Opinion ID: 2327661
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Appellant's Failure to Identify Biological Material for Testing

Text: Whether trace skin cells are biological material under the IPA is a question of statutory interpretation that this Court reviews de novo. [9] Statutory interpretation is a holistic endeavor, and, at a minimum, must account for the statute's full text, language as well as punctuation, structure, and subject matter. [10] Generally speaking, if the `plain meaning' of statutory language `is clear and unambiguous and will not produce an absurd result, we will look no further.' [11] When the terms of a statute are undefined and not recognized terms of art, we presumptively accord them their ordinary meaning in common usage, taking into account the context in which they are employed; [12] but [w]hen a legislature defines the language it uses, its definition is binding upon the court even though the definition does not coincide with the ordinary meaning of the words. [13] The primacy of the statutory text means that resort to legislative history to construe a statute is generally unnecessary (if not, indeed, disfavored); usually it is appropriate only to resolve a genuine ambiguity or a claim that the plain meaning leads to a result that would be absurd, unreasonable, or contrary to the clear purpose of the legislation. [14] We do not doubt that trace skin cells are, in common parlance, biological material. But that is not the issue; biological material is a defined term in the IPA, and the definition is not nearly as broad as common parlance would permit it to be. The statutory definition is limited to seven categories of material derived from living tissue. Skin cells are included as one of those categories, but only if they are visible. The word visible is not defined in the statute, but we do not find it to be ambiguous. It is not a technical term, and therefore we presumptively should construe it according to its meaning in ordinary or common speech. For that meaning we may look to the dictionary. [15] There we find that, as used adjectivally in a context such as this one, visible means capable of being seen: perceptible by vision. [16] This ordinary meaning of visible excludes the trace skin cells appellant seeks to find and test, because those cells are microscopic and certainly not perceptible to normal (or even exceptional) eyesight. Appellant, supported by the amicus, resists this conclusion. He contends that the ordinary meaning of visible is too narrow to effectuate the purpose of the IPA, which is to enable wrongly convicted persons to use the powerful techniques of DNA analysis to prove their innocence. Skin cells (and other biological evidence) can be transferred and deposited by touch in minute amounts and need not be visible to the naked eye to be amenable to those techniques. Consequently, appellant and amicus argue, to avoid a result that is absurdly at odds with the statutory purpose, the word visible must be construed broadly to include what is perceptible with a microscope or other advanced technology. In other words, amicus contends, we should construe the term visible in the context of a statute such as the IPA as meaning observable using standard DNA collection and analysis practice. [17] This may be a good prescription for legislative action, but we think it does not pass muster as statutory interpretation. To begin with, given the extraordinary sensitivity and refinement of current DNA testing techniques, the alternative construction of visible proposed by appellant and amicus would render the word superfluous. It is indeed possible for laboratory technicians to obtain an individual's genetic profile from minuscule samples. The Short Tandem Repeat technology now in use requires literally cellular-size samples only, and can often yield reliable results from even a single cell. [18] If visible skin tissue meant any skin tissue usefully observable through an available enhancement technique, then any amount of skin tissue, even down to a single skin cell or cell fragment (though the word tissue connotes an aggregation of cells [19] ) would be considered visible through magnification, and the adjective visible would be devoid of meaning. An interpretation of visible that deprives the term of any significance is difficult to justify, even if it might facilitate efforts to exonerate the innocent. [20] We do not agree with appellant that such an interpretation is necessary because construing the word visible in its ordinary sense would be inconsistent with the IPA's purpose and distort the Council's handiwork. The legislative history of the IPAwhich we properly may examine to evaluate whether our interpretation would sabotage the statuterefutes appellant's claim. It shows the Council deliberately and rationally adopted a definition of biological material that excludes trace skin cells in order to reduce the burdens that the new right to DNA testing would place on law enforcement. Bill 14-153, the Innocence Protection Act of 2001, was introduced in the Council of the District of Columbia on March 20, 2001, and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary. As originally introduced, the bill did not define the term biological material. [21] But the bill required the police to preserve such material for DNA testing, and at a public hearing on the legislation, the Executive Assistant Chief of Police expressed concern that this duty would impose a heavy burden on the Police Departmentone it was not equipped to undertaketo handle and store voluminous DNA evidence for long and indeterminate periods of time. [22] In its first report on the legislation, the Judiciary Committee identified this as a very valid concern. The Committee recommended addressing the concern, in part, by defining biological material so that the police would have [to] preserve small samples of blood, or hair, [but] not entire automobiles and couches. [23] The Committee's suggested definition read as follows: Biological material means evidence of an organic nature allegedly derived from the perpetrator of a crime. The term biological material includes: (A) A sexual assault forensic examination kit; and (B) Semen, blood, saliva, skin tissue or hair sample. [24] As a means of reducing the evidence preservation burden on the police, this initial attempt was imperfectmost obviously because the list of evidence encompassed in the definition was not necessarily all-inclusive, and because the list included skin tissue without qualification. Subsequently, however, the Judiciary Committee revised the definition and corrected these problematic features. The amended statute accompanying the second report of the Committee defined biological material in terms of an all-inclusive list, andmore importantly, for present purposesit inserted the word observable to modify skin tissue. [25] Shortly thereafter, in the final enrolled version of the bill that became law, the word visible was substituted for observable. [26] The changes reduced the burden on the police to identify and preserve biological material for future DNA testing. [27] We would be thwarting the Council's intent if we were to interpret the word visible as appellant and amicus propose; indeed, given the ease with which trace skin cells can be deposited on all manner of surfaces and substances, and remain on them indefinitely, such an interpretation might require police to collect anything and everything at a crime scene that the perpetrator could have touched. [28] Appellant argues that the exclusion of trace amounts of skin tissue (and any other readily available source of potentially relevant DNA, for that matter) from the class of biological material subject to post-conviction DNA testing is arbitrary and irrational, and contravenes his right to due process. He acknowledges that the Supreme Court has declined to recognize a freestanding right to DNA evidence as a matter of substantive due process. [29] Even so, he asserts, he has a liberty interest in demonstrating his innocence with new evidence under [District of Columbia] law (the IPA), and this statutorily-created right beget[s] yet other rights to procedures essential to the realization of the parent right [30] including a right to test any DNA-containing evidence that has been preserved in this case and that might show his innocence. If the IPA is interpreted to withhold that right, appellant contends, it denies him procedural due process. We agree with appellant's premise: The IPA has created a liberty interest in providing for post-conviction relief, and the District's procedures for vindicating that interest must satisfy due process. [31] But the Supreme Court emphasized in Osborne that a state (or, as in this case, the District of Columbia) is allowed considerable flexibility in deciding what procedures are needed in the context of postconviction relief, because [a] criminal defendant proved guilty after a fair trial does not have the same liberty interests as a free man. [32] We therefore are obliged to uphold the IPA's limitation on the types of biological materials that will be subject to post-conviction DNA testing unless appellant can establish that it `offends some principle of justice so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental,' or `transgresses [a] recognized principle of fundamental fairness in operation.' [33] Otherwise put, we may upset [the District's] postconviction relief procedures only if they are fundamentally inadequate to vindicate the substantive rights provided. [34] We conclude that, to resolve this appeal, we need not decide the constitutional challenge that appellant presents to the IPA's limited definition of biological material subject to post-conviction DNA testing. We would find his challenge a pressing and difficult one if we thought it reasonably probable that the DNA testing he requests actually would help him establish his innocence and thus provide him with the key to the door of his prison cell. The District of Columbia appears to be the only jurisdiction in the United States with a statutory right to post-conviction DNA testing that would deny testing on trace amounts of skin tissue that might provide exoneration; [35] and outside of § 22-4133 of the IPA, it is at best unclear whether any procedural route exists for someone in appellant's position to obtain a court order for such testing. [36] Moreover, while there are practical reasons for alleviating the burden on law enforcement to preserve any and all evidence that might contain invisible traces of a perpetrator's skin cells, we are aware of no practical, or scientific, reasons for categorically excluding such evidence from DNA testing, regardless of its value, when in fact it has been preserved. [37] But like its counterparts in other jurisdictions, the IPA requires the applicant to demonstrate the materiality of the post-conviction testing soughtthe reasonable probability that it will help prove the applicant's innocence. [38] The imposition of this requirement is compatible with due process, and appellant does not contend otherwise. [39] As we proceed to explain, appellant cannot establish a due process violation because he has not satisfied the IPA's materiality requirement.