The U.S. House of Representatives agreed Wednesday to provide more than $1 billion for DNA testing to help prove the innocence of some death row inmates and the guilt of rapists and killers who may have gone free. 
The legislation, passed by a 357-67 vote, would give states $755 million for working through a backlog of some 350,000 untested DNA samples in rape evidence kits in criminal laboratories.
Lawmakers, in a committee report on the legislation, cited the Green River killings, saying DNA evidence "provided a major breakthrough" in crimes that had remained unsolved for years.
Gary Ridgway pleaded guilty Wednesday to 48 of those murders in Seattle. Prosecutors said advances in DNA technology had allowed them to match a saliva sample taken from Ridgway in 1987 with DNA samples taken from the bodies of three of the earliest victims.
The bill also would provide $5 million a year for five years to help states cover the costs of DNA testing for death row inmates who claim they are innocent. States would be prohibited from denying inmates access to the testing as long as certain criteria are met.
Since 1976, when the Supreme Court allowed states to reinstate the death penalty, 111 people in 25 states have been cleared through DNA evidence. They have been released after spending years on death row for crimes they did not commit, while police resume the search for the true culprits.
Lawmakers have fought for five years to pass the legislation. Agreements were struck in the House and Senate in October; a similar bill is moving through the Senate.
The bill gives states money to improve the quality of legal representation provided to indigent defendants in capital cases. That brought some opposition from some House members who said states should pay for and improve their own public defender systems.