Commonwealth v. DiCicco
Annotate this CaseAfter a jury trial in 1984, Defendant was convicted of aggravated rape. In 2006, Defendant filed a series of motions to test the victim’s clothing for DNA. The motions were granted. The State police crime laboratory and an independent laboratory performed DNA testing on the evidence. Thereafter, Defendant filed a motion for a new trial, relying on the affidavit of a forensic analyst employed by the Connecticut State laboratory, who stated his opinion that Defendant was excluded as the source of the male DNA on the victim’s clothing. After an evidentiary hearing, the motion judge denied the motion for a new trial, determining that the forensic analysts’s opinion was not sufficiently reliable to be placed before a jury. The Appeals Court affirmed. The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the denial of Defendant’s motion for a new trial, holding (1) Defendant failed to establish that the forensic analyst’s opinion was reliable, and therefore, the opinion was properly excluded from reaching the trier of fact; and (2) the newly available, admissible evidence regarding the DNA testing would not be capable of casting meaningful doubt on the jury’s verdict that Defendant was the perpetrator of the rape.
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