The People v. Donna Jordan

Summary

The Court of Appeals held that the People failed to establish that the criminalist who testified about defendant's DNA profiles had participated in, supervised, or independently analyzed the critical final stage of profile generation. Admission of the criminalist's testimony and related exhibits therefore violated the Confrontation Clause, and the error was not harmless because the evidence of guilt was not overwhelming and there was a reasonable possibility the error contributed to the conviction. The court reversed and ordered a new trial.