State of Tennessee v. Audrey Downs

The Petitioner, Audrey Downs, entered “best interest” pleas to felony murder and aggravated rape pursuant to North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25 (1970), and received concurrent sentences of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole and twentyfive years. In 2002, the Petitioner successfully petitioned for DNA testing of a condom collected from the scene where the victim’s body was discovered, and the results excluded the Petitioner as a contributor to the DNA. Because the State subsequently introduced evidence that the condom was unrelated to the crime, the Petitioner was denied permission to reopen his post-conviction petition. The Petitioner sought further testing of the condom to determine whether the victim’s DNA could be recovered, in an attempt to link it to the crime. The trial court summarily denied further testing, and this court remanded for the trial court to conduct the required analysis of the statutory factors. State v. Audrey Downs, No. W2018-00391-CCA-R3-CD, 2018 WL 6650597, at *2 (Tenn. Crim. App. Dec. 18, 2018), no perm. app. filed. On remand, the petition was again summarily dismissed, and the Petitioner appeals. We conclude that the petition did not allege a prima facie case for DNA testing under the statute, and we accordingly affirm the dismissal.