In 2001, the state Legislature opened a two-year window for DNA retesting in older cases.
This can be an insurmountable obstacle in older cases, before DNA testing was used.
Officials with the district attorney's office acknowledged that older cases going to Justice DiMango's court, called the "blockbuster part," required a less rigid approach.
Turin's courts have managed to cut the delays by giving priority to older cases and publishing the rate at which judges clear them.
That is not unusual in these types of case and the fact that older cases are hard to prove because of the inevitable memory problems is not a reason to consign them to the "too difficult" box.
"The PCC is contacting the Guardian newspaper and the Information Commissioner for any further specific information in relation to the claims published today about the older cases," the regulator said.
The discoveries in Tripoli are causing intelligence agencies and investigators to revisit some older cases, including one involving Iraq -- which documents suggest was offered nuclear technology before the start of the Persian Gulf war of 1991.
But they promise that even before that happens, testing in high-priority cases will be handled much more quickly and that the waiting time for older cases will be shortened, too.
Lawyers for prisoners who say DNA testing could exonerate them filed an emergency lawsuit with the State Supreme Court asking it to override a state law that would allow the destruction of DNA evidence in older cases after Oct. 1.
Nazneen Farooqi, a local protection officer with the United Nations refugee agency, suggested last week, without addressing Mr. Snowden's case directly, that his case would not be fast-tracked should he go this route, since "we prioritize older cases".
In most of the older cases, the medical examiner's office typically keeps a tissue sample from the autopsy, which has been used to extract DNA samples in numerous instances over the last three years.
