Defendants may be entitled to review proprietary software code used in the prosecution’s expert probabilistic DNA analysis, according to a New Jersey appeals court in New Jersey v. Pickett.
In 2017, defendant Corey Pickett and an accomplice were arrested and charged with first degree murder after they allegedly fired weapons into a crowd, wounding one victim and killing another. In the course of the arrest, the police discovered a revolver and a ski mask. Finding the samples inappropriate for traditional DNA analysis, swabs from the revolver and ski mask were sent to Cybergenetics Corp.’s Laboratory to use its TrueAllele software to run probabilistic genotyping analysis on the samples. The TrueAllele software determined that Pickett was the source of the DNA on the revolver and ski mask.Continue Reading New Jersey Appeals Court Rules that Defendant Can Review the Proprietary DNA Analysis Software That Linked Him to the Crime