Kenneth Washington was convicted based on DNA records created after his arrest. He did not have the opportunity to cross-examine the analysts who tested the DNA. Yesterday the Second Circuit rejected Washington’s habeas petition, which argued that the admission of these records violated clearly established law governing the Confrontation Clause. The holding of Washington v. Griffin … Read more
In United States v. Morgan, the Second Circuit affirmed the conviction despite the defendant’s challenge to the use of Low Copy Number DNA evidence at trial. The Circuit concluded that “although LCN analysis is supported by significantly weaker evidence of reliability than traditional DNA analysis, the district court did not abuse its discretion in this … Read more
The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology today released a report entitled “Forensic Science in Criminal Courts: Ensuring Scientific Validity of Feature Comparison Methods.” You can access the report here. According to a White House press release, “the study aims to help close the gaps for a number of ‘feature-comparison’ methods — specifically, … Read more
United States v. Pitera, No. 10-1564-cr (2d Cir. April 3, 2012) (Jacobs, Miner, Katzmann, CJJ) In this opinion by the late Judge Miner, the circuit rejected the claim of Thomas Pitera, formerly of the Bonanno crime family, that the district court erroneously rejected his application for DNA testing of “newly discovered” evidence. Pitera was convicted … Read more