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Today's summary reversal of 9th Circuit

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January 11, 2010, 11:23
david curl
Today's summary reversal of 9th Circuit
Interesting per curiam reversal of the 9th Circuit today. The Ninth Circuit's legal- sufficiency review should not have relied upon evidence presented in a habeas hearing. The 9th Circuit discounted DNA evidence from trial because they believed the habeas record undermined it. BOTH sides agreed in the Supreme Court that that was wrong under Jackson v. Virginia.

Also interesting is the Supreme Court's discussion of the “prosecutor’s fallacy" in DNA cases.

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-559.pdf at 8 ("The prosecutor’s fallacy is the assumption that the random match probability is the same as the probability that the defendant was not the source of the DNA sample. . . . [I]f a juror is told the probability a member of the general population would share the same DNA is 1 in 10,000 (random match probability), and he takes that to mean there is only a 1 in 10,000 chance that someone other than the defendant is the source of the DNA found at the crime scene (source probability), then he has succumbed to the prosecutor’s fallacy.")