In Brief
The Supreme Court acquitted a man who had been sentenced to death for murder, rape, and theft. The prosecution's case rested entirely on circumstantial evidence, including a witness's testimony about seeing the accused, DNA evidence, recovery of articles from the accused's home, and a test identification parade. The court found that the DNA evidence was unreliable due to breaches in chain of custody; the witness was unreliable because his conduct in not reporting the incident for six days was unexplained; the test identification was invalid because the witness had prior knowledge of the accused's identity; and the recovered items were not forensically linked to the crime. The court held that no circumstance was conclusively proven and the chain of evidence did not point singularly to the accused's guilt. The court issued directions for uniform procedures in DNA evidence collection, storage, and handling by all states.
The lawyer headnote and full judgment text are available to registered users.