A team of Colorado's top prosecutors, law enforcement officers, defense lawyers and the governor will examine how DNA is being collected and preserved in the state.

Gov. Bill Ritter and the Colorado District Attorney's Council, which is composed of the 22 elected prosecutors in the state, announced Friday that they will put together a team of legal and forensics experts who will study how law enforcement agencies around the country collect and store DNA evidence to see if similar policies could be adopted in Colorado.

The group is expected to present its findings and make recommendations to the governor in the fall.

"As Denver's former district attorney, I am pleased to join with the CDAC to assess our current system and identify areas that may need refinement," Ritter said.

Defense lawyers have argued that Colorado law enforcement agencies should adopt a standardized policy for preserving DNA evidence, particularly in old cases in which suspects have been convicted or cold cases in which no one has been charged.

Key evidence that could exonerate someone who may have been wrongly convicted has been destroyed or lost, they argue. Crime victims and their families have expressed concern that DNA evidence that could be used to track down a suspect could be lost.

Colorado has no uniform guidelines for the preservation of evidence in criminal cases, leaving it up to individual police departments and sheriffs' offices.

"DNA is an important law enforcement tool, and we need to have the public have confidence in it, and questions have been raised and we need to answer those questions," said Don Quick, the Adams County district attorney and president of the District Attorney's Council.

Quick said that the team would include state legislators who could help determine whether lawmakers should pursue a bill setting a standardized policy.

State Rep. Cheri Jahn, D-Wheat Ridge, and Sen. Ken Gordon, D-Denver, have said that they plan to introduce a bill in the next session of the legislature that would require law enforcement authorities to follow a standardized practice of preserving evidence. Jahn will be a member of the working group.

"Real justice should be about the preservation and retention of evidence," Jahn said. "How we get to that is what this working group is about."