Government of Virgin Islands v. Penn

• Decision Date: 25 August 1993
• Docket Number: Crim. No. 91-38.
• Citation: Government of Virgin Islands v. Penn, 838 F.Supp. 1054 (D. V.I. 1993)
• Parties: GOVERNMENT OF the VIRGIN ISLANDS, Plaintiff, v. William PENN, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Virgin Islands

838 F. Supp. 1054

GOVERNMENT OF the VIRGIN ISLANDS, Plaintiff, v.William PENN, Defendant.

Crim. No. 91-38.

District Court, Virgin Islands, D. St. Thomas and St. John.

August 25, 1993.

Susan R. Via, Asst. U.S. Atty., D.V.I., Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, VI, for plaintiff.

Iver A. Stridiron, Charlotte Amalie, VI, for defendant.

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION

McGLYNN, District Judge, Sitting by Designation.

Before the court, in this prosecution for rape, is the government's motion in limine for pretrial determination of the admissibility of deoxyribonucleic acid ("DNA") profiling test results.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

The defendantWilliam Penn is charged with raping a woman on March 1, 1991.After the incident was reported, the Virgin Islands Police Department removed from the woman and her home a number of items for examination, including semen stained tissue paper, a semen stained sheet, a semen stained condom, and a cotton swab sample of the semen left in the woman's vagina.Additionally, the woman gave a sample of her blood.The FBI laboratory subsequently instituted a DNA profiling procedure using the evidence taken from the woman and her home, the woman's blood, and the defendant's blood, taken after the defendant was charged.The FBI informed the government that the DNA extracted from the defendant's blood sample matched the DNA found in the various semen stains found in the house and the woman.

PROCEDURAL HISTORY

At the hearing on the motion, the government presented the testimony of FBI Agent Robert Coffin and scientist Kenneth K. Kidd.The defense presented a witness, scientist William M. Shields, at a subsequent hearing.Agent Coffin again appeared in rebuttal and the government provided further testimony by way of an affidavit from Bruce Budowle, the FBI's Program Manager for DNA Research.Defense counsel responded with an affidavit from Shields.

WITNESS CREDENTIALS

Budowle.Bruce Budowle is the FBI's Program Manager for DNA Research in Quantico, Virginia.(Budowle Aff. ("Budowle")at 1.)Coffin.Robert Coffin has been employed with the FBI for over ten years.(R. 11/5/91 ("Coffin")at 5.)Coffin has a B.S. and M.S. in chemistry with a special emphasis on biochemistry from Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana.(Coffinat 5.)After completing his degree programs Coffin worked for three years as a biochemist for an unidentified college.(Coffinat 8-9.)

With respect to DNA profile testing, Coffin underwent a six month training period.(Coffinat 9.)The training involved taking college level courses, performing numerous test and actual cases, all under the supervision of qualified examiners.(Coffinat 9.)Coffin now works with the FBI's DNA analysis unit, part of the FBI's Washington laboratory.(Coffinat 5.)The DNA analysis unit performs DNA profile testing using evidence submitted to the unit by law enforcement agencies from across the United States.(Coffinat 6.)Coffin has performed over 130 DNA profile tests.(Coffinat 8.)Coffin remains current in the latest journals, articles, and publications relating to DNA profile testing.(Coffinat 9.)

Shields.William M. Shields has been a Professor of Biology with the State University of New York's College of Environmental Science and Forestry since 1979.(R. 11/5/91 ("Shields")at 4-5.)He teaches courses in animal behavior, ornithology, conservation biology, conservation genetics, evolution, systematic biology, and population genetics.(Shieldsat 5.)His research is in the field of animal behavior, behavioral ecology, evolutionary biology with an emphasis on population genetics.(Shieldsat 5.)He holds a B.A. in biology from Rutgers University, New Jersey and an M.S. and PhD. in zoology from Ohio State University.(Shieldsat 5.)Shields has published numerous paper on population genetics as well a book on the subject called Philopatry, Inbreeding and the Evolution of Sex.(Shieldsat 6.)As a Colorado Plateau Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Shields taught himself molecular techniques related to population biology studies.(Shieldsat 6.)

Since 1987 Shields has conducted DNA typing of rattlesnakes, Swallow, wolf, deer, and chipmunks.(Shieldsat 6.)He has received grants to do DNA typing from the United States Department of Agriculture, and the states of New Mexico and New York.(Shieldsat 13.)Shields published a paper on forensic DNA typing for the Promega Symposium in 1992.(Shieldsat 13.)He has been invited to teach DNA forensic testing to the California Association of Criminologists, the New Hampshire Public Defenders, the Maryland Criminal Defense Association, the Criminal Jurisprudence Society, and to the town of Ithaca and Tomkins County in New York State.(Shieldsat 14.)He has been invited to debate population genetics issues by the University of Ottawa and its law school at Carlton University.(Shieldsat 14.)He declined invitations to do consulting work in Germany and England (Shieldsat 14.)

Kidd.Kenneth K. Kidd has been with Yale University for over eighteen years.He is currently employed there as a Professor of Genetics, Psychiatry, and Biology.(R. 11/5-6/91 ("Kidd")at 148.)He has a B.A. in biology, a masters and PhD. in population genetics, which was the subject of his post-doctoral work at Stanford University and in Italy with Professor Cavalli-Forca, a preeminent population geneticist.(Kiddat 148-49.)He has focused his entire professional career on biology and genetics.(Kiddat 149.)At Yale he teaches courses in human genetics, human population genetics, molecular biology, demography, and human evolution.(Kiddat 152-154.)By 1991, Kidd had either authored himself or in collaboration with others 226 publications.(Kiddat 162.)In the ten years prior to his testifying, three quarters of his publications related to molecular biology or population genetics.(Kiddat 162-64.)

The last twenty-five years he has focused his research on human population genetics.(Kiddat 155.)When DNA and molecular technology became powerful research tools, Kidd took a sabbatical to retrain as a molecular biologist at Harvard.(Kiddat 155.)During this year he learned how to actually use the technology in the laboratory.(Kiddat 156.)At Yale he supervises graduate students who are doing laboratory research, which requires that he run a very large laboratory.(Kiddat 155.)His laboratory is one of the few in the world that focuses on both molecular biology and population genetics.(Kiddat 156.)

One of his research efforts is an attempt to identify genes that cause neuropsychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and manic depression.(Kiddat 164.)To this end he uses a laboratory procedure that is similar to that used by the FBI when it creates a DNA profile, though his efforts have no immediate forensic applications.(Kiddat 165, 168.)His efforts also include studying DNA polymorphisms from various peoples around the world.(Kiddat 165.)His laboratory has the largest collecting of DNA from peoples as diverse as African Pygmies, Chinese, and Melanesians from the New Guinea highlands.(Kiddat 165-66.)

Kidd is one of twelve elected council members who run the Genetics Society of America.(Kiddat 150.)In the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Kid is a Fellow, an honorary elected position held by individuals who are regarded as having made significant contributions to American science.(Kiddat 150.)He was awarded this honorary position in his capacity as a human geneticist.(Kiddat 151.)He has been on the editorial board of various journals and has participated in human gene mapping workshops that were the predecessors of the Human Genome Project, an international scientific endeavor to map, locate, and sequence all pieces of human DNA.(Kiddat 151, 157.)Kidd was elected to the international body of scientists that is coordinating the Human Genome Project called the Human Genome Organization ("HUGO").(Kiddat 151.)

In connection with the Human Genome Project and its predecessor workshops, Kidd coorganized one of the Project's international meetings attended by seven hundred scientists from around the world.(Kiddat 157.)He also sits on the Hugo Committee for Gene Mapping, a body of fifteen persons from around the world who coordinate the projects being conducted in different laboratories around the world.(Kiddat 158.)

In the early 1980s Kidd, along with Frank Ruddle, also a Yale Professor, commenced building an electronic database of all genes that have been mapped, which developed into the "human gene mapping library."(Kiddat 159.)For a period of five years Kidd was responsible for assigning identification labels to DNA probes used to help locate genes.(Kiddat 159.)In the project's final two or three years, its budget was one million dollars with a staff of seventeen.Kidd not only ran the research laboratory but was also the project's director.(Kiddat 159.)

STANDARD OF ADMISSIBILITY

In deciding whether this novel scientific evidence is admissible at trial, the court must determine whether "the expert is proposing to testify to (1) scientific knowledge that (2) will assist the trier of fact to understand or determine a fact in issue."(Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc.,___ U.S. ___, ___, 113 S.Ct. 2786, 2796, 125 L.Ed.2d 469(1993);FED.R.EVID. 402, 702.)

The first requirement, "scientific knowledge," is "an inference or assertion that is derived by the scientific method."(Daubert,___ U.S. at ___, 113 S.Ct. at 2795.)To reflect "scientific knowledge," the expert's testimony "must be supported by appropriate validation — i.e., "good grounds," based on what is known."(Id.)The Court warned, however, that "it would be unreasonable to conclude that the subject of scientific testimony must be "known" to a certainty; arguably, there are no certainties in science."(Daubert,___ U.S. at ___, 113 S.Ct. at 2795.)T...