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THE MAJORITY REJECTED THE ARGUMENT DEFENSE COUNSEL WAS INEFFECTIVE FOR FAILING TO RAISE A CONFRONTATION-CLAUSE CHALLENGE TO DNA EVIDENCE OFFERED BY A WITNESS WHO WAS NOT INVOLVED IN THE ANALYSIS OF THE DNA; STRONG, COMPREHENSIVE DISSENT (CT APP).

The Court of Appeals, over an extensive dissenting opinion, rejected defendant’s ineffective-assistance claim based upon defense counsel’s failure to raise a Confrontation Clause challenge to the admission of DNA evidence:

Defendant asserts that trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance by failing to argue that the admission into evidence of DNA reports through the testimony of an analyst who did not perform, witness or supervise the testing, or independently analyze the raw data, violated his constitutional right to confrontation. This argument is without merit. “Even assuming that counsel failed to assert a meritorious Confrontation Clause challenge, the alleged omission does not ‘involve an issue that [was] so clear-cut and dispositive that no reasonable defense counsel would have failed to assert it'” … . Nor, on this record, has defendant demonstrated that the alleged error was not a matter of legitimate trial strategy … .

From the dissent:

At trial, the prosecution admitted two reports containing DNA analyses through a criminalist who testified, based on his review of the file prepared by another criminalist, that defendant’s DNA matched DNA on a screwdriver recovered from the scene of the break-in. This evidence was therefore admitted through a surrogate witness in violation of the Confrontation Clause … . The question on this appeal is whether defense counsel was ineffective for failing to raise a Confrontation Clause objection to this evidence’s admission. At the time of defendant’s trial, the law was sufficiently settled to support such an objection. Indeed, counsel recognized that the basis for the testifying criminalist’s conclusions was vulnerable to attack, as he asked the jury to reject those conclusions on the ground that the criminalist did not conduct the DNA testing. Given that the prosecution’s entire case rested upon this DNA evidence, counsel’s failure to challenge this evidence on Confrontation Clause grounds cannot be explained as a reasonable strategy. People v Espinosa, 2023 NY Slip Op 05971, CtApp 11-21-23

Practice Point: The majority concluded defense counsel’s failure to raise a confrontation-clause challenge to DNA evidence presented by a witness who was not involved in the DNA analysis did not constitute ineffective assistance. There was a strong, comprehensive dissent.

 

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