8th Circuit Approves DNA Kit Evidence

The Eighth Circuit has sustained a trial court's decision overruling a criminal defendant's Daubert objection to the prosecution's use of the "Profiler Plus" and "Cofiler" multiplex kits for DNA testing. The defendant had objected that although STR DNA profiling methodology was sound, the kits did not implement it in a reliable manner. From the Eighth Circuit's opinion:

In applying the reliability requirement of Daubert, this court has drawn a distinction between, on the one hand, challenges to a scientific methodology, and, on the other hand, challenges to the application of that scientific methodology. In United States v. Beasley, 102 F.3d 1440, 1445-48 (8th Cir. 1996) (Beasley), cert. denied, 520 U.S. 1246 (1997), the district court admitted DNA evidence based upon the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method of DNA typing, derived by using the DQ [alpha] Amplitype and Polymarker test kits. On appeal, the defendant in Beasley argued that the PCR method failed to meet Daubert 's reliability standard and, moreover, that the laboratory which applied the PCR DNA typing method failed to observe necessary "special precautions." Id. at 1448. Upon review, this court agreed with the district court's assessment that the PCR method was sufficiently reliable under Daubert to admit the DNA results derived therefrom. See id. at 1446-47. As for the allegedly faulty application of the PCR method, the district court had opined that "these alleged deficiencies ... go to the weight of the DNA evidence, not to its admissibility," and this court again agreed. Id. at 1448. As our court's Beasley opinion explains, the rule in this circuit is that, when the application of a scientific methodology is challenged as unreliable under Daubert and the methodology itself is otherwise sufficiently reliable, outright exclusion of the evidence in question is warranted only if the methodology "was so altered [by a deficient application] as to skew the methodology itself." Id. (internal quotation marks and ellipsis omitted) (quoting United States v. Martinez, 3 F.3d 1191, 1198 (8th Cir. 1993) (Martinez) (quoting In re Paoli R.R. Yard PCB Litig., 916 F.2d 829, 858 (3d Cir. 1990), cert. denied, 499 U.S. 961 (1991)), cert. denied, 510 U.S. 1062 (1994)).

See United States v. Gipson, No. 03-2292 (8th Cir. Sept. 1, 2004) (Melloy, McMillian, & Colloton, JJ.).