United States v. Sylla, No. 14-2813 (7th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CaseIn December 2010, DNA testing linked Sylla to an attempted bank robbery that occurred in August, 2003. The perpetrator had bled during an exchange of gunfire. Sylla’s DNA had been entered into CODIS by the Bureau of Prisons after he pleaded guilty to a federal bank robbery charge in 2006. Sylla was indicted on July 16, 2013 after the Indiana state lab confirmed the match. He moved to dismiss, claiming that the applicable five-year statute of limitations had run, 18 U.S.C. 3282(a). The district court denied his motion and the jury found him guilty. The Seventh circuit affirmed, rejecting an argument that the federal DNA tolling statute, 18 U.S.C. 3297, was unconstitutional as applied to his case. That statute provides: In a case in which DNA testing implicates an identified person in the commission of a felony, no statute of limitations that would otherwise preclude prosecution of the offense shall preclude such prosecution until a period of time following the implication of the person by DNA testing has elapsed that is equal to the otherwise applicable limitation period.
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