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 case in holding that the proffered expert evidence met the reliability standards of Rule 702: We cannot say that its ruling here was ‘manifestly erroneous.'” The Circuit did say that it expressed “no opinion on the propriety of admitting the results of LCN testing in other cases and note[d] that OCME is discontinuing its use of LCN testing in favor of newer technology that produces reliable results in most of the sensitivity range for which it previously employed LCN testing.” Hopefully, this limits the already-limited applicability of this summary order in future cases.
The Federal Defenders is currently challenging the FST technology used by the OCME. Please feel free to reach out to us if you have a case involving a DNA challenge. The Federal Defenders provided a training session on the science behind DNA evidence last fall. The materials are available on our website.
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