New Jersey is close to overhauling how it handles botched prosecutions that put innocent people behind bars as state lawmakers eye a special panel to review wrongful conviction claims.

A state Senate committee on Monday advanced bipartisan legislation that would create the New Jersey Innocence Study and Review Commission.

The move comes as the state's attorney general is weighing whether to create a special unit in his office to reexamine cases where DNA or other evidence has raised doubts about a person's guilt.

Both initiatives picked up steam after two Paterson men were freed by a state Superior Court judge last year. Eric Kelley and Ralph Lee spent 24 years behind bars before prosecutors in Passaic County dropped the case against rather than retry the pair.

A 2017 special report from NJ Advance Media detailed evidence two legal groups, the Innocence Project and Centurion Ministries, had gathered raising doubts about their convictions - including DNA testing that pointed to another suspect.

Currently, someone who is locked up for a crime they didn't commit has to navigate a complicated appeals system that can take decades, sometimes with the help of a handful of legal groups dedicated to freeing the innocent.

"Once you're convicted and sentenced, you're, like, crying in the wind," said Rodney Roberts, who served 17 years before he was exonerated for a 1996 sexual assault thanks to DNA evidence. Roberts was among several exonorees who showed up to urge lawmakers to pass the bill.

The bill advanced by the state Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday (S406) would create a commission to study the scope and scale of wrongful conviction in New Jersey. Eventually, the panel would have the power to review evidence in specific cases and present its findings to a judge.

The body, made up of volunteers appointed by leaders in state government, would also study the systems for compensating exonerated people and helping them reintegrate into society.

Separately, state Attorney General Gurbir Grewal announced in April his office commissioned a study on setting up a conviction review unit. A spokeswoman for the attorney general said the results of that study were expected soon.

State Sen. Joe Pennacchio, a key sponsor of the bill approved Monday, said the state still needs "one cohesive policy" for dealing with wrongful convictions, from freeing the innocent to getting them back on their feet.

"Where do you go to get your good name back?" Pennacchio, R-Morris, said in an interview after the vote.

Lesley Risinger, who heads the Last Resort Exoneration Project at Seton Hall Law School, said setting up a review commission would be a "first step" toward reforming New Jersey's criminal justice system.

Risinger said an effective commission should be independent of law enforcement.

"We have a long way to go before judges, prosecutors, and even defenders start to take measures not only to try to prevent wrongful convictions but to correct them after they happen," she wrote in testimony to the Senate committee.

At the hearing, Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Nicholas Scutari, D-Union, announced he would sign on as a sponsor of the bill, which has languished in the Democratic- controlled Legislature for more than a year.

It still requires a vote from the full Senate and Assembly before heading to Gov. Phil Murphy.

S.P. Sullivan may be reached at ssullivan@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter. Find NJ.com on Facebook.