Project Co-director Keith Findley held a seat on the force.

"[The Wisconsin Innocence Project] is a clinical program in the law school here that allows students to work on cases where the inmate claims [innocence]," Project Co-director John Pray said.

Participants of the Innocence Project include carefully selected law students who investigate disputed rulings like Avery's, working under the supervision of attorneys and program directors to promote justice in the criminal system, Pray added.

Authored by Gundrum, the task force legislation, or Assembly Bill 648, offers a number of reforms intended to decrease the likelihood of unjust convictions in the future by changing the procedures of incarceration.

"It is probably the most sweeping criminal justice reforms in the history of the state," Gundrum said. "It should go a long way towards helping ensure that innocent people such as Steven Avery don't end up wrongfully convicted in the future."

According to Pray, two of the legislation's major provisions involve the manner in which eyewitness line-ups and interrogations are operated.

One reform mandates "line-ups not all be done at [once]," Pray said. An eyewitness should instead be presented with one suspect at a time, thus enabling witnesses to make coherent judgments as opposed to "simply picking out the person who they think looks most like [the perpetrator]."

The second key reform would require interrogations to be videotaped in order to avoid "he said, she said" disputes from rising.

AB-648 led Senate author Sen. Dave Zien, R-Eau Claire, who also served on the task force, to focus on another important issue — the post-prison management of those wrongly convicted and incarcerated.

Although over the course of 18 years Avery lost close to $2 million in terms of potential "salary, education and family time, he was reimbursed by the state only $24,000," Zien spokesperson Brian Deschane said, emphasizing the approximate nature of these figures. Additionally, Avery "spent $250,000 on attorney expenses," but was only presented with about $80,000 in return.

After more than a year and a half of discussion and drafting, the Task Force's proposed legislation met review at a joint public hearing of the committees in early September. Avery attended the hearing, offered a testimony and expressed his support of the reforms. Additionally, the victim who misidentified Avery attended, also conveying her strong support for AB-648.

After passing unanimously in the Assembly, AB-648 has been sent to the Senate, where it is expected to be voted on within the next few weeks.

"[AB-648] has very strong bipartisan support and I'm expecting it to pass," Gundrum said.