The Second Department, reversing defendant’s conviction, determined the entire first jury panel should not have been dismissed because of an interaction between one of the potential jurors and defendant’s brother. The decision dealt substantively with several other issues: (1) affirming the denial of defendant’s speedy trial motion; (2) finding the prosecution’s failure to produce the Miranda card was not a Rosario violation and an adverse inference jury charge was an appropriate sanction; and (3) finding that the DNA evidence introduced by a witness who did not participate in the testing procedures violated defendant’s right to confront the witnesses against him:
The Supreme Court granted the prosecutor’s application to dismiss the entire jury panel, concluding that the defendant’s brother had potentially tainted the entire panel. Significantly, the court did not first conduct an inquiry of the potential jurors as to what they had seen and as to whether they could remain impartial. Where, as here, a jury panel is “properly drawn and sworn to answer questions truthfully, there must be legal cause or a peremptory challenge to exclude a [prospective] juror” … . By dismissing the entire jury panel without questioning the ability of the individual prospective jurors to be fair and impartial … , the court deprived the defendant of a jury chosen “at random from a fair cross-section of the community” … .
… [T]he DNA profiles and reports produced from the testing of evidence recovered from the decedent’s home, including the defendant’s clothing, are testimonial, because such profiles and reports “were generated in aid of a police investigation of a particular defendant charged by an accusatory instrument and created for the purpose of substantively proving the guilt of [that] defendant,” and because all of the documents in the file of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner refer to the defendant by name and label him a “suspect” … . … [T]he admission of such evidence violated the defendant’s confrontation right, because it was admitted upon the testimony of an analyst who did not perform, witness, or supervise the generation of the defendant’s DNA profile, or perform an independent analysis on the raw data … . People v Metellus, 2018 NY Slip Op 00312, Second Dept 1-17-18
CRIMINAL LAW (ENTIRE JURY PANEL SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN DISMISSED BASED UPON AN INTERACTION BETWEEN ONE POTENTIAL JUROR AND DEFENDANT’S BROTHER, DNA EVIDENCE SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ADMITTED THROUGH A WITNESS THAT HAD NO CONNECTION WITH THE TESTING (SECOND DEPT))/JURORS (CRIMINAL LAW, ENTIRE JURY PANEL SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN DISMISSED BASED UPON AN INTERACTION BETWEEN ONE POTENTIAL JUROR AND DEFENDANT’S BROTHER, DNA EVIDENCE SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ADMITTED THROUGH A WITNESS THAT HAD NO CONNECTION WITH THE TESTING (SECOND DEPT))/EVIDENCE (CRIMINAL LAW, DNA EVIDENCE SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ADMITTED THROUGH A WITNESS THAT HAD NO CONNECTION WITH THE TESTING (SECOND DEPT))/DNA (CRIMINAL LAW, DNA EVIDENCE SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ADMITTED THROUGH A WITNESS THAT HAD NO CONNECTION WITH THE TESTING (SECOND DEPT))/CONFRONTATION, RIGHT TO (CRIMINAL LAW, DNA EVIDENCE SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ADMITTED THROUGH A WITNESS THAT HAD NO CONNECTION WITH THE TESTING (SECOND DEPT))/CONSTITUTIONAL LAW (RIGHT TO CONFRONTATION, DNA EVIDENCE SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ADMITTED THROUGH A WITNESS THAT HAD NO CONNECTION WITH THE TESTING (SECOND DEPT))