United States v. Jordan, No. 15-1046 (10th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CaseA federal grand jury indicted inmate Mark Jordan for the 1999 murder of David Stone and three related assaults. Stone died after he was stabbed three times with a shank in the recreation yard at the United States Penitentiary in Florence, Colorado (“USP Florence”). In 2005, a jury found him guilty on all counts. In 2012, Sean Riker, another inmate who was present in the prison recreation yard that day, confessed to stabbing Stone and agreed to provide Jordan’s counsel a DNA sample. Jordan’s DNA expert then linked Riker’s DNA to DNA found on the murder weapon. Based on Riker’s confession and the new DNA analysis, Jordan moved for a new trial under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 33 due to newly discovered evidence. After the conclusion of the Rule 33 hearing, the district court denied Jordan’s motion for a new trial. On appeal, Jordan argued: (1) the district court should not have admitted and considered new government evidence; and (2) even if Rule 33 permits new government evidence, the Federal Rules of Evidence and the Confrontation Clause each should have barred admission of Stone’s dying declarations. Finding no reversible error, the Tenth Circuit affirmed.
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