Carlin man's rape conviction overturned by federal appeals court

RENO " A federal appeals court has overturned the child rape conviction of a Carlin man, saying DNA testimony from a Washoe County forensic scientist was misleading.

The ruling by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals gave prosecutors six months to retry Troy Don Brown or release him after 14 years in prison.

Brown, 36, was accused of raping a 9-year-old the girl at her trailer in 1994 while her mother was at a tavern.

An Elko County jury found Brown guilty of two counts of sexual assault, for which he received two consecutive life sentences.

Paul Turner, an assistant federal public defender who handled the appeal, said he was pleased for his client but said "the case isn't over."

Deputy Attorney General Erik Levin said he was reviewing the order to decide whether to ask the panel to reconsider its decision or ask for a review by the full court.

"I respectfully disagree with their ruling," Levin told the Reno Gazette-Journal, adding that even without the DNA, "there was sufficient evidence to convict Troy Brown."

At the trial, Renee Romero, a DNA expert and head of the Washoe County crime lab, testified that Brown's DNA matched the DNA found in the victim's underwear, and that "one in 3 million people randomly selected from the population would also match" that DNA, according to court documents.

After the prosecutor pressed her to put this another way, Romero testified that the chances that the DNA was from Brown was "99.99967 percent."

The appeals panel, in its 2-1 ruling issued Monday, said Romero's testimony on the nearly 100 percent likelihood it was Brown created a "fallacy" that misled the jury.

"In fact, the former testimony (1 in 3 million) is the probability of a match between an innocent person selected randomly from the population; this is not the same as the probability that Troy's DNA was the same as the DNA found in (her ) underwear, which would prove his guilt," the judges said.

"In sum, Romero's testimony that Troy was 99.99967 percent likely to be guilty was based on her scientifically flawed DNA analysis, which means that Troy was most probably convicted based on the jury's consideration of false, but highly persuasive, evidence."

The appeals judges also said the evidence beyond the DNA was weak, noting that one witness said Brown was at the tavern at the time of the assault, and that the victim sometimes identified another man as her attacker.

"The conflicts in the evidence are simply too stark" to determine beyond reasonable doubt that Brown was the assailant, the appeals court said.