State v. Seka
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The Supreme Court reversed the order of the district court granting Defendant's motion for a new trial based on new DNA test results, holding that, consistent with Sunburn v. State, 812 P.2d 1279 (Nev. 1991), new DNA test results are "favorable" under Nev. Rev. Stat. 176.09187(1) where they would make a different result reasonably probable upon retrial.
Under section 176.09187(1), a party may move for a new trial at any time where DNA test results are "favorable" to the moving party. In 2001, Defendant was convicted of two counts of murder and two counts of robbery. Although substantial circumstantial and physical evidence linked Defendant with the killings, no physical evidence connected Defendant to the locations where the bodies were found. In 2018 and 2019, DNA testing excluded Defendant from several pieces of evidence and discovered other DNA profiles on some of that evidence. Based on these DNA results, Defendant moved for a new trial, arguing that the new results exculpated him and implicated an unknown person in the crimes. The district court granted the motion. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that, under the standard articulated today, the new DNA evidence did not make a different outcome reasonably probable and was not "favorable" to the defense as necessary to warrant a new trial.
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