Arizona Supreme Court hears arguments in controversial DNA murder case

PHOENIX (AZFamily) — In an extremely rare case, the Arizona Supreme Court heard oral arguments Thursday over whether or not a suspect’s DNA can be used in the high-profile murder case of Allison Feldman.

Feldman was killed inside her own Scottsdale home in 2015. In this case, the issue isn’t whose DNA was at the crime scene.

The big controversy here is if Scottsdale police illegally obtained suspect Ian Mitcham’s DNA to test it and if something called inevitable discovery means they would have gotten his DNA at some point, no matter what down the road.

Mitcham’s blood was already in the police’s evidence vault from a former DUI case, so they decided to test it against the Feldman crime scene and got an exact match, but that DUI DNA was only supposed to be kept for 90 days.

“Because there was the disposal notification, any retention beyond that was problematic,” defense attorney Mikel Steinfeld told the justices Thursday.

The defense also argued Mitcham only consented to his blood being used to test against alcohol and drugs, not for his DNA to be extracted and put in the Combined DNA Index System database.

“A single government agent made a decision about what he wanted to do without consulting the prosecutor’s office, without looking into what the law was,” said Steinfeld.

Justice Clint Bolick seemed to agree and brought this up when he questioned the prosecution.

“The police conduct here is extremely troubling to me,” Justice Bolick said.

The state had an answer for that.

“There is not a reasonable expectation of privacy in an STR DNA profile that is developed from evidence that police lawfully hold,” said Nick Klingerman, special counsel for the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office.

Prosecutors point to the inevitable discovery doctrine.

Mitcham committed other felony crimes and was convicted of them in 2022.

By law, convicted felons must have their DNA in the CODIS database, so police would have eventually gotten their DNA match to the Feldman crime scene, just years later.

“I could take another sample today and it will result in the same profile,” said Klingerman.

Allison’s father, Harley Feldman, never imagined he would be at the Arizona Supreme Court.

“It’s frustrating as a victim to watch all the time go by,” Harley Feldman said

Harley Feldman said it can be hard to listen to a protocol controversy when everyone agrees that the DNA at the scene matches Mitcham.

“I didn’t expect this would ever occur, but I do this for Allison and I will be here every day to make sure her case is adjudicated correctly,” said Harley Feldman.

There is no word on when the court will make its ruling or how the prosecution will proceed if the DNA cannot be used.

Harley Feldman said his legal team told him the state Supreme Court takes, on average, eight weeks to make a decision.

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