A controversial blood sample used in a nine-year-old murder investigation is at the center of a case before the Arizona Supreme Court.
Allison Feldman, a resident of Scottsdale, was murdered in February of 2015. During a cold case investigation three years later, DNA from the crime scene was matched to a blood sample from Ian Mitcham.
The sample in question had been taken in January of 2015 when Mitcham was arrested for aggravated DUI, just a month before Feldman was murdered.
Maricopa County public defender Mikel Steinfeld said that Mitcham’s blood sample should have been destroyed after its original use for the DUI, and argues that using it in a separate and unrelated investigation without a warrant or consent is a violation of Mitcham’s rights.
“Even if we assume that the first sample still exists, the actual intrusion in and of itself constitutes a trespass again — because it’s an invasion again — upon the privacy of that individual,” he said.
Nick Klingerman with the Attorney General’s Office said that there’s no violation of Mitcham’s rights in using the sample for a future investigation:
“There’s no reasonable expectation of privacy,” he said, “It [the blood sample] would be tested just like any other piece of evidence that law enforcement could run through.”
Mitcham’s blood sample is the only lead the Scottsdale Police Department has in the investigation of Feldman’s murder.
The results of the Supreme Court’s ruling will determine whether Mitcham will go to trial for Feldman’s murder.
