Opinion ID: 2327661
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Appellant's Failure to Demonstrate Materiality

Text: Whether an applicant for post-conviction DNA testing has demonstrated a reasonable probability that testing will produce non-cumulative evidence that would help establish that the applicant was actually innocent [40] is, typically, a mixed question of fact and law. We defer to the trial court's reasonable determination of disputed facts. Whether the established or uncontested facts suffice to demonstrate the requisite degree of materiality is a question of law for our de novo review. Reasonable probability is a legal term of art borrowed from constitutional jurisprudence. When a defendant is required to show a reasonable probability of prejudice in order to obtain post-conviction relief for a violation of his constitutional rights, the harm of which he complains (suppression or exclusion of exculpatory evidence, or deficient performance of counsel, for example) must be significant enough that it undermines confidence in the trial's outcome. [41] This means more than a mere possibility of prejudice. The IPA evidently requires an applicant for post-conviction DNA testing to make a comparable showing and demonstrate something more than a mere possibility that the test results would help him prove his actual innocence in spite of all the evidence of his guilt. [42] In the present case, assuming that trace skin cells are present, and that the requested testing would result in the recovery of a usable DNA profile (of someone other than appellant or the victim), [43] appellant cannot show a reasonable probability that this would assist him to establish his actual innocence of Ms. Chappelle's murder. Appellant has advanced no plausible scenario in which traces of a third person's skin cells (years after the event) would exonerate him. Indeed, there is no evidence that anyone other than appellant and Ms. Chappelle was even present at the time of the assault (and appellant certainly has not identified or described another possible perpetrator whose link to the crime could be corroborated through DNA testing). [44] Appellant did not testify and offered no such evidence at his trial; nor did he set forth the facts in the bare-bones affidavit of innocence that he filed in support of his IPA motion. [45] Thus, as far as the evidentiary record is concerned, we have only the uncontradicted testimony at trial that appellant was alone in the house with Ms. Chappelle when she was attacked; he was the only person seen leaving the premises after the crime; and no one besides appellant and Ms. Chappelle was there when the police arrived. [46] Moreover, if we nonetheless entertain the suggestion that another person somehow could have committed the assault, traces of a third person's skin cells on the items of evidence in this case would not prove it. These items were ordinary personal and household objects that Ms. Chappelle wore (the rings) or carried around with her (the purse), or that she and others put to everyday use (the knife, scissors and wrench). As the judge below found, the presence of third-party skin cells on these objects might mean someone other than appellant or Ms. Chappelle touched them at some point in time; but that proves nothing, because it would not mean that the cells were deposited on the items during or around the time of the attack. They just as easily could have been left on the objects before or after the crime was committed, under circumstances having nothing to do with itfor example, by family members, acquaintances, or strangers making use of the objects or merely touching them in ordinary social interactions with Ms. Chappelle; or, for that matter, by investigators or unknown persons who could have handled the objects after the police acquired custody of them. [47] In short, the discovery of a stranger's DNA in trace skin cells would do exceedingly little, if anything, to rebut the overwhelming evidence of appellant's guilt. All things considered, we readily conclude that appellant failed to show a reasonable probability that the testing he requested would produce non-cumulative evidence that would help establish his actual innocence of the crimes for which he was convicted.