SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT DIRK GKEINEDER - Mass Cases

DNA test results withstands scrutiny.’’ First, Murphy
testified that he believed that a motion to exclude
Cellmark’s results as scientifically unreliable was
”unlikely to be successful .” E. (8/14/06) /131.. Yet baaed
upon his o m knowledge of Cellmark’s seriously-flawed
work in this case, that prediction was utterly baseless.
Murphy’s experts were sharply critical of Cellmark’s work
and advised him that Cellmark had engaged in improper
analysis and bad science. Murphy knew that Cellmark had
not validated its use of an RFU threshold of 40, which
was unprecedented and unjustifiable.
Under these circumstances, Murphy had ample reason
to believe that a motion to exclude cellmark’s test
results was meritorious and would be allowed by a fair
judge. At the very least, all allelic calls by Cellmark
based upon peaks below 100 RFUS were ripe for exclusion.
Clearly, the filing of a Laniaan motion would not have
been an exercise in futility, and Murphy’s belief to the
contrary was manifestly unreasonable.
Second, Murphy testified that even if he had
eucceeded in excluding all allelic calls under 100 RFUs,
the jury still would have heard DNA results that
“conclusively linked“ the right-hand work glove to
23 Mr. Murphy’s credibility is not in dispute. This Court
is in as good a position as the motion judge to assess the
reasonableness of his decisions.
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