SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT DIRK GKEINEDER - Mass Cases

to eschew a motion challenging the admissibility of
Cellmark's test results was tactically defensible is
beyond the pale. Thia evidence was devastating to the
defense, and none of Murphy's proffered justifications
passes muster. Any reasonable lawyer faced with the
choice of trying to exclude this highly inculpatory
evidence or making the best of it would choose the former
over the latter. Any other choice, viewed in foresight or
in hindsight, would be manifestly unreasonable.
2. Defense counsel blundered in failing to
challenge the DNA evidence at trial.
Having not even tried to exclude Cellmark's
inculpatory DNA test results, Murphy compounded that
error by failing to challenge that evidence before the
jury. The forensic scientist who was supposed to
spearhead the DNA defense, Dr. Davis, was jettisoned by
trial counsel and never replaced. Instead, Murphy relied
upon Professor Krane, who was not a forensic scientist
and had been retained only just before trial. Krane had
never done forensic testing, utilized the relevant
software or hardware, or reviewed Cellmark's validation
studies. He was thus in no position to critique
Cellmark's work and didn't even try to do so. To make
matters worse, the defense failed to challenge Cellmark's
statistical analysis. As a result, Cellmark's
scientifically unreliable, yet highly inculpatory, test
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