Opinion ID: 2276915
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Duncan's Trial Was Rendered Unfair by Prosecutorial Overreaching.

Text: As Duncan correctly notes, prosecutorial misconduct can assume many forms, including improper questioning and improper closing argument. Brown v. Commonwealth, 313 S.W.3d 577 (Ky.2010); State v. Singh, 259 Conn. 693, 793 A.2d 226 (2002). If the misconduct is objected to, we will reverse on that ground if proof of the defendant's guilt was not such as to render the misconduct harmless, and if the trial court failed to cure the misconduct with a sufficient admonition to the jury. Where there was no objection, we will reverse only where the misconduct was flagrant and was such as to render the trial fundamentally unfair. Barnes v. Commonwealth, 91 S.W.3d 564 (Ky.2002); Partin v. Commonwealth, 918 S.W.2d 219 (Ky.1996).
Toward the end of his lengthy cross-examination, one prosecutor asked Duncan, Your story today is that JM was lying. JM has to be lying in order for your story to be true, right? Defense counsel objected on the ground that JM could have testified honestly but mistakenly. Although the court did not sustain the objection, it did advise the prosecutor to clear the matter up. The prosecutor then asked, For your story to be right, JM has to be wrong. Right? He then proceeded to ask the same question with respect to SM and JH, with respect to the detectives, and with respect to the DNA evidence, i.e., The DNA has to be wrong for your story to be true. Isn't that correct. When Duncan protested that he did not understand the DNA evidence, the prosecutor held up the exhibit which showed the results of the DNA analysis, had Duncan acknowledge, point by point, the instances where the DNA from SM's panties was consistent with his DNA, and then asked again: The DNA has to be wrong for your story to be right. Isn't that true? To none of these latter questions did Duncan's counsel object. Duncan contends on appeal, nevertheless, that these questions were flagrantly improper and rendered his trial unfair. With respect to the DNA questions, we agree. In Moss v. Commonwealth, 949 S.W.2d 579, 583 (Ky.1997), we reiterated what had long been the rule in this state and what is overwhelmingly the majority rule in other jurisdictions when we emphasized that [a] witness should not be required to characterize the testimony of another witness ... as lying. See also Liggett v. People, 135 P.3d 725 (Colo.2006) (collecting cases). Not only do such questions invade the jury's role as sole determiner of credibility and unfairly require the witness to disparage another witness, but they are usually misleading, for, as in this case, mistake rather than either witness's dishonesty could account for disparities in their testimonies. The prosecutor's question to Duncan as to whether his story did not imply that JM was lying was a blatant Moss violation, and Duncan's objection should have been sustained. That violation alone, however, would not entitle Duncan to relief, for following the objection the prosecutor asked instead whether Duncan's version of events did not imply that the victims' versions were wrong rather than dishonest, and that question at least clarified for the jury that Duncan's defense did not hinge on a conclusion that the victims had fabricated their allegations. Duncan maintains that he should not have been asked to characterize other witnesses as wrong any more than as lying. This appears to be a question we have not addressed before. Other courts have distinguished the two types of questions: Asking a witness whether a previous witness who gave conflicting testimony is `mistaken' highlights the objective conflict without requiring the witness to condemn the prior witness as a purveyor of deliberate falsehood, i.e., a `liar.' United States v. Gaind, 31 F.3d 73, 77 (2nd Cir. 1994). In denying plain error relief in a case, like this one, in which during cross-examination the defendant was asked if several witnesses were mistaken about particular details of their testimony, details that conflicted with the defendant's version of events, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit cited the Second Circuit's distinction between mistake and lie, and held that [w]hether this avoidance [of the L word] would suffice in all situations, we need not decide now. As [the defendant] did not object in the district court to these questions ... our review is limited to plain error. Clearly that standard was not transgressed. United States v. Gaines, 170 F.3d 72, 82 (1st Cir.1999). Likewise here, Duncan did not preserve this issue by proper objection at trial. We are limited, therefore, as noted above, to asking whether the prosecutor engaged in flagrant misconduct and if so whether it rendered Duncan's trial fundamentally unfair. Since Duncan's defense was precisely that the three victims had mistakenly identified him, it assuredly did not amount to flagrant misconduct for the prosecutor to ask him if they had to be mistaken for his version of events to be true. The prosecutor's asking whether the detectives had to be mistaken is more troubling, because the prosecutor did not specify what in particular about their testimonies conflicted with Duncan's version in such a way that either they were mistaken or Duncan's version could not be right. We need not decide whether that failure made the question improper, however, for even if it did the question did not render Duncan's trial fundamentally unfair. The prosecutor's DNA question, howeverThe DNA has to be wrong for your story to be right. Isn't that true?was altogether more egregious. To understand why, it is necessary to consider in some detail the Commonwealth's DNA evidence. That evidence was introduced through the testimonies of two lab supervisors employed by Orchid Cellmark, a company specializing in DNA analysis. One of those witnesses, William Watson, the supervisor of Orchid Cellmark's Nashville facility, testified that among other items to be analyzed, the Commonwealth sent to it cuttings from SM's panties, a blood sample from SM, and a blood sample from Duncan. According to Watson, the lab performed what has become the standard PCR/STR analysis of these samples. As background, we note some basic principles pertaining to DNA analysis from the COMMITTEE ON DNA FORENSIC SCIENCE: AN UPDATE, NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL, THE EVALUATION OF FORENSIC DNA EVIDENCE (1996) (NRC Update) discussed extensively in State v. Bander, 150 Wash.App. 690, 208 P.3d 1242 (2009). Nuclear DNA is a long, spiral molecule found in every human cell except red blood cells. NRC Update. Most of this long molecule is identical from person to person, but along its length are segments where variations occur. Id. These varying segments are referred to as polymorphic sites, and the possible variants, generally only a few for each polymorphic site are referred to as alleles. Id. In all but sex cells, a person has two alleles at each site, one inherited from each parent. Id. When several sites are tested and the alleles determined, the pattern of alleles is referred to as a profile. Id. Several tests targeting different polymorphic sites have been marketed, but in 1994 Congress established a set of thirteen such sites as a national standard for use in the Combined DNA Identification System (CODIS). Roberts v. United States, 916 A.2d 922 (D.C.2007). Watson did not testify that those were the thirteen sites his lab tested, but it appears from his report filed with the Commonwealth's discovery that they were. In any event, PCR/STR testing refers to a test targeting a particular kind of polymorphic site, sites at which the alleles are short pieces of DNA repeated some number of times (Short Tandem Repeats or STR). Roberts, supra . The alleles are distinguished by the number of repeats. Id. PCR, short for Polymerase Chain Reaction, refers to a testing process in which the DNA from a sample is isolated; the polymorphic sites to be analyzed are chemically marked and copied millions of times; and then, from that amplified genetic material, the alleles present at each site are identified. Bander, supra . By virtue of its amplifying capacity, PCR has made possible the analysis of very small DNA samples, but even with PCR it sometimes happens that an analysis will fail to identify some or any of the alleles at a particular site. Id. When some sites yield full results and some do not, the incomplete pattern of alleles is sometimes referred to as a partial profile. Commonwealth v. Linton, 456 Mass. 534, 924 N.E.2d 722 (2010). It also happens, frequently in the course of forensic DNA analyses, that a sample will prove to contain a mixture of DNA from more than one person. A mixture is apparent when the analysis discloses more than two alleles at any given site. Bander, supra . Two samples, a known sample, say, such as Duncan's in this case, and an unknown sample such as that recovered from SM's panties, are said to match if the profiles they yield are identical, i.e., if the alleles present at each site in both samples are the same. Id. If an unknown sample yields only a partial profile, but that partial profile is identical, as far as it goes, with a known sample, the two are sometimes said to partially match. Id. If the unknown sample is a mixture, with more than two alleles per site, the known sample is said to match or the source of that sample to be a possible contributor to the mixture if the known sample's alleles are among those present at each site in the mixture. Id. If the unknown sample is a mixture and yields only a partial profile, the known sample is said to partially match it, or again to come from a possible contributor to the mixture, if the known sample's alleles are present at each complete site of the unknown sample and are either present or potentially present at each site for which there are incomplete results. Id. The significance of a match or a partial match depends upon how rare or how common the profile or partial profile is. Population geneticists have amassed data bases for the commonly tested polymorphic sites, such as those in the CODIS standard, which enable them to estimate the frequency with which the various alleles occur in the general United States population and in certain subsets of the population. Roberts, supra . Those estimates then allow the calculation of the frequency with which a given profile occurs. Id. That frequency is often expressed as the random match probability or the odds that an unrelated person chosen at random from the reference population would have the given profile. Id. For large profiles, such as those based on the twenty-six alleles of the thirteen CODIS sites, the random match probability is frequently vanishingly small, one chance in billions or trillions or quadrillions. In such cases a very strong inference arises that the matching known and unknown samples came from the same source. Young v. State, 388 Md. 99, 879 A.2d 44 (2005). For smaller profiles, however, those based on partial matches, say, at only a few sites, the odds of a random match can be much higher and the inference that the source of the known sample was also the source of the unknown sample much weaker. Commonwealth v. Mattel, 455 Mass. 840, 920 N.E.2d 845 (2010). In this case, for example, Watson testified that the sample recovered from SM's panties yielded a mixture of DNA from at least three persons, two of whom were males. Although he did not specify the results of the analysis for each site tested, he indicated that the results were partial, with several sites yielding incomplete results. SM and Duncan were both possible contributors to the mixture, he testified, but the odds of choosing a possible contributor at random from the reference population (Watson did not state whether he was referring to the general population or to a subset) were better than one in three. Because these results did not have much inferential force, Watson recommended to the Commonwealth that it have the sample recovered from SM's panties and the sample obtained from Duncan retested at Orchid Cellmark's Dallas facility, where a different test, a so called Y-STR test, could be performed. The director of Orchid Cellmark's Dallas facility, Cassie Johnson, testified that the Commonwealth agreed to the further testing and submitted samples from SM's panties, from Duncan, and from SM's step-father. Johnson explained that she tested the samples twice, the first time in 2004 and then again in 2005 after a new, expanded version of the test came out. Like the test Watson's lab performed, the tests Johnson oversaw employed PCR to amplify certain STR polymorphic sites, and then sought to identify the alleles present at those sites. The difference was that the sites Johnson's lab targeted are located on the Y-chromosome, a portion of the DNA molecule that occurs only in men and that is passed on intact from father to son. Bander, supra . This male-only test would screen out any female contribution to the mixture present on the panties, and thereby, it was hoped, would provide more resolution for the analysis of the male contribution. Johnson testified that because the Y-chromosome comes only from the father, only one allele occurs at each site, and the pattern of alleles is the same for father and son and hence for any man in the same paternal lineage. As a result, Johnson testified, Y-STR testing cannot identify a particular individual, and a match between samples indicates that not only the source of the known sample, but others in his lineage, were possible sources of the unknown sample. The first test Johnson's lab performed targeted ten sites and from the sample isolated from the panties yielded results for seven of them. At all seven of those sites, Duncan's alleles occurred. In 2005, Johnson's lab analyzed the samples again, this time with a new version of the test that targeted seventeen Y-chromosome sites. For the sample recovered from SM's panties, the test yielded results at ten of the seventeen. At two of those sites two alleles were detected, indicating that the sample contained a mixture of DNA from two men. At all ten of the sites where results were obtained, Duncan's alleles occurred. At the two sites where an additional allele was detected, that allele matched the step-father's corresponding allele. At four other of the ten result-yielding sites Duncan's and the step-father's alleles were the same. Johnson concluded that Duncan and the step-father were both potential contributors to the mixture, and neither Duncan nor any male in his paternal lineage could be excluded as a source of the DNA recovered from SM's panties. Johnson was not asked for and did not offer any testimony regarding the statistical significance of her results. The jury was told that Duncan could not be ruled out, but it was not told that anyone else could be either. Given this complete lack of evidence regarding the significance of Duncan's partial match, it was a gross misrepresentation of Johnson's testimony for the prosecutor to suggest that the DNA has to be wrong for Duncan's version of events to be right. The DNA evidence was consistent with a scenario in which Duncan was the perpetrator. Given Johnson's very limited testimony, however, (the failure to establish through statistics or otherwise the significance of the finding) it was also consistent with a scenario in which any other man on the planet was the perpetrator, and thus did not need to be wrong for Duncan's testimony to be right. The prosecutor compounded the impropriety by having Duncan acknowledge, one by one, all ten sites at which his profile matched the partial profile obtained from the panty sample. The significance of those matches is precisely what the expert failed to establish, and by suggesting that those matches were either wrong or conflicted with Duncan's testimony the prosecutor invited the jury to be its own expertto make inferences that it was not qualified to make and which amounted to pure speculation. This was a flagrant abuse of cross-examination that, given the aura of conclusiveness that surrounds DNA evidence, rendered Duncan's trial manifestly unfair.
This conclusion is underscored by portions of the prosecutor's closing argument to which Duncan objected. Twice during that portion of her [2] argument based on Johnson's testimony, the prosecutor went from quoting Johnson's conclusion that Duncan could not be excluded as a source of the DNA in SM's panties, to insisting that not excluded means included, to the bottom line: What is Errick Duncan's DNA doing in SM's panties? Counsel objected both times the prosecutor reached this bottom line assertion, and following the second objection the court admonished the jury to the effect that while the evidence had not established a direct, absolute match, both sides were allowed to argue reasonable inferences from the evidence. Duncan maintains that the prosecutor's argument went beyond reasonable inference and had the effect, like that of the improper cross-examination, of misrepresenting Johnson's testimony. For the reasons discussed above, we agree. [3] The problem is not that the evidence failed to establish a match between Duncan's profile and the profile obtained from the sample. The evidence established a match, or a partial match, at ten of the seventeen tested sites. But missing from the Commonwealth's proof was any testimony establishing the significance of that partial match. Johnson's testimony that Duncan could not be excluded as a source of the panty DNA said nothing at all about how likely or unlikely it was for such a partial match to occur, and most assuredly it did not say that Duncan was the source. By asking the jury to infer on the basis of Johnson's testimony that he was, the prosecutor sought to wring from that testimony a conclusion it could not reasonably yield. This concern was reflected in the 1992 report of the National Research Council's Committee on DNA Forensic Science. That report, titled DNA Technology in Forensic Science, emphasized that [t]o say that two patterns match, without providing any scientifically valid estimate (or, at least, an upper bound) of the frequency with which such matches might occur by chance, is meaningless. Id. at 301. It is meaningless, or, at most, of marginal value, for precisely the reason noted above: although the evidence of a partial match established that Duncan could not be excluded as a potential source of the panty DNA, without further evidence putting the match in some context of significance, statistical or otherwise, it does not establish that anyone can be excluded and so merely includes Duncan among the rest of the world as a potential source. For this reason, several courts have held that DNA match or non-exclusion evidence is inadmissible without reliable accompanying evidence as to the likelihood that the test could or could not exclude other individuals in a given population. Without the accompanying evidence, these courts note the jury have no way to evaluate the meaning of the result. Commonwealth v. Mattel, 920 N.E.2d at 856 (collecting cases). In Sholler v. Commonwealth, 969 S.W.2d 706 (Ky.1998), this Court rejected that per se exclusionary approach and held that bald DNA match or non-exclusion evidence was admissible as circumstantial evidence akin to blood type evidence: We view [the expert's non-exclusion DNA] testimony as similar to that of an expert who testifies that a defendant's blood type is the same as that of a blood sample found at a crime scene.... Such does not mean that the crime scene blood was the defendant's blood, but only that the defendant is not excluded as the source of the crime scene blood. Id. at 710. We adhere, with some reluctance, to that holding today, but emphasize the following qualifications. Matching blood types provide weak circumstantial evidence that the defendant was the source of the crime scene blood. The rarer the blood type the slightly better the evidence, but no blood-type evidence standing alone would serve to identify the defendant beyond a reasonable doubt as the source of the crime scene blood. The potential probative value of DNA evidence is vastly more powerful. Although theoretically a DNA match over a large number of polymorphic sites, such as the thirteen sites of the CODIS standard, does not conclusively identify a defendant as the source of crime scene DNA, when the odds of a random match begin to vanish in the mists of the unimaginably small, as they often do in such cases, for all practical purposes the defendant is identified, and that evidence, standing alone, would support such a finding. In such cases, the Maryland Court of Appeals has held, the expert need not couch his or her testimony in the theoretical language of mathematics, but may testify directly that the match proves, to a reasonable scientific certainty, that the defendant is the source of the crime scene DNA. Young v. State, supra . In conjunction with this vast probative potential, DNA evidence is also subject to vast misunderstanding and misuse. Although at times highly probative, it can also, as this case illustrates, be much more modestly probative or hardly probative at all. Where its significance falls along that spectrum is a matter dependent upon expert testimony, since lay jurors are not qualified to make the assessment on their own. Statistical evidence, if possible, is the best way to convey the strength of DNA evidence, but statistics may not always be available, and where it is not the expert may use other valid means to give some idea of the extent to which the DNA evidence narrows the field of possible sources. [4] Whatever avenue is chosen, the Commonwealth must abide by the limitations of its own proof and not make claims that its DNA evidence is more probative than the expert's testimony has shown it to be. In particular, if, as in this case, the Commonwealth relies on mere evidence of a partial match and non-exclusion without any other evidence of the match's significance, it may not, as it did here, ask whether the DNA evidence is wrong because it contravenes the defendant's version of events. Similarly, the Commonwealth may not, by underscoring the fact of the partial match, invite the jury to speculate that the match is actually more significant than the expert testified, or that evidence of the partial match by itself is sufficient to identify the defendant as the source of the crime scene DNA. These are not reasonable inferences from bare non-exclusion evidence and so are not fair game either for cross-examination or for closing argument. Because the Commonwealth failed to present any evidence of the significance of Duncan's partial DNA match other than the expert's non-exclusion testimony, its suggestion during Duncan's cross-examination and during closing argument that the DNA evidence pin-pointed Duncan was highly improper and, given the immense weight jurors are apt to accord DNA evidence, rendered Duncan's trial manifestly unfair. We are obliged, accordingly, to reverse Duncan's conviction and to remand for additional proceedings. Because Duncan's other claims of error raise issues that could recur at a retrial, we shall briefly consider them as well.