Opinion ID: 1511177
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Admission of DNA Testimony

Text: The defendant first contends that the testimony of Agent Harrison on the probability of a random match among various racial groups should not have been admitted. After Agent Harrison had testified at the preliminary hearing on the random-match probabilities based upon African-American-, Caucasian-, and Hispanic-population databases, defense counsel asked her if she had calculated probabilities using the product-rule method for a match in a Native American or an Asian database. She said she had not. She then indicated that her testimony on the probability of a random match using the ceiling principle was also calculated using Caucasian-, African-American-, and Hispanic-population databases and did not include Asians or Native Americans. Relying in part upon this testimony, defense counsel objected that the DNA evidence was irrelevant as it might not include defendant's racial group. The trial justice noted in reply: You suggest your client is from some ethnic background that is not representative in those samples; that he's Asian? I look at him. He doesn't appear Asian. Doesn't appear to be [African-American]. Certainly doesn't appear to be anything other than Caucasian. Rather than address the trial justice's observation, defense counsel argued that admitting testimony on the random-match probabilities without proof of his client's race would lead to speculation on the part of the jury. At trial defense counsel continued his line of attack in the following exchange with Agent Harrison. Q:    My question is that if Mr. Gabriau does not fit into Caucasian, [African-American], or Hispanic you have no testimony to give to this jury as to the probabilities of his DNA reports, do you, to the population? A: No, I don't. The defendant contends, on appeal, that given Agent Harrison's testimony, the admission of DNA evidence in this case was error. His contention really is that preliminary facts indicating the relevancy of the submission were not shown. See R.I. R. Evid. 104(b). We start our analysis by noting that decisions regarding the admission or exclusion of evidence on grounds of relevance are left within the sound discretion of the trial justice. State v. Neri, 593 A.2d 953, 956 (R.I.1991); State v. Burke, 427 A.2d 1302, 1304 (R.I.1981). We shall uphold the trial justice's ruling if any grounds supporting it appear in the record. Corrado v. Providence Redevelopment Agency, 117 R.I. 647, 655, 370 A.2d 226, 230 (1977); Bruce v. State Department of Public Works, 93 R.I. 466, 470, 176 A.2d 846, 848 (1962). Finally, on appeal we shall only disturb his or her decision when it constitutes an abuse of discretion, Neri, 593 A.2d at 956, and the admission of irrelevant evidence was prejudicial to the rights of the accused. Burke, 427 A.2d at 1304. Such prejudice exists if we are unable to say whether the jury would have reached the same verdict if the evidence had not been improperly admitted. Id. In the courts of our state, decisions concerning the existence of preliminary facts are left for determination by the trial justice in evaluating the relevance of evidence. See Romano v. Ann & Hope Factory Outlet, Inc., 417 A.2d 1375, 1378-79 (R.I.1980); R.I. R. Evid. 104(b). This process is necessarily a flexible one, and the trial justice is not bound by the normal rules of evidence, save those relating to privileges. R.I. R. Evid. 104(a). As Professor James Bradley Thayer noted many years ago, In conducting a process of judicial reasoning, as of other reasoning, not a step can be taken without assuming something which has not been proved; and the capacity to do this, with competent judgment and efficiency, is imputed to judges    as part of their necessary mental outfit. Thayer, A Preliminary Treatise on Evidence 279-80 (1898). Therefore, as in the case at bar, `[j]udicial notice is of particular importance in assisting the judge in formulating evidential hypotheses which will justify the admission of evidence   .' 1 Weinstein's Evidence, ¶ 200[05] at 200-27 (1996). [7] Here the trial justice noted that defendant appeared to be Caucasian in his response to defendant's relevancy argument. The trial justice's consideration of what he saw before him as part of his reasoning process was appropriate. As observed in a slightly different context, In the vast majority of cases the race of [a defendant] will be known to any one who looks at him.    The triers of the facts will look upon the defendant sitting in the court room and will draw their own conclusions. Morrison v. California, 291 U.S. 82, 94, 54 S.Ct. 281, 286, 78 L.Ed. 664, 672 (1934)(Cardozo, J.). [8] When the trial justice notified defense counsel of his observation of defendant's apparent racial group, the burden of going forward shifted to defendant to show that a genuine issue of dispute in respect to defendant's race existed. Professor Charles Alan Wright has observed that the Advisory Committee's Note to Rule 104 indicates that the ambiguous term preliminary questions as used in the rule is intended to encompass issues of preliminary facts as well. These he defines as `fact[s] upon the existence or nonexistence of which depends the admissibility or inadmissibility of evidence.' 21 Charles A. Wright & Kenneth W. Graham, Federal Practice and Procedure, § 5053 at 253-54 (1977) (quoting Cal. Evid.Code § 400). He notes that [t]his awkward definition is used because it emphasizes the fact that it is not only the offeror who must prove preliminary facts.   In the argot of the trade, one may have to `lay a foundation' for exclusion as well as admission. Id. at 254. As Justice Cardozo once noted, [N]otice, even when taken, has no other effect than to relieve one of the parties to a controversy of the burden of resorting to the usual forms of evidence   . `It does not mean that the opponent is prevented from disputing the matter by evidence if he believes it is disputable.' Ohio Bell Telephone Co. v. Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, 301 U.S. 292, 301-02, 57 S.Ct. 724, 729, 81 L.Ed. 1093, 1100 (1937). We finally note that here, where the ability to challenge the trial justice's observation was uniquely within defendant's knowledge and ability, it is especially appropriate to shift the burden of going forward to defendant to lay the foundation for exclusion. See, e.g., Morrison, 291 U.S. at 88-89, 54 S.Ct. at 284, 78 L.Ed. at 669, 9 Wigmore, Evidence § 2486 at 290 (Chadbourn rev.1981). Doing so presents no issue of the shifting from the state of the burden of proof on an issue going to an essential element of the case. See In the Matter of Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970); State v. Welch, 117 R.I. 107, 109, 363 A.2d 1356, 1358 (1976); State v. Main, 94 R.I. 338, 346, 180 A.2d 814, 818-19 (1962). As we noted in State v. Neary, 122 R.I. 506, 511-12, 409 A.2d 551, 555 (1979), there is a manifest distinction between the evidentiary concepts of the burden of production and the ultimate burden of proof. While the accused never bears the burden of satisfying the factfinder of his innocence or justification, and the prosecution always bears the burden of proving the guilt of an accused beyond a reasonable doubt in a criminal prosecution ( State v. Brown, 97 R.I. 95, 196 A.2d 138 (1963); State v. Stallman, 78 R.I. 90, 79 A.2d 611 (1951)), the burden of going forward with the evidence may indeed shift from side to side, and this same burden may properly devolve upon a defendant once the state has developed a prima facie case and has adduced evidence sufficient to make it just that the defendant be required to challenge the proof with excuse or explanation. See Patterson v. New York, 432 U.S. 197, 203 n. 9, 97 S.Ct. 2319, 2323 n. 9, 53 L.Ed.2d 281, 287 n. 9 (1977), citing Morrison v. California, 291 U.S. 82, 54 S.Ct. 281, 78 L.Ed. 664 (1934). See also Dowling v. United States, 493 U.S. 342, 351 n. 3, 110 S.Ct. 668, 673 n. 3, 107 L.Ed.2d 708, 719 n. 3 (1990). In the case at bar defendant failed to make any effort to show that the issue of his own race was disputable. Rather than speculate concerning the reasons why he did not, we merely note that counsel, should he have wished to, could have easily brought defendant forward to offer evidence concerning his racial origin. [9] His failure to do so relieved the trial justice from any need to consider further counsel's unsupported suggestion that the evidence was irrelevant. [10] For us to rule otherwise would be to elevate every naked assertion by counsel into an issue requiring proof by the state. This we decline to do.