Attorneys handling cases involving DNA evidence should be aware of a recent NC Court of Appeals decision, State v. Phillips, COA19-372. In Dec. 2019, the Court of Appeals found that the admission of testimony about an inconclusive DNA mixture was expert testimony, was not based on sufficient facts or data nor is the product of …
Cases
MI federal judge disallows testimony about DNA mixture interpretation
Counsel should be aware of the Oct. 2019 ruling in which a United States District Judge found that in a case involving interpretation of a complex DNA mixture where the relevant contributor contributed 7% of the DNA in the mixture, the STRmix software report did not meet the Daubert reliability standard for admissibility as evidence. …
MI federal judge disallows testimony about DNA mixture interpretationRead More
Granting of new trial in capital case with unreliable DNA evidence affirmed
In 2010, Michael Ryan was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to death for a 2007 homicide. While the case was on direct appeal and as a result of the Motion for Appropriate Relief hearing, an order issued by Judge W. Erwin Spainhour granted Michael Ryan a new trial in 2017. The State appealed …
Granting of new trial in capital case with unreliable DNA evidence affirmedRead More
New Trial Ordered in DNA Case
Superior Court Judge Chris Bragg has overturned Mark Carver’s murder conviction and ordered a new trial. Mr. Carver had been convicted in 2011 of the murder of a UNC Charlotte student. Chris Mumma, executive director of the North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence, represents Mr. Carver. She argued and the court ruled that Mr. Carver …
Happy National DNA Day!
If you handle cases involving DNA evidence and don’t know the story of Lukis Anderson, stop what you are doing and take a few minutes to observe National DNA Day by reading this great article by Katie Worth of The Marshall Project. Mr. Anderson was a homeless man living in San Jose, CA whose DNA was found …
Rare medical condition, not shaking, caused baby’s death
Murder charges were dropped recently against a father in Randolph County charged with the death of his 11-week-old daughter. The baby’s treating physician indicated the death was caused by shaking or blunt force trauma. The defendant spent 158 days in jail prior to the charges being dismissed. The charges were dismissed when the forensic pathologist, …
Rare medical condition, not shaking, caused baby’s deathRead More
Mass. Supreme Court Considers Relevance of FSTs for Marijuana Impairment
Any practitioner that handles driving while impaired charges knows the significance of field-sobriety tests (“FSTs”) to the investigation and prosecution of drunk driving. Scientific research supports the basic idea behind the tests — that test performance on FSTs is an indicator of alcohol impairment. What about when the impairing substance isn’t alcohol at all? Do …
Mass. Supreme Court Considers Relevance of FSTs for Marijuana ImpairmentRead More
Admissibility of field test kit results
In State v. Carter, 237 N.C. App. 274 (2014) the NC Court of Appeals found that a trial court abused its discretion by admitting an officer’s testimony that narcotics indicator field test kits indicated the presence of cocaine on various items. The court cited State v. Ward, 364 N.C. 133, 142 (2010) which held that “expert witness testimony required …
Stingrays and Privacy
The Florida Supreme Court recently issued an opinion holding that the Fourth Amendment protections apply to real time cell site location information. The court distinguishes real-time cell site location records from historical data, emphasizing that historical cell site location records are not at issue in this case. This real time location surveillance is done with …
Shaken Baby Syndrome: How Bad Science Can Result in False Confessions
For the past decade, the theory of shaken baby syndrome has been under attack. See here and here. In January, the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Illinois granted Defendant Jennifer Del Prete’s habeas corpus petition where her conviction for first degree murder was based on faulty evidence of shaken baby syndrome. Del …
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Using cell tower data to track a suspect’s location
With the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision Riley v. California, the topic of cell phone forensics is on the mind of many attorneys. Cell tower location tracking is a related area where investigators gather information about a cell phone’s location using data from cellular towers contained in phone records. Attorneys should be aware that location …
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Hinton v. Alabama: Effective Counsel and Forensic Expertise
by Sarah Turberville, Senior Counsel, Criminal Justice Program, The Constitution Project on Tuesday, February 25, 2014 This article is re-posted from the National Association for Public Defense (NAPD) March newsletter. Please view the NAPD newsletter, available here, for additional articles relevant to effective criminal defense. On February 24th, the United States Supreme Court issued a per curiam reversal in the case …
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Defense attorney taps into the NSA’s surveillance of telephone metadata in hopes of finding exculpatory evidence
Among the documents leaked by Edward J. Snowden to the Guardian in June 2013 was an April 2013 order by the FISA Court directing Verizon to provide the National Security Agency (NSA) records of “telephony metadata” for all foreign calls between the U.S. and other countries and all domestic calls within the U.S, including local …
Dogs – 1, Defendants – 1
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court decided the second of two dog sniff cases before it this term. In Florida v. Jardines, the Court held that taking a drug-sniffing dog on the front porch of a house is a search for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. The Court held that the front porch is within …
The ENCODE project, the Fourth Amendment, and Haskill v. Harris
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting en banc, heard oral arguments on whether DNA fingerprinting violates the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable search and seizure on September 19. Plaintiffs-Appellants in Haskell v. Harris argue that collection of DNA at arrest violates their privacy interests because DNA contains not only CODIS markers that help in …
The ENCODE project, the Fourth Amendment, and Haskill v. HarrisRead More