Commonwealth v. Greineder

Defendant was convicted of the deliberately premeditated murder of his wife. The Massachusetts Supreme Court affirmed, but the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the judgment and remanded the case in light of the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Williams v. Illinois, which addressed the admissibility under the Confrontation Clause of expert testimony about the results of DNA testing performed by non-testifying analysts. On remand, the Court reconsidered of the admissibility of testimony of an expert witness regarding DNA testing where the witness did not prepare the underlying data. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the Court's rules of evidence and the protections they afford are not inconsistent with Williams; (2) the witness's expert opinion that Defendant's DNA matched the DNA on items recovered from the crime scene was properly admitted; and (3) the witness's direct testimony to the details of the DNA test results of a nontestifying analyst was improperly admitted, but Defendant was not prejudiced by the erroneous admission. View "Commonwealth v. Greineder" on Justia Law