Court of Appeals of Maryland Finds Res Judicata Shouldn’t Generally Bar Successive DNA Petitions
Section 8-201(b) of Maryland’s Criminal Procedure Article provides as follows:
(b) Notwithstanding any other law governing postconviction relief, a person who is convicted of a crime of violence under § 14–101 of the Criminal Law Article may file a petition:
(1) for DNA testing of scientific identification evidence that the State possesses that is related to the judgment of conviction; or
(2) for a search by a law enforcement agency of a law enforcement data base or log for the purpose of identifying the source of physical evidence used for DNA testing.
In yesterday’s opinion in Jackson v. State, the Court of Appeals of Maryland had to answer an interesting question: Can a defendant bring successive petitions for DNA testing?
In Jackson, Steven Jackson entered an Alford plea to the second degree rape of Patricia M. in 1993. After he was convicted, Jackson
thereafter filed numerous petitions for DNA testing, including a petition in 2005, which was granted; the results of DNA testing done pursuant to the 2005 Petition yielded inconclusive results.
Subsequently,
Jackson again filed a petition for DNA testing in 2013, which the Circuit Court denied. In his 2013 Petition, Jackson sought to have Patricia M.’s underwear tested using a “wide range of testing services including, STR, Y-STR, and mtDNA that conform to the 13 core CODIS loci used by the FBI.” He argued that, “[a]dvances in the field of DNA Testing have been made since those tests were performed and give rise to a reasonable probability that additional testing will yield exculpatory evidence supporting Petitioner’s claim of innocence.
The State argued that the Circuit Court for Baltimore County should deny this petition under the doctrine of res judicata, and the court agreed. As the Court of Appeals of Maryland noted in its opinion yesterday,
The effect of res judicata, or “a thing adjudicated,” is that it acts as a direct estoppel:
if (1) the parties in the present litigation are the same or in privity with the parties to the earlier action; (2) the claim in the current action is identical to the one determined in the prior adjudication; and (3) there was a final judgment on the merits in the previous action.
In other words, a losing party generally doesn’t get a second bite at the apple.
In yesterday’s opinion, Maryland’s highest court noted that it had not previously addressed the intersection between res judicata and DNA testing, but it did note that the Court of Appeals of Ohio had done so in State v. Ayers, 923 N.E.2d 654 (Ohio Ct. App. 2009). In Ayers, the court held as follows:
Given the efficacy of DNA testing as an investigative tool in criminal cases, we conclude for purposes of res judicata that DNA testing is a “specialized situation” in which the fear of wrongful conviction outweighs any judicial economy concerns.
The Court of Appeals of Maryland found that it had to reach the same conclusion, noting that
Our legislative history with respect to the standard that must be met in order to enable DNA testing to exonerate the innocent…mirrors that of Ohio, and we agree with the Ohio intermediate appellate court that res judicata, ordinarily, should not bar successive petitions for DNA testing.
That said, the court did deny Jackson’s successive petition. Why? Jackson’s argument was that Patricia M. claimed Jackson ejaculated on her, meaning that a result excluding him as the source of biological material on her panties would be highly exculpatory. As it turned out, however, here was the relevant portion of the State’s Alford plea colloquy regarding what would have been proven were the case to have gone to trial:
The State advised the court that the complainant continuously told the Defendant to stop yet the Defendant persisted. The State relied on a police report prepared by Officer Alexander….In said report the complaining witness was unsure if the Defendant ejaculated or not.
Given Patricia M.’s uncertainty, a “negative” DNA test wouldn’t really have been helpful to Jackson, which is why the court did not grant Jackson relief.
-CM