Ivey v. Commonwealth

486 S.W.3d 846 (2016)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

D was in a long-term sexual relationship with his half-sister, Novina Peel. Peel had a daughter, Karen, from a previous relationship. In 2003, when Karen was thirteen years old, she became pregnant. When Peel asked her who had fathered the child, Karen replied that she did not know. Peel speculated that Karen had been raped at a school dance, a story that Karen went along with. Karen gave birth to a daughter the following year, and Peel raised the child as her own. By 2010, Karen had become an adult, moved to Oregon, and gotten married. At that time, she revealed that D was the father of her child. She claimed that when she was between nine and eleven, D had forced her to have sexual intercourse on multiple occasions and that when she got old enough to understand that it was wrong, D had threatened her and her mother. She claimed that he raped her again when she was thirteen and that she got pregnant at that point. A court order for paternity testing showed that D was the father. Police obtained a search warrant for a second DNA sample. An expert later testified that paternity testing of this sample showed a 99.9999% probability of D being the father of Karen's child. D was indicted on two counts of first-degree rape. D moved for an evidentiary hearing on the reliability of the method used to calculate the 99.9999% probability of paternity and to exclude that evidence from the trial. The court held a hearing and denied the motion. D was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. D appealed.