Opinion ID: 2353238
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Appellant's Request for Pretrial DNA Testing

Text: On appeal, appellant first contends that the trial court erred when it denied his pretrial request for a test of the DNA contained in the biological material on his bloody clothing. The issue first was raised sua sponte by the trial court pursuant to its obligation under the Innocence Protection Act (IPA), D.C.Code § 22-4131 et seq. (Supp. 2002), to provide certain notifications to a defendant under qualifying circumstances. Specifically, the IPA provides, in a section entitled Pre-conviction DNA testing, that (a)Prior to trial for or the entry of a plea to a crime of violence, the defendant shall be informed in open court of physical evidence seized or recovered in the investigation or prosecution of the case which may contain biological material and of the results of any DNA testing that has been performed on such evidence. (b)A defendant charged with a crime of violence shall be informed in open court: (1)That he or she may request or waive independent DNA testing prior to trial or the entry of a plea if: (A) (i)DNA testing has resulted in the inclusion of the defendant as a source of the biological material; or (ii)Under circumstances that are probative of the perpetrator's identity, DNA testing has resulted in the inclusion of the victim as a source of the biological material; and (B)There is sufficient biological material to conduct another DNA test; (2)That he or she may request or waive DNA testing of biological material prior to trial or the entry of a plea if the biological material has not been subjected to DNA testing; and (3)Of the potential evidentiary value of DNA evidence in the defendant's case and the consequences of requesting or waiving DNA testing. (c)A defendant who makes a knowing, intelligent, and voluntary waiver of DNA testing or independent DNA testing pursuant to subsection (b) of this section prior to trial or the entry of a plea is not eligible for post-conviction DNA testing under § 22-4133 unless the defendant is entitled to have the conviction to which the DNA evidence relates set aside under § 23-110 or Rule 32 of the Superior Court Rules of Criminal Procedure. D.C.Code § 22-4132 (Supp.2002). The trial court held a pretrial hearing and entertained oral argument on the matter  including an ex parte proffer by defense counsel of the defense theory of the relevance of the evidence. During this hearing, defense counsel argued that testing was available under D.C.Code § 22-4132(b)(1), relying on the statutory language that counsel claimed indicated that my client may request independent DNA testing prior to trial or the entry of a plea if DNA testing has resulted in the inclusion of the defendant as the source of biological material. At the conclusion of the hearing, the trial court denied the request for DNA testing because D.C.Code § 22-4132(b)(1) refers to circumstances that are probative of the perpetrator's identity and the judge concluded: I don't think this goes to the perpetrator in this case. The court continued: There's no question about identity here, the question is what happened. And I understand how you may say well, although it doesn't go to identity, it goes to my theory of how this all occurred. You may be entitled to that for some other reason but not under this Act. This Act is narrow. . . . [I]t's Innocence Protection Act. It's focused on a particular thing, on wrong people being accused. It's focused on where someone else, how it all came about. It's not a broad thing of you have a right to DNA testing, another right to defendant. If it doesn't go to identity, then you may ask for this but not under the statute.[ [7] ] On the record before us, we conclude that the trial court did not err in denying defense counsel's request for DNA testing under D.C.Code § 22-4132(b)(1). DNA testing was not done in this case, and thus DNA testing did not result[ ] in the inclusion of the defendant . . . or . . . the victim as a source of the biological material. Consequently, D.C.Code § 22-4132(b)(1) had no applicability to the particular facts of the present case. However, in this appeal, appellant invokes a different subsection of the IPA, D.C.Code § 22-4132(b)(2), for his contention that he was entitled to DNA testing. [8] Subsection (b)(2) provides that a defendant charged with a crime of violence shall be informed in open court That he or she may request or waive DNA testing of biological material prior to trial or the entry of a plea if the biological material has not been subjected to DNA testing. . . . D.C.Code § 22-4132(b)(2). Appellant contends that, regardless of relevance, DNA testing was still warranted because a trial court has no discretion under D.C.Code § 22-4132(b)(2) to deny a request for pretrial DNA testing. We disagree, concluding, first, that D.C.Code § 22-4132(b)(2) does not confer an automatic right to pretrial DNA testing upon request, and second, that under the particular facts and circumstances of this case, the trial judge did not abuse his discretion in denying appellant's request for pretrial DNA testing. A. We conclude that a trial court has discretion to deny a request for pretrial DNA testing under D.C.Code § 22-4132(b)(2). As this court has stated: The primary and general rule of statutory construction is that the intent of the lawmaker is to be found in the language that he has used. Therefore, in determining the meaning of a statute, we must examine first its language to determine if it is plain and admits of no more than one meaning. In examining the statute, we give the words used the meaning ordinarily attributed to them. This court will look beyond the ordinary meaning of the words of a statute only where there are persuasive reasons for doing so. Such circumstances would include: (1) when the legislative history or alternative constructions reveal ambiguities; (2) the literal meaning would produce absurd results; and (3) when necessary to effectuate the statutory purpose as gleaned from the statute as a whole or its legislative history. Sullivan v. District of Columbia, 829 A.2d 221, 224 (D.C.2003) (citations and internal quotations omitted). Our review of the trial court's interpretation of the statute is de novo. Id. With these familiar principles in mind, we examine the relevant language of the IPA. D.C.Code § 22-4132(b)(2) provides: A defendant charged with a crime of violence shall be informed in open court: . . . (2)That he or she may request or waive DNA testing of biological material prior to trial or the entry of a plea if the biological material has not been subjected to DNA testing. . . . For present purposes, the operative word in § 22-4132(b) is the verb request, which in this context we understand to mean to ask for something, to do something, or for permission or opportunity to do something. E.g., WEBSTER'S THIRD NEW INTERNATIONAL DICTIONARY 1929 (Philip Babcock Gove ed., Merriam-Webster 2002) (1961). Trial courts frequently consider requests from defendants and must exercise discretion when responding thereto; any motion is, in effect, a formal request for action from the court, the response to which is subject to judicial discretion as appropriate within the parameters of the relevant rule or statute. [9] The Legislature's use of non-mandatory language in § 22-4132(b) is revealing, because [e]ven when a statute uses mandatory language, such as the word `shall,' the courts are to construe the statute in the light of reasonableness. Brown v. District of Columbia, 727 A.2d 865, 868 (D.C. 1999) (citing Standard Oil Co. v. United States, 221 U.S. 1, 69-70, 31 S.Ct. 502, 55 L.Ed. 619 (1911), and United States v. Am. Tobacco Co., 221 U.S. 106, 179-80, 31 S.Ct. 632, 55 L.Ed. 663 (1911)). We note that if no judicial discretion were contemplated in a trial court's response to a party's request, many of the applicable procedural rules would contain superfluous language. See, e.g., Super. Ct. Crim. R. 4(a) & (d)(3)-(4) (directing what action shall be taken with regard to warrants upon request of the prosecutor or defendant); Rule 9(a) & (c)(2) (same); Rule 6(e)(3)(C)(ii) & (iv) (discussing the circumstances under which the trial court may disclose matters otherwise prohibited upon request of the defendant or of an attorney for the government); Rule 11(e)(1)(B) (noting that a defendant's request for a particular sentence or sentencing range is not binding on the trial court, even if recommended or unopposed by the prosecutor); Rule 15(b) (providing that a defendant not in custody shall have the right to be present at a deposition upon request subject to such terms as may be fixed by the Court); Rule 16 (providing what must or shall be furnished, disclosed or permitted during discovery upon request); Rule 30 (providing that a party shall be given the opportunity to object to instructions out of the presence of the jury upon request); Rule 31(d) (providing that the trial court shall individually poll the jurors upon a party's request); Rule 45(b) (providing that the court in its discretion may order the enlargement of a specified time period upon timely request). We note further that within D.C.Code § 22-4133 (Supp.2002), the section on post-conviction DNA testing enacted alongside § 22-4132, the D.C. Council included standards to constrain the court's traditional discretion in responding to a request. [10] In light of the absence of such a limiting mechanism in § 22-4132(b)(2), and the unambiguous language of request rather than right, we find nothing within § 22-4132(b)(2) that constrains a trial court's traditional discretion when responding to a request for pretrial DNA testing. [11] Finally, we note that the court's traditional discretion includes the power and responsibility to weigh the relevance, or probative value, of all evidence against the danger of unfair prejudice. See, e.g., Hartridge v. United States, 896 A.2d 198, 216 (D.C.2006), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 127 S.Ct. 1503, 167 L.Ed.2d 242 (2007). Relevant evidence is simply that which tends to make the existence or nonexistence of a contested fact more or less probable than it would be without the evidence. Id. (citations, internal quotes, and alterations omitted). Without losing sight of the IPA's goal, broadly read, of encouraging the use of DNA testing in appropriate cases, see Bouknight, supra note 11, 867 A.2d at 251-52, we conclude that a trial court has discretion to deny a request for pretrial DNA testing under D.C.Code § 22-4132(b) when the results of such testing would not be admissible at trial, as when, for example, the results of that testing could have no potential relevance to the issues before the court. B. Turning now to the particular facts and circumstances of the present case, and viewing the facts and arguments as they were available to the trial judge at the time of his ruling, we cannot conclude that the judge abused his discretion by denying appellant's request for DNA testing because no potential relevance was established for the results of that testing. As the government indicated at the pretrial hearing, the prosecution case relied upon appellant's clothing only for identification purposes because it demonstrated to the jury that such clothing matched the physical description of the clothing worn by the complainant's assailant. The presence of biological material, viz., the blood, simply was not relevant. [12] We note that the trial judge required defense counsel to articulate a defense theory for the relevance of the result of DNA testing, eventually resorting to an ex parte bench conference to preserve the integrity of defense counsel's trial strategy. Defense counsel advanced two theories for the relevance of the results of DNA testing: (1) if the test results showed only the presence of the appellant's DNA, then those results could serve as evidence that appellant did not have a subsequent bloody encounter with a third person following the attempted robbery of the complainant; and (2) if the test results showed also the presence of the complainant's DNA, then those results could serve to impeach the complainant's account that he was not cut during the encounter. We are not persuaded that either theory demonstrates sufficient relevance so as to support a conclusion that the trial judge abused his discretion in denying appellant's request for testing of the blood on his clothes. [13] We conclude that the absence of a third person's DNA on the clothes fails to support appellant's contention that he was not involved in a violent encounter with a third person, and, more importantly, evidence showing that appellant had a subsequent encounter with another person is not relevant to appellant's guilt or innocence with regard to the offense with which he was charged. Furthermore, because under this theory of relevance, appellant is searching only for the presence vel non of the blood of a third person to disprove the occurrence of a separate encounter, rather than the presence of the blood of the perpetrator or victim of the present offense, we conclude that this theory does not even provide appellant an avenue under the IPA to request DNA testing of the blood, much less provide a right to such testing. See D.C.Code § 22-4131(2) (limiting the definition of biological material to that which apparently derived from the perpetrator of a crime or, under circumstances that may be probative of the perpetrator's identity, apparently derived from the victim of a crime). Thus, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by denying appellant's request for the DNA testing of the blood pursuant to appellant's first theory of relevance. As to appellant's second theory of relevance, viz., the possibility that the bloodstains on appellant's clothing consisted, at least in part, of the complainant's blood, we note that defense counsel could proffer no evidence that the complainant ever bled during the encounter. Thus, the security guard and the police officers who all saw the complainant's condition immediately after the attempted robbery testified that the only injuries they observed were contusions on the complainant's face. (Indeed, it was to appellant's benefit that there were no bleeding knife wounds that only would have served to bolster the complainant's story that he was the one assaulted.) We note further that at the pretrial phase of the case, when the trial judge ruled upon appellant's request for DNA testing, the possible impeachment value of the DNA test results was wholly speculative. In sum, we are satisfied that the results of DNA testing properly could have been excluded at trial because they were not relevant. Thus, under the circumstances, we conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying the pretrial request for DNA testing.