AELE LAW LIBRARY OF CASE SUMMARIES:
Civil Liability of Law Enforcement Agencies
& Personnel
DNA Testing & Issues
A man arrested and
convicted of sexual assault had his conviction overturned when DNA testing
indicated that his uncle, rather than he, was the guilty party. Despite
this, his malicious prosecution lawsuit against the police was properly
dismissed, since, based on the evidence they had at the time, they had
probable cause to arrest him, even if they were ultimately mistaken. Under
these circumstances, they had no improper malice towards him, and did nothing
improper. Holland v. City of Chicago, #09-3905, 2011 U.S. App. Lexis 12688
(7th Cir.).
A man sentenced
to death after being convicted of murdering his girlfriend sought to challenge
his conviction in Texas state court by seeking DNA testing of various untested
evidence from the crime scene, including knives, an axe handle, vaginal
swabs, fingernail clippings, and certain hair samples. State courts rejected
his plea for DNA testing, finding that he had not made a required showing
that he "would not have been convicted if exculpatory results had
been obtained through DNA testing." He then filed a federal civil
rights lawsuit against the prosecutor, seeking injunctive relief requiring
the DNA tests. By a 6-3 vote, the U.S, Supreme Court held that claims concerning
the right to DNA testing could be asserted not only in habeas corpus proceedings,
but also in federal civil rights lawsuits. Success in having the testing
done would not necessarily imply the invalidity of the plaintiff's conviction.
The Court therefore ordered further proceedings on the merits of the plaintiff's
claim that denying him the DNA testing violated his due process rights.
. Skinner v. Switzer, #09-9000, 2011 U.S. Lexis 1905.
A man being prosecuted for armed bank robbery
was granted a motion to suppress a sample of his DNA to compare with DNA
found in a van believed to have been used by the robber, on the ground
that it had been obtained by way of a materially and recklessly false warrant
affidavit, in violation of the Fourth Amendment. A paragraph in the affidavit
was false, as it misrepresented that police interviews of "various
witnesses" had observed a stolen van meeting up with a silver Volkswagen
van following the robbery. The officer writing the affidavit had not participated
in interviewing the witnesses or read the written witness statements, and
did not review the investigation reports in any detail. The officer's drafting
of the affidavit went beyond simple negligence into recklessness, as it
could be said that he had no evidentiary basis at all for making the statement
concerning the van. U.S. v. Brown, #09-3643, 2011 U.S. App. Lexis 1059
(3rd Cir.).
A man was convicted of rape and kidnapping
on the basis of testimony by a police forensic chemist that hair and semen
found at the scene of the crime were consistent with samples taken from
him. Seventeen years later, the man's conviction was vacated based on exculpatory
DNA results. The chemist's own lab tests indicated that she should have
excluded him as a possible suspect. In a federal civil rights lawsuit against
the chemist and the city that employed her, the arrestee was awarded $16.5
million against the chemist. The city was found not liable. The chemist
filed an indemnification cross-claim against the city, but settled it for
$23,364.29 without the plaintiff's participation. A federal appeals court
has upheld the trial court's rejection of the plaintiff's attempt to directly
seek indemnification on his judgment against the chemist from the city,
since there was no evidence of deliberate indifference by the city and
the plaintiff was not the real party in interest on the chemist's indemnification
cross-claim. Bryson v. Oklahoma City, #09-6143, 2010 U.S. App. Lexis 24822
(10th Cir.).
In a case involving a prosecution for
a number of sexual offenses, the California Supreme Court approved the
use of a "John Doe, unknown male" arrest warrant, describing
the wanted person by his unique 13-loci deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) profile.
The warrant was issued in this manner, as the statute of limitations for
attempting to prosecute the offenses would have otherwise been exceeded..
Peo. v. Robinson, #S158528, 47 Cal. 4th 1104, 224 P.3d 55 (Cal. 2010).
A man was convicted of a murder and jailed for
ten years. Ultimately, he was exonerated based on post-trial DNA testing
carried out by the district attorneys' office. He sued, contending that
his rights were violated by a 72-day delay in informing him or his lawyer
of the exculpatory results. A federal appeals court ruled that prosecutors
were entitled to absolute immunity from liability because their actions
were integrally connected to their role as advocates for the state in post-conviction
proceedings. An order denying the defendant county's motion to dismiss
was not immediately appealable. Warney v. Monroe County, #08-0947, 2009
U.S. App. Lexis 24914 (2nd Cir.).
An inmate claimed that Pennsylvania's refusal
to allow him to conduct post-conviction DNA testing on evidence in his
criminal case violated his due process rights. The federal appeals court
noted that the U.S. Supreme Court rejected that argument in District Attorney's
Office for the Third Judicial Circuit v. Osborne, #08–6, 2009 U.S. Lexis
4536, and that there is no federal constitutional right to such testing.
Young v. Philadelphia County District Attorney's Office, #09-1668, 2009
U.S. App. Lexis 17799 (Unpub. 3rd Cir.).
A federal court has held that police can
lawfully forcibly take DNA samples, including by drawing blood with a needle,
from persons who have been arrested but not convicted of any crime. The
court upheld a federal statute allowing the gathering of such samples from
those arrested for a felony. The court rejected claims that taking such
samples was overly intrusive or violates the Fourth Amendment. U.S.A. v
Pool, #CR09-0015, (E.D. Cal.).
A man was convicted of kidnapping, sexual
assault, and assault after the prosecution elected not to conduct DNA testing
on materials from the victim's person and her clothing. His requests for
DNA testing in connection with post-conviction proceedings were denied
in state court. In a federal civil rights lawsuit seeking access to the
materials for DNA testing, denying this request, a federal appeals court
ruled that there is no due process right to post-conviction access to evidence
for DNA testing, and nothing constitutionally inadequate in Colorado's
post-conviction procedures applied in this context. McDaniel v. Suthers,
#08-1400, 2009 U.S. App. Lexis 13613 (10th Cir.).
Qualified immunity was improperly granted
in a lawsuit over the forcible taking of a DNA sample from a pretrial detainee
merely because a prosecutor wanted to put the sample in a "cold case"
data bank. At the time, the court stated, there was no warrant or court
order authorizing the taking of the sample, nor was the detainee suspected
of a crime for which a DNA sample might be justified. An officer allegedly
forced his jaw open and forcefully took a swab from the inside of his mouth.
If true, this action violated the detainee's clearly established Fourth
Amendment rights. Friedman v. Boucher, No. 05-15675, 2009 U.S. App. Lexis
13440 (9th Cir.). .
The U.S. Supreme Court, in a federal civil
rights lawsuit brought by a man convicted of sexual assault and other crimes,
held that the plaintiff had no constitutional right to post-conviction
access to the state's evidence for DNA testing for the purpose of attempting
to prove his innocence. The Court also reasoned that it was a legislative
task to develop procedures and rules for obtaining access to such evidence
for DNA testing. District Attorney's Office for the Third Judicial Circuit
v. Osborne, #08–6, 2009 U.S. Lexis 4536.
The U.S. Supreme Court has announced that it will
decide whether a man convicted of sexual assault and kidnapping fourteen
years ago has a constitutional right to access to DNA from physical evidence
collected in the case for the purpose of conducting tests which he claims
will show his innocence, but which were not possible scientifically to
perform at the time of his trial. District Attorney's Office v. Osborne,
# 08-06, cert. granted, Nov. 3, 2008. Case below: Osborne v. District Attorney's
Office, #06-35875, 521 F.3d 1118 (9th Cir. 2008).
While plaintiff's claim that denial of access
to physical evidence which was the basis for his murder conviction stated
circumstances which might violate his constitutional rights, his claim
was time-barred under a two-year statute of limitations which began to
run on the date that a state court denied his request for access to the
physical evidence for purposes of DNA testing. Savory v. Lyons, No.
06-1296 (7th Cir. November 29, 2006). [N/R]
Arrestee had no constitutional right to pre-trial
DNA testing, even though failure to do requested test allegedly delayed
his release from detention for twenty-two months. Jimenez v. State of New
Jersey, 245 F. Supp. 2d 584 (D. N.J. 2003). [2003 LR Jul]
Court defers to legislature the issue of
the potential constitutional right to post-conviction DNA testing for persons
convicted of federal crimes and declines to fashion a broad constitutional
due process right of access to DNA testing. Harvey v. Horan, 278 F.3d 370
(4th Cir. 2002) [N/R]
Florida state DNA testing statute upheld
against state constitutional privacy challenge. Requirement that all felons
convicted of certain offenses undergo a DNA blood test also did not violate
a juvenile felon's Fourth Amendment rights, since the public's legitimate
interests in identifying the perpetrators of crime, absolving the innocent,
and preventing recidivism outweighed a felon's diminished expectation of
privacy. L.S. v. State of Florida, 805 So. 2d 1004 (Fla. App. 2001). [N/R]