The Arizona Supreme Court says police violated constitutional protections against illegal searches when they analyzed blood from a DUI arrest for a separate murder investigation.
But the high court also says DNA evidence can still be heard by a jury because the final outcome of the DUI case requires the state to collect it.
Allison Feldman was found dead in her Scottsdale home about 10 years ago. Evidence taken from the murder scene led to a DNA profile, and police eventually arrested Ian Mitcham.
He’d also been arrested for felony DUI a month before Feldman was killed.
Police used Mitcham's blood from the DUI case and matched it to the profile from the unrelated murder case.
The state Supreme Court says the move was illegal. But since Mitcham eventually pleaded guilty to DUI, and was sentenced to prison, state authorities would have inevitably gotten his DNA because state law requires it.
A case status conference is scheduled for Jan. 9, according to online court records.
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