Ohio Supreme Court Holds Prior DNA Testing Not 'Definitive' If New Testing Method Can Detect Information Old Test Counldn't

The Ohio Supreme Court today ruled that, under ORC §2953.74, a state law that allows prison inmates to obtain new DNA testing of evidence from their trials under certain conditions, a prior DNA test is not "definitive" when a new testing method can detect information that could not be detected by the prior DNA test. (State v. Prade, Slip Opinion No. 2010-Ohio-1842 )

Writing for the majority, Justice Evelyn Lundberg Stratton "emphasized that today's decision does not address 'the issue of whether to allow new DNA testing in cases where prior tests provided a match or other meaningful information, and an inmate is simply asking for a new test using the latest techniques. Rather, our holding is limited to situations in which advances in DNA testing have made it possible to learn information about DNA evidence that could not even be detected at the earlier trial.'"

The case was that in which former Akron police captain Douglas Prade was found guilty and is currently serving a life sentence for the 1997 murder of his ex-wife, Dr. Margo Prade. Among the physical evidence introduced at his 1998 trial was a bite mark that the killer made on Dr. Prade’s arm through her lab coat and blouse when she apparently attempted to defend herself, the Court’s summary said. Although DNA tests were performed on the sleeve of the lab coat over the bite mark, blood from the victim’s wounds had covered that area of the sleeve and technicians using the best testing method available at that time, called polymerase chain reaction or PCR testing, reported that the only DNA they were able to detect on the sleeve was that of the victim. Expert witnesses called by Prade and by the state offered conflicting testimony regarding whether the bite mark left on the victim’s skin was compatible with Prade’s teeth. He was subsequently convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

"Citing testimony by the quality assurance administrator of the state's own DNA testing laboratory," the Court summary said, "Justice Stratton wrote that recent advances in DNA testing techniques, including the development of Y-STR testing which 'ignores' female DNA in a test sample and detects only male DNA, now makes it possible for new testing to do what the PCR methodology available in 1998 could not: identify and test small amounts of genetic material from a male even when it has been commingled with a much greater amount of female DNA such as the blood stains on Dr. Prade’s lab coat. 'Thus,' wrote Justice Stratton, 'new DNA testing methods are now able to provide new information that was not able to be detected at the time of defendant’s trial. We hold that a prior DNA test is not 'definitive' within the meaning of R.C. 2953.74(A) when a new DNA testing method can detect information that could not be detected by the prior DNA test.'"