Maryland’s top court considers whether a man serving a life sentence for conspiracy to commit murder has a statutory and constitutional right to conduct a potentially exonerating DNA test on evidence the state has.

Tagged with: dna due process equal protection Maryland DNA Postconviction Act postconviction

A man serving time for a rape conviction pleaded guilty Monday to the 1982 murder of Laurel woman nearly three years after DNA established a link between him and the victim and revived the cold case. John Ernest Walsh, 71, ...

Tagged with: cold-case dna Laurel murder Prince George's County rape

The U.S. Supreme Court let stand without comment Tuesday a Maryland high-court ruling that police acted constitutionally when they used the DNA sample a homeless man gave them for a rape investigation to link him to an unrelated burglary.

Tagged with: Attorney General Brian E. Frosh dna fourth amendment Paul DeWolfe Supreme Court

Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh has chosen not to respond to the state public defender’s request that the Supreme Court review and overturn a Maryland high court ruling that police acted constitutionally when they used the DNA sample a homeless man gave them for a rape investigation to link him to an unrelated burglary.

Tagged with: Attorney General Brian E. Frosh dna fourth amendment Paul DeWolfe Supreme Court

Maryland's chief public defender asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to review and overturn a state high court ruling that police acted constitutionally when they used the DNA sample a homeless man gave them for a rape investigation to link him to an unrelated burglary.

Tagged with: appellate litigation crime dna evidence fourth amendment Paul DeWolfe

The U.S. Supreme Court should strike down as unconstitutional law enforcement’s warrantless searches and retention of DNA found on lawfully seized items worn or touched by criminal suspects, Maryland’s chief public defender states in papers filed with the justices in a case from Massachusetts.

Tagged with: dna fourth amendment

Police who receive a person’s DNA sample voluntarily during a criminal investigation may use that sample to investigate other crimes — unless the person has expressly told them not to, a sharply divided Maryland high court ruled Tuesday.

Tagged with: dna fourth amendment

Criminal defendants have a constitutional right to cross-examine a DNA analyst whose report puts them at the crime scene “within a reasonable degree of scientific certainty,” Maryland’s top court has held in overturning the attempted murder and armed-robbery convictions of a man whose DNA was allegedly found on the mask the criminal used.

Tagged with: confrontation clause dna

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for a man to pursue a $15 million lawsuit against the Baltimore Police Department and three of its officers, alleging that their unconstitutional withholding of exculpatory evidence from his 1988 trial led to him serving 20 years in prison for murder before DNA tests helped bring his freedom.

Tagged with: civil rights dna statute of limitations Supreme Court

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear the appeal of a convicted rapist who had urged the justices to overturn his conviction and rule the the Maryland State Police violated his constitutional rights by surreptitiously checking the DNA in the perspiration he left on a chair after being questioned voluntarily at an MSP barracks.

Tagged with: dna fourth amendment Supreme Court