The Ohio Court of Appeals has affirmed a trial court’s decision to grant Martin L. Hatton a new trial for convictions dating back to 1997, based on newly discovered evidence concerning ambiguous DNA testing. The appellate court found that the trial court did not abuse its discretion when it concluded that a previously withheld memo from a state forensic expert revealed critical information that likely would have changed the outcome of the original trial.
The case hinges on a decades-old DNA analysis that the State’s expert witness, Raman Tejwani, failed to fully disclose to the defense both in her lab report and during her testimony in 1997. The initial trial resulted in Hatton’s conviction for rape, kidnapping, felonious assault, aggravated burglary, and theft, leading to a 39-year sentence.
The Mystery of the Mixed Samples
The core issue involved DNA extracted from vaginal swabs and underwear samples collected from the victim, identified as J.C. The state’s expert, Tejwani, testified that the male DNA fractions taken from these samples were “inconclusive,” meaning she could neither include nor exclude Hatton or his co-defendant, Ricky Dunn, as contributors.
However, the defense’s forensic expert, Larry M. Dehus, reviewed lab notes provided by Tejwani after her testimony. Dehus discovered information not included in the official lab report: the presence of a faint “B allele” at a specific genetic marker (D7S8) in the mixed male DNA. Crucially, Dehus testified that neither Hatton nor Dunn possessed this B allele; only individuals with A alleles at that marker were known to be involved. This implied, based on the defense’s expert, that a third, unidentified male had contributed DNA to the samples.
During the original trial, the prosecutor largely ignored the B allele testimony, focusing instead on impeaching Dehus’s qualifications, and ultimately argued to the jury that the DNA results were inconclusive, but that only Hatton and Dunn were present.
The Twenty-Year-Old Memo
Hatton’s persistent legal challenges eventually led to the discovery of a key piece of evidence in 2018, over 20 years after his conviction: a memo written by Tejwani to the county prosecutor in June 1998, while Hatton’s initial appeals were pending.
This memo served as a direct acknowledgment from the state’s own expert that the B allele found at D7S8 could not have come from Hatton or Dunn. It confirmed that the mixed samples contained DNA from another male.
The appellate court noted that this memo was significant because it went beyond merely confirming the existence of the B allele—which had been discussed (though arguably downplayed) at trial—by explicitly acknowledging the *significance* of that allele: that it excluded Hatton and Dunn as the source of that specific genetic marker. The prosecutor never disclosed this memo to any of Hatton’s counsel over the ensuing decades.
Grounds for a New Trial
When Hatton filed a motion for a new trial based on this newly discovered evidence (the memo), the trial court agreed that the information was powerful. The court reasoned that Tejwani’s acknowledgment created a “glaringly absent” detail from the state’s case. Had the defense possessed this memo, they could have severely impeached Tejwani and powerfully supported Dehus’s theory that a third person was involved.
The trial court granted the motion under Ohio Rule of Criminal Procedure 33(A)(6), finding a “strong probability of a different result at a new trial.”
The State appealed this decision, arguing the trial court erred by limiting the evidence considered at the hearing. The State wanted new DNA testing results (from Hatton’s sweatshirt and the victim’s rape kit) admitted, but the trial court confined the review to the original trial transcript, the newly discovered memo, and a recantation affidavit from Hatton’s co-defendant.
Appellate Court Affirms Trial Court’s Discretion
The Fourth Appellate District reviewed the decision for an abuse of discretion, a high bar requiring the trial court’s action to be “unreasonable, arbitrary or unconscionable.”
The appellate judges found the trial court’s reasoning sound. The court emphasized that the *withheld acknowledgment* by the state’s expert was qualitatively different from the evidence previously presented. It wasn’t just contradictory evidence; it was an admission that undermined the state’s foundational narrative—that only Hatton and Dunn were involved.
The appellate court noted that the trial court did *not* prematurely declare Hatton innocent. Instead, it recognized that the memo highlighted a significant “hole” in the State’s case that the State’s own witness was aware of and concealed.
Crucially, the appellate panel pointed out that the State offered no evidence at the hearing to refute the interpretation that the memo proved the presence of an unknown male contributor. Given the circumstances, the appellate court could not conclude that granting the new trial was an abuse of discretion.
The appellate court made clear that its ruling does not predetermine the outcome of the new trial, nor does it prevent the State from introducing all relevant evidence at that future proceeding. For now, however, Hatton gets his day in court based on evidence that was kept from him for over two decades.