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Allison Feldman: Appeal filed over DNA ruling
It has been months since a judge in Arizona ruled that DNA evidence in the case of Allison Feldman's murder cannot be used in court, and state prosecutors have filed an appeal over the judge's ruling. FOX 10's Nicole Garcia reports.
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - The state of Arizona is appealing a ruling regarding the use of a suspect's DNA in connection to the murder of Allison Feldman, a Scottsdale woman who was killed in 2015.
It took police three years to make an arrest. Now, a judge has tossed the DNA evidence, claiming it was improperly obtained.
Allison Feldman was found dead in February 2015. Her boyfriend reportedly found Allison dead inside her home.
Court documents revealed graphic details about the case. Her killer allegedly strangled her, beat her, and sexually assaulted her with a beer bottle. The suspect used bleach or chlorine to clean up the gruesome scene, but a large pool of blood remained.
Ian Mitcham was arrested for Feldman's murder in 2018 after a DNA test reportedly linked him to the crime. However, it had been collected during a blood test when he was arrested for DUI - he had only consented to be tested for drugs and alcohol.
Ian Mitcham and Allison Feldman
Two blood samples had been taken from him. One sample remained in the custody of Scottsdale Police, and it would be three years later that investigators tested that unused sample.
The defense is arguing that Scottsdale Police did not get a new search warrant to test Mitcham's blood sample for the murder investigation and therefore violated his constitutional right to privacy.
Judge Roy Whitehead ruled in January that since Mitcham agreed to the taking and analysis of his blood for drug and alcohol testing, the subsequent DNA analysis of his blood exceeded the scope of his consent.
Prosecutors say that Mitcham was eventually convicted of DUI, so his DNA and information is already encoded in the criminal justice system.
The panel of three judges heard from both sides and as now considering whether to overturn the Superior Court's ruling and allow the evidence to be used in Mitcham's murder trial. There's no time frame on when the appeals court ruling might come down.
Allison Feldman murder case: Judge throws out DNA evidence that led to suspect's arrest
A judge in Maricopa County has thrown out the DNA sample that led to the arrest of a person in connection with the 2015 murder of Allison Feldman.
DNA test on blood "exceeded scope of consent," judge wrote
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Allison Feldman Murder: Arizona judge tosses out DNA sample in case
Allison Feldman was murdered in 2015, and three years after her murder, authorities arrested a man named Ian Mitcham in connection with the case. Now, a judge ruled that a DNA sample in the case came as a result of a vial of blood collected from Mitcham in an unrelated 2015 case, and should not have been made available for testing.
"This Court finds that, under these facts, [Mitcham] had an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in his blood, and that the State did not have a compelling interest to search his blood through a DNA analysis without first obtaining a warrant," read a portion of the ruling.
For their part, prosecutors reportedly argued that a legal doctrine known as "inevitable discovery" would have applied, since prosecutors believe they would ultimately obtain a DNA example from the defendant via surveillance, ruse, or disposition of Mitcham's DUI or drug possession cases.
However, Judge Whitehead disagreed, stating that prosecutors "did not provide evidence concerning lawful efforts to obtain Defendant’s DNA through surveillance or ruse, or how successful law enforcement is in obtaining DNA through those methods," and that prosecutors "cannot demonstrate that it would have been able to obtain [Mitcham's] DNA sample through the disposition of his pending cases without assuming that Defendant was guilty of those offenses."
In his ruling, the judge ruled that the extraction of the DNA profile, along with the DNA analysis and the DNA swabs collected from Mitchem are all suppressed as evidence, with the DNA analysis and DNA swabs being deemed as collected due to improper DNA extraction.