Background
Andre Thompson was convicted in 2007 of aggravated murder, attempted murder, and aggravated robbery arising from a shooting that killed Reginald Roberson and injured others. He received a 53-years-to-life sentence, and the Eighth District affirmed his convictions on direct appeal.
In 2023, Thompson sought postconviction DNA testing of eight spent .40-caliber shell casings recovered from the crime scene. The casings had undergone firearms and latent-print examinations but had not been DNA tested. At the trial court’s request, the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation assessed their suitability and reported a substantial risk of contamination from prior handling and testing. The trial court denied the application, concluding that even an exclusionary DNA result would not be outcome determinative.
The Court’s Holding
The Eighth District affirmed. Applying abuse-of-discretion review, it held that the trial court reasonably found that a result excluding Thompson as a contributor of DNA on the shell casings would not create a strong probability that no reasonable factfinder would have convicted him.
Even assuming the statutory presumption of an exclusion result, such a result would show at most that Thompson did not handle or load the casings; it would not establish that he was not the shooter. The court held that this limited inference did not overcome the trial evidence, including multiple eyewitness identifications of Thompson, several by witnesses who had known him for years. Thompson’s attacks on the reliability of those identifications were barred by res judicata because they were raised or could have been raised on direct appeal.
Key Takeaways
- A court may deny postconviction DNA testing when a presumed exclusion result would not be outcome determinative under R.C. 2953.74.
- DNA exclusion from spent shell casings does not necessarily bear on whether the defendant fired the weapon.
- Prior challenges to eyewitness identifications cannot be relitigated through a DNA-testing application when barred by res judicata.
Why It Matters
The decision underscores that Ohio’s postconviction DNA-testing statute requires more than potentially favorable evidence. An applicant must show that an assumed exclusion result, considered with all available admissible evidence, would likely have changed the verdict.
Where strong eyewitness evidence identifies the shooter, the absence of a defendant’s DNA on ammunition components may be too attenuated to satisfy that standard.