Richard A. Librett, Garden City, for Michael Klinger, defendant.
Salvatore J. Marinello, Mineola, for Raymond Klinger, defendant.
Denis E. Dillon, District Attorney of Nassau County, Mineola (
Robert Biancavilla of counsel), for plaintiff.
OPINION OF THE COURT
JEFFREY S. BROWN, J. An indictment has been filed against the defendant Raymond Klinger accusing him of the class B felony of rape in the first degree, class B felony of kidnapping in the second degree, hearing established that mtDNA analysis and interpretations are generally accepted as reliable in the scientific community and that the procedures followed in this case establish a foundation for admission of such evidence. The evidence has sufficiently established that the analyses and interpretations of mtDNA have gained general acceptance in the community of scientists that work in this field. The existence of contamination and heteroplasmy does not affect the reliability of the scientific procedure and these issues, which are subject to cross-examination at the time of trial, do not invalidate the procedures of mtDNA testing. Although both Dr. Budowle and Dr. Melton testified that mtDNA cannot be the unique identifier that nuclear DNA can achieve, this conclusion, however, does not invalidate the accuracy of the procedure and whether it is acceptable in the relevant scientific community. This court finds that many of the procedures used in analyzing mtDNA are the same as those used in analyzing nuclear DNA. Further, the statistical methods used by the technician in creating the upper bounds of the confidence interval are basic statistical methods that have been found generally accepted in the relevant scientific community. Moreover, mtDNA procedures have been subject to peer review and Dr. Budowle testified that he knew of no peer review articles that state that the aforesaid process and statistical methods were not scientifically reliable. In addition, Dr. Melton testified that the whole process has been subject to peer review and that she is unaware of any peer review articles in disagreement with the methods used by her lab with respect to analysis, interpretation and use of the statistical formulas. Therefore, the court will permit the People to present expert testimony at trial regarding the mtDNA analysis and the results determined therefrom.