The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overturned the conviction of a Nevada prisoner in Brown v. Farwell, No. 07-15592, on May 5, 2008.
The reason was that without misleading DNA evidence introduced at trial, the application of Jackson ( Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (1979)) to the AEDPA, 28 U.S.C. 2254(d)(1), gives the conclusion that the State did not prove every element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Judge O'Scannlain dissented.
That section provides that habeas corpus on behalf of a person in State court where imprisonment was upheld on the merits in State court proceedings can be granted by a Federal Court only if
the result was a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States.
Normally, a claimant that fails to properly develop the factual basis of a claim can supplement the record only if (1) using a new rule of constitutional law made retroactive or (2) the facts underlying the claim were sufficient to establish by clear and convincing evidence that no reasonable fact finder would have found the defendant guilty of the offense. Here an exception applied: the Petitioner exercised due diligence in his efforts to develop the factual basis in the state court proceedings.
Because of the exception, a report by an expert was accepted that proved that the DNA evidence as presented by the prosecution through witness was misleading and inaccurate.
The witness testified that the results of DNA testing proved that there was a probability of 99.99967 per cent chance that the sample belonged to the defendant. The results should have been much more complicated. The reports should have focused on the probability that the sample would match a random sample in the population "the prosecutor's fallacy".
Actual probabilities are to be calculated using a formula known as Beyes Theorem and are quite complex, using several variables in product form to state the result. The strength of the non-DNA evidence in the case would be one of the factors. In this case, the other evidence was quite weak given inconsistent testimony and timing of certain testified to events.
Among other things, the supplemental report noted that the chance of the sample actually belonging to one of the defendant's brothers who lived in the area (or in nearby Utah) was as high as 1 in 1024 and a more lenient alternate calculation might change that figure to 1/66.
The overall weakness of the state's case once the DNA evidence is disallowed convinced the court that no rational fact finder could find that all the elements of the crime were proved beyond a reasonable doubt. The Supreme Court of Nevada had used a different standard whereby reasonable fact finder was used in stead of rational fact finder and this conclusion meant that the petition to grant habeas corpus relief was granted. Nevada has 180 days to retry the petitioner or to release him.
It should be further noted that the evidence was collected in 1994 "pre-CSI" in time. Hair and other evidence collected was not tested for DNA and a fingerprint not matching the defendant found on the night-light in the room was not compared to other possible defendants.
Will the state now try again? Do the other collected samples exist in a form subject to modern analysis techniques? Stay tuned as we found out.
