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EvidenceProf Blog
Editor: Colin Miller

Project DNA: Maryland

By Colin Miller

Maryland

Maryland used to preclude pleading defendants from seeking postconviction DNA testing. In 2016, Maryland’s highest court found in Jamison v. State, 148 A.3d 1267, 1283–84 (Md. 2016), that the state’s postconviction DNA testing statute did not apply to pleading defendants. In 1990, William Jamison had been charged with various sex offenses in Maryland and entered an Alford plea.Eighteen years later, Jamison filed a petition for DNA testing of newly discovered slides containing cellular material taken from the victim.The circuit court granted the motion, and DNA testing produced debatable results. Jamison’s experts claimed that the testing pointed to someone else as the perpetrator while the State’s experts alleged that the results were too ambiguous to be meaningful.

The circuit court concluded that Jamison had failed to prove his innocence, prompting his appeal. The Court of Appeals of Maryland, however, resolved that appeal on an entirely different basis: that Jamison wasn’t even entitled to seek DNA testing. At the time, Maryland’s postconviction DNA testing statute stated that “a court shall order DNA testing if the court finds that…a reasonable probability exists that the DNA testing has the scientific potential to produce exculpatory or mitigating evidence relevant to a claim of wrongful conviction or sentencing.” Despite the absence of a reference to a trial or identity being in issue, the court held that “[o]nly subsequent to a conviction after trial can the ‘substantial possibility’ standard be applied.” Therefore, the court concluded “that a person who has pled guilty cannot avail himself of post-conviction DNA testing.”

The court ended its opinion by noting the issue facing pleading defendants under its law, but it found that “legislative action may be more appropriate” to resolve that issue.On April 18, 2018, the Maryland legislature did just that, passing a bill allowing pleading defendants to (1) seek postconviction DNA testing; and (2) bring freestanding claims of actual innocence based on non-DNA evidence.