Opinion ID: 2267917
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Anderson v. State

Text: On January 7, 1995, Robert Kyelberg was sitting in his truck on the corner of 7th and Washington Streets in Wilmington, Delaware, when a stranger suddenly climbed into the vehicle and put his hand on Kyelberg's right vest pocket. During the struggle that followed, Kyelberg's eye-glasses were knocked off, and the two men fell out through the truck door. While fighting, Kyelberg noticed a screwdriver and glove fall to the ground. Eventually, Kyelberg managed to climb back into his truck and lock the door. Once the assailant realized that the doors were locked, he left. Kyelberg drove to a gas station, and the attendant called the police. When the police arrived, Kyelberg described his assailant as a black male wearing blue jeans and a dark jacket, and carrying a screwdriver and a pair of work gloves. Kyelberg warned that he would be unable to provide a positive identification, however, because his glasses had been knocked off. The police went to the area of the assault, and saw a man, later identified as Henry J. Anderson, who matched Kyelberg's description. When the police detained Anderson, he threw a pair of work gloves to the ground. The police seized the gloves, as well as a screwdriver that Anderson was carrying. As the police were arresting Anderson, they noticed blood on Anderson's face and on his boots. Anderson's boots, work gloves, and screwdriver were sent to an F.B.I. laboratory in Washington, D.C., where they were subjected to a form of DNA testing known as restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) testing. The results were inconclusive. Special Agent Michael Vick, of the F.B.I., testified that the likely reason for the inconclusive results was either that there was not a large enough sample, or that the blood was degraded. Before Anderson's first trial, in 1996, he was given the opportunity to obtain further testing of the blood samples, but that opportunity also included a risk. As his lawyer explained: [P]erhaps if further testing would result in exculpatory evidence, then that would be the only reason why the defense would perhaps wish to have further testing done. And that is Mr. Anderson's call. Perhaps, it could turn around and bite him as well ... so that's a decision Mr. Anderson would have to make.... Anderson decided to forego further testing, and was convicted of attempted robbery in the first degree. In August 2002, Anderson filed a motion for post-conviction DNA testing. Anderson claimed that short tandem repeat (STR) DNA testing was not widely available at the time of his initial trial, and that STR testing is capable of returning reliable results even from blood samples that are small or degraded. The trial court denied Anderson's motion, finding that he failed to show: (1) that the technology was unavailable at the time of the trial; (2) that the samples had been subject to a chain of custody sufficient to establish that they were not substituted, degraded, or altered in any material aspect; or (3) that the requested testing had the scientific potential to produce new, noncumulative evidence materially relevant to his assertion of actual innocence.