The Brancato Law Firm has done that underneath work. In a sexual battery case built on a database match to an incident roughly eight years earlier, we subpoenaed the laboratory’s bench notes, obtained the raw electronic data from the instrument, and sent it to an independent laboratory. We then retained an expert geneticist, who found the State’s analyst had misread the DNA at one location. Read correctly, the evidence did not match our client, and the prosecutor dismissed the case. The full account is in our DNA evidence defense case study.

Each case is unique. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.

A complete DNA profile from a clean sample, matched to one person, is powerful evidence. The cold hits that fall apart are the ones where the profile was incomplete, the sample held more than one person’s DNA, or the DNA arrived by some route other than the crime.

What Is a DNA Cold Hit?

A cold hit is what happens when DNA from an unsolved case is searched against a database and the software returns a name. The National Institute of Justice describes it as a connection made between a person and a crime scene in the absence of a current investigative lead. Nobody suspected the person; a computer put their name on the case.

The database is CODIS, the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System, and two kinds of profiles go into it. One kind comes from people. In Florida, section 943.325 requires a DNA sample at booking from people arrested for felony offenses, under a schedule phased in by offense type since 2011, and a sample is taken again on conviction. That is why someone with an old felony arrest for something unrelated can have a profile sitting in the system for years. The other kind comes from evidence, with no name attached. As of June 2026 the national index held more than 20.3 million offender profiles and 6.4 million arrestee profiles, plus roughly 1.5 million developed from crime scenes.

A case can sit for years and then produce a hit for ordinary reasons: old rape kits get tested as backlogs clear, evidence is retested with newer methods, or the person’s profile is added after an unrelated arrest and the next routine search connects the two.

Profiles are compared at locations on the DNA called loci. CODIS has used 20 core loci since January 1, 2017 and 13 for the 18 years before that, so evidence collected years ago may cover fewer locations than a profile developed today. When the search returns a candidate, the laboratory is supposed to collect a fresh sample and run its own comparison before the match is treated as evidence.

How a DNA Cold Hit Can Be Wrong

A confirmed hit says a profile from the evidence is consistent with your profile at the locations compared. It says nothing about how your DNA reached the item, or when. A figure like one in seven hundred trillion describes how rare a profile is among people, not how DNA got onto a door handle. These are the five questions a defense asks of any cold hit.

The crime scene profile may be incomplete

Evidence that has sat in a property room for years is often degraded, and small or damaged samples produce partial profiles covering fewer locations. Fewer locations means more people in the world fit the profile.

Rarity statistics of the kind people remember from television describe a complete profile. A subpoenaed search of roughly 65,000 profiles in Arizona’s offender database found 122 pairs of people whose profiles matched each other at nine of 13 locations. Partial matches at that level are ordinary, which is the point. So the first question is how many locations were compared, and whether the State’s statistic was calculated for that number or for a complete profile.

The sample may hold more than one person’s DNA

A swab from a doorknob, a steering wheel, or under someone’s fingernails usually picks up DNA from several people. Pulling one person’s profile out of that mixture is an interpretation, and interpretations differ.

In 2013 the National Institute of Standards and Technology sent identical DNA evidence to 108 forensic laboratories. On the hardest mixture in the study, 74 of them included a person who should have been ruled out and supplied a match statistic to go with it.

Many laboratories now use probabilistic genotyping software for mixtures. It is a real improvement on the older hand calculations, but it has a tested range. A review by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology found the research supported these programs for samples with three contributors where the person of interest makes up at least 20 percent of the sample, and that beyond that range there had been little validation. If the laboratory concluded four or five people contributed, ask whether the method was ever tested on a sample like that.

Your DNA can end up somewhere you have never been

DNA moves between people and onto objects through ordinary contact, called secondary transfer, and it happens far more easily than most people assume.

Researchers at the University of Indianapolis had pairs of volunteers shake hands for two minutes. One of each pair then handled a knife, which was swabbed afterward. In 85 percent of the trials, enough DNA from the person who never touched the knife had transferred to produce a profile. In one fifth of the samples, that person came back as the main or only contributor to the weapon.

The same thing has happened in a real case. Lukis Anderson was charged with murder in California after his DNA was found on a homicide victim’s fingernails, and he spent nearly half a year in custody. He had never been to the house. The paramedics who picked him up off a street that night, drunk, responded to the homicide scene about three hours later and carried his DNA there on their uniforms or their equipment. Hospital records eventually showed he was in a hospital bed while the killing took place.

The evidence can be contaminated, mislabeled, or switched

Evidence in a cold case has been handled by many people over many years. It was collected at a scene, packaged, logged into a property room, moved, stored, and tested, sometimes more than once. Each step is a point where one sample can pick up material from another, where a label can go on the wrong container, or where two items can be swapped. The same is true of the fresh sample taken after the hit. Testing has also become far more sensitive than when most cold case evidence was collected, which makes it easier to pick up material unrelated to the crime. The chain of custody paperwork is the record of who touched what, and it is worth reading line by line.

The match depends on how an analyst read the data

The testing instrument does not print a name. It produces an electronic file showing a pattern of peaks, and a human analyst decides which peaks are real DNA and which are artifacts of the process, how many people contributed, and which results belong to whom. Those judgment calls are recorded in the analyst’s bench notes and in the raw data file. They do not appear in the report.

That is where our own cold hit case turned. A profile has to be consistent at every location that gets compared, so a real difference at one location is an exclusion rather than a weaker match. The word doing the work is real: a result can be missing or distorted for technical reasons that have nothing to do with whose DNA it is, which is why establishing that a difference is genuine takes an expert looking at the instrument data.

How to Challenge a Cold Hit

Challenging a cold hit means obtaining the material underneath the report and putting a qualified expert on it. The report states conclusions; the record of how they were reached is kept elsewhere and has to be asked for. A forensic DNA expert generally needs five categories of material:

• The laboratory reports. What was tested, by what methods, and what the analyst concluded at each stage.
• The analyst’s bench notes. The working records made during testing, holding observations and decisions the report leaves out. This is the first thing our firm subpoenas in a DNA case.
• The electronic data files. These carry extensions like .fsa or .hid and cannot be opened without specialized DNA software. Without them, an expert reviews someone else’s summary of the evidence instead of the evidence.
• Any probabilistic genotyping report, with the settings used. The program, the version, and the parameters entered all change the answer the software gives.
• The police reports. Where each item was found and who handled it, which is how an expert can tell whether the DNA result fits the State’s account.

With that material, the defense has options it did not have before. The expert may find an exclusion, as ours did, or that the mixture was too complex to support any reliable conclusion, or that the software was used outside the range it was validated for. That last finding raises an admissibility question. Florida adopted the Daubert standard effective May 23, 2019, written into section 90.702, and a judge must be satisfied that the testimony rests on sufficient facts or data, that the methods are reliable, and that the witness applied them reliably to this case. Testimony that fails does not reach the jury.

Depositions do as much work as the documents. In our case the expert geneticist attended the depositions of the State’s forensic witnesses and helped prepare the questions, and one of the State’s own experts acknowledged that the DNA did not match at the required threshold.

This is slow work, and a case built this way does not resolve in a few court dates. A public defender’s office can and does litigate DNA evidence, so if private representation is not realistic, ask the court for the public defender rather than hiring a private attorney who cannot fund an expert. Our comparison of a public defender and a private attorney in Tampa covers that decision honestly.

Can Florida Prosecute a Case This Old?

Often, yes, and the DNA is the reason. Florida Statute 775.15(16) lets a prosecution begin at any time after the accused is identified through DNA analysis, for offenses including sexual battery under chapter 794, kidnapping, robbery, carjacking, burglary, aggravated battery, several lewd and lascivious offenses, and aggravated child abuse.

That exception comes with a condition that can cut in the defense’s favor. It applies only if a sufficient portion of the evidence tested for DNA has been preserved and is available for testing by the accused. The State cannot use the DNA to reopen an old case and then tell you there is nothing left for your expert to test, so one of the first questions is what was preserved, how much, and in what condition.

Sexual battery charges also have their own timing rules, and in an old case the cutoff date written into each one often decides the question. Each removes the time limit when it applies.

Subsection 20, the newest, reaches only offenses committed on or after July 1, 2020, so it does nothing in a decades-old case. If none applies, the general limitation periods in section 775.15 govern and the charge may be time barred, an argument lost if it is not raised. Our explainer on sexual battery in Florida covers the charge itself.

What to Do Now

If you have been contacted but not arrested, understand what the detective is after. They already have the match. What they need is a statement connecting you to the place, the person, or the time. An innocent explanation offered without a lawyer becomes a recorded admission that you were there, and the difference gets decided months later by people who were not in the room.

Do not agree to another DNA sample without counsel, and say nothing about the case on jail calls, which are all recorded. Get counsel involved early, because preservation letters and independent testing work better before samples are consumed and the people who handled the evidence retire.

If the person arrested is a family member and you are making the calls, there is work only you can do. Write down what you can reconstruct about the year the offense is alleged to have happened: where he lived, who with, where he worked, who he was close to. Then gather what still exists on paper. Leases, pay stubs, phone records, and medical records get harder to obtain every year, and an alibi built from documents holds up in a way a memory will not. Our guide on what to do after an arrest in Tampa covers the first steps.

Talk to a Tampa Firm That Has Challenged DNA Evidence

If you or a family member has been arrested or contacted about an old case because of a DNA database match, we can look at what the State actually has and tell you straight what we see. The Brancato Law Firm handles forensic science defense across Hillsborough, Pinellas, and Pasco Counties, and works with DNA analysts, geneticists, and independent laboratories on serious felony cases. Rocky Brancato has tried 150+ jury trials to verdict and served as Chief Operations Officer of the Hillsborough County Public Defender’s Office, overseeing a staff of over 100 attorneys, and provides direct oversight on case strategy in matters like these. Call (813) 727-7159 for a free and confidential consultation, or reach us through our contact page.

The Brancato Law Firm, P.A.

620 E. Twiggs Street, Suite 205, Tampa, FL 33602

(813) 727-7159

Serving Hillsborough, Pinellas, and Pasco Counties

The Brancato Law Firm, P.A. is a Tampa-based criminal defense practice. We are not affiliated with any other Brancato-named law firms.

At The Brancato Law Firm, our defense team has spent years in the courtroom handling sex offense and child abuse cases at the highest level. Rocky Brancato built his career in the Hillsborough County Public Defender’s Major Crimes Unit, where he handled only these cases, and later oversaw a staff of over 100 attorneys as COO of the office. That experience shapes how we approach every sex crime defense: through investigation, forensic science, and procedural strategy.

This guide covers the major defense categories available in Florida sex crime cases. Each section explains what the defense requires, where it applies under Florida law, and what a defense team actually does to build it. Where we have published deeper guides on specific topics, we link to them so you can keep reading.

Pre-File Advocacy: Why the Defense Starts Before Charges

Many sex crime cases are won or lost before charges are ever filed. The window between an arrest or investigation and the State Attorney’s filing decision is the single most consequential phase of many cases, and it is the phase most often wasted.

Florida law permits a prosecutor to file an information without leave of court. There is no statewide statute or rule that gives a suspect a formal right to demand a pre-file meeting with the State Attorney. Pre-file advocacy is therefore an exercise of investigation and persuasion, not a motion-based defense.

In practice, that work breaks down into several steps:

• Preserve evidence immediately. Surveillance footage gets overwritten. Apps delete messages. Witnesses’ memories fade. Location providers have limited retention windows. The defense team’s first job is identifying and preserving everything that could matter before it disappears.
  
• Investigate independently. A private investigator builds a timeline and interviews witnesses. A DNA expert examines raw laboratory data. A forensic pathologist reviews medical findings. A digital forensics specialist evaluates actual device artifacts rather than relying on a police summary.
  
• Make a strategic disclosure. A targeted pre-file submission can demonstrate an impossible timeline, an alibi supported by independent records, consensual communications between the parties, a flawed DNA interpretation, an alternative medical explanation, or a fatal statute-of-limitations problem. The decision about what to disclose is case-specific because pre-file advocacy can also reveal defense strategy prematurely.
  
• Request a no-file decision. The goal is not always to prove every trial defense in advance. Sometimes it is enough to demonstrate that the available evidence does not support the contemplated charge.
  

We have prevented charges from being filed in multiple sex crime investigations through this process. (Each case is unique. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.) Pre-file advocacy is threaded throughout the defenses below because many of them are more effective when the work begins before filing, not after.

Consent as a Defense in Adult Sexual Battery Cases

In many adult sexual battery prosecutions, the central question is whether the sexual act occurred without the victim’s consent. Under Florida Statute 794.011, consent means intelligent, knowing, and voluntary consent. The statute specifically states that a lack of physical resistance does not equal consent. It also defines circumstances where a person’s condition (mental incapacitation, physical helplessness, unconsciousness) makes purported consent legally ineffective.

A consent defense is strongest where the charged offense actually turns on lack of consent and the evidence permits a reasonable inference of voluntary agreement. Building it requires reconstructing what happened before, during, and immediately after the encounter. That means gathering contemporaneous texts, dating-app messages, call records, photographs, location history, witness accounts of the parties’ interactions, and any subsequent communications.

Where an accuser’s account has changed over time, Florida Statute 90.608 expressly permits credibility challenges through prior inconsistent statements, evidence of bias, defects in the ability or opportunity to perceive or remember, and contradictory testimony from other witnesses.

What consent does NOT cover: Consent is expressly unavailable in important categories of cases involving minors. Under Section 800.04, the victim’s consent is not a defense to lewd or lascivious offenses. That statute also eliminates reliance on ignorance of age, the minor’s misrepresentation of age, or a bona fide belief that the victim was older. Consent applies to specific adult sexual battery charges, not to sex offenses generally.

False Allegations and Credibility Challenges

False allegations do occur. Accusations can be driven by custody disputes, divorce proceedings, breakups, financial conflicts, or personal vendettas. But the defense cannot simply assert “the accusation is false” and expect that to carry the day. The question is always whether objective evidence supports the theory.

A credibility defense built on alleged fabrication requires:

• Evidence of the accuser’s motive (custody filings, divorce records, financial disputes, prior threats)
  
• Objective evidence contradicting the accusation (full message threads, call logs, social media records, location history, witness statements, detailed chronology)
  
• Prior inconsistent statements or changes in the accuser’s account
  
• Gaps between the allegation and the physical, forensic, or digital evidence
  

Section 90.608 makes bias and prior inconsistent statements legitimate impeachment tools. Section 90.614 governs how those prior statements get used at trial. Extrinsic evidence of a prior inconsistent statement is generally inadmissible unless the witness first has an opportunity to explain or deny it. The defense is not limited to arguing the accuser is lying. It can also demonstrate that the accuser’s perception, memory, or account is unreliable.

One important note on the data: credible research estimates that demonstrably false reports of sexual assault fall in the range of roughly 2 to 10 percent, and a 2026 scoping review of child sexual abuse allegations in custody proceedings found that deliberately false allegations appeared rare. An “unsubstantiated” allegation is not the same thing as a “fabricated” allegation. When a defense theory involves fabrication, it must be supported by case-specific evidence, not by statistics.

Our article on false confessions covers a related issue: how interrogation tactics can produce unreliable statements even from innocent people.

Alibi and Mistaken Identity

An alibi defense places the accused somewhere other than the scene of the alleged crime at the time it allegedly occurred. Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.200 creates a formal notice-of-alibi process. After a prosecutorial demand specifying the place, date, and time of the alleged offense, a defendant intending to offer alibi evidence must serve notice at least 10 days before trial, with reciprocal disclosure for alibi witnesses.

An effective alibi is rarely built on a single data point. The strongest presentations reconcile several independent records with a precise timeline: surveillance video, toll or transaction records, employer records, access logs, photographs, phone records, and GPS or location data. Digital records require forensic examination rather than face-value acceptance.

Mistaken identity is related but distinct. Where the accused is identified by an eyewitness, the defense can challenge the witness’s opportunity and ability to observe, the conditions under which the identification was made, the reliability of the identification procedure, and whether contradictory witnesses, surveillance, or DNA exclusion evidence points to someone else.

At the pre-file stage, alibi and identity evidence is especially time-sensitive. Video gets overwritten on fixed schedules. Transaction records have retention limits. Neutral witnesses are easier to locate and interview while their memories are fresh.

Challenging DNA Evidence

A DNA report that says the defendant’s profile “matches” the evidence sample answers a much narrower question than many people assume. According to NIST’s 2024 scientific foundation review of DNA mixture interpretation, modern methods can obtain profiles from very small quantities of biological material, including only a few skin cells. That sensitivity increases the importance of questions about mixtures, contamination, transfer, persistence, low-template effects, and the assumptions behind statistical conclusions.

A DNA result may strongly support a proposition about whose DNA is present without resolving how, when, or why it was deposited. That distinction is significant in cases involving consensual prior contact, shared environments, mixed samples, or trace DNA.

A serious forensic DNA challenge involves obtaining and reviewing:

• Electropherograms and underlying electronic data
  
• Quantitation results and analyst worksheets
  
• Controls, reagent records, and contamination logs
  
• Contributor assumptions and analytical thresholds
  
• Software version and validation materials
  
• Likelihood-ratio propositions and population assumptions
  
• Chain of custody documentation
  

This is where our firm has achieved some of its most significant results. In a cold-hit sexual battery case involving an eight-year-old crime, we subpoenaed the state laboratory’s bench notes, obtained the raw electronic DNA data, and retained an expert geneticist who demonstrated that the state’s analyst had misinterpreted an allele at a critical locus. The DNA did not match at the required threshold. One of the state’s own experts agreed, and the prosecutor dismissed the case entirely. Our client, a combat veteran, was fully exonerated. (Each case is unique. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.)

Under Florida Statute 90.702, the defense can challenge an expert opinion where the underlying facts are insufficient, the methodology is unreliable, or reliable methodology has been applied unreliably. This framework (often called “Daubert” after the U.S. Supreme Court decision that established it) has been part of Florida law since 2013, when the Legislature rewrote Section 90.702, and was formally adopted as a procedural rule by the Florida Supreme Court in 2019.

For deeper reading, see our forensic science defense page and our DNA evidence defense case study.

Challenging Medical Evidence and SANE Findings

Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) findings are frequently treated as definitive evidence of assault. The science tells a different story.

A 2023 systematic review examining over 3,100 participants found that anogenital injury appeared in roughly 48% of sexual assault examinations and in about 31% of consensual sex examinations. More than half of examined sexual assault complainants had no detectable injury. The researchers cautioned that the pooled results could overestimate the distinction, and a higher-quality subgroup showed no statistically significant difference.

The takeaway cuts both ways: injury does not by itself establish non-consent, and the absence of injury does not establish consent or disprove assault.

A defense medical review should examine:

• The timing of the examination relative to the alleged event
  
• The exact location and nature of each finding
  
• Whether findings were photographed
  
• Alternative consensual or non-sexual causes
  
• Normal anatomical variants
  
• Whether the examiner moved from observed “findings” to unsupported opinions about mechanism or consent
  

In a notable April 2026 decision, the Fourth District Court of Appeal held in Henderson v. State that a nurse practitioner who had not examined the complainant could not act as a conduit for another examiner’s report. The substitute witness admitted she had no independent knowledge of the patient or case. The court found her recounting of the clinical injury description was inadmissible hearsay. This is a point we regularly make: a medical defense is not limited to disputing the science. It also asks who performed the examination, who made each observation, what foundation exists, and whether an expert is merely repeating another person’s report.

Read our full guide on SANE nurse evidence in Tampa Bay.

Digital Forensics Defenses

In internet sting cases, child sexual abuse material (CSAM) cases, and any charge built on digital evidence, the defense must separate several propositions that the prosecution often compresses into a single claim.

NIST’s scientific foundation review of digital investigation techniques treats digital forensics as a structured discipline involving preservation, acquisition, examination, analysis, and reporting. The defense team’s job is to evaluate each of those stages rather than taking the prosecution’s summary at face value.

Florida law also imposes special discovery rules for CSAM evidence. Under Section 92.561, the material must remain in government or court custody. The defense and its expert can inspect and examine the evidence at a designated facility, but it cannot simply be copied and sent to the expert’s laboratory. Defense counsel needs to plan expert review logistics early so the examination is not squeezed against trial deadlines.

A 2026 statutory update: Effective July 1, 2026, Florida replaced the statutory term “child pornography” with “child sexual abuse material” (CSAM) in numerous provisions and increased penalties for several offenses under Chapter 2026-20.

For more on internet sting defenses, see our article on vigilante predator catchers in Florida.

Constitutional Challenges: Illegal Searches and Coerced Statements

Search and Seizure

Article I, Section 12 of the Florida Constitution requires that search-and-seizure rights be construed in conformity with the Fourth Amendment as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court. In a sex crime case built on a phone, computer, cloud account, or home search, the defense can challenge probable cause, the nexus between the suspected crime and the place searched, the particularity of the warrant, and whether the warrant affidavit contained material falsehoods or omissions.

In State v. Domenech, a Second DCA case arising from a child pornography investigation, the circuit court found false statements in a detective’s warrant affidavit and suppressed the evidence. The Second DCA reversed, holding that even after setting the challenged statements aside, the remaining affidavit content supported probable cause. The case illustrates both the opportunity and the difficulty: a warrant affidavit can contain serious problems and still survive if the remaining content independently supports probable cause. A defense team must map each alleged misstatement, establish the required state of mind (deliberate falsity or reckless disregard, not mere negligence), and reconstruct the affidavit without the tainted material.

Digital cases often present the highest-value suppression opportunities because a single warrant may produce the device, communications, images, search history, and admissions on which the entire prosecution is built.

Statements and Interrogation

In State v. Pastor (Fifth DCA, August 2025), the appellate court addressed post-Miranda statement suppression. It reiterated that once a person in custodial interrogation unequivocally invokes the right to counsel, questioning must stop until counsel is available or the person reinitiates the conversation. The court reversed suppression because it concluded the invocation was not sufficiently unequivocal and, alternatively, that the suspect reinitiated discussion.

A defense review of any interrogation should analyze whether the interaction was custodial, the adequacy of warnings and waiver, whether silence or counsel was invoked, whether reinitiation occurred, and whether the statement was voluntary. Pre-file counsel can also decide whether the client should give any interview at all, which is often the most consequential decision of the entire case.

Entrapment in Internet Sex Sting Operations

“It was a sting” is not the same thing as entrapment. Florida Statute 777.201 uses a subjective framework: entrapment occurs when law enforcement induces or encourages a person to commit a crime through methods that create a substantial risk the crime will be committed by someone not already ready to commit it. The defendant bears the burden of proving entrapment by a preponderance of the evidence.

Merely creating the opportunity to offend is not enough. The defense must show actual inducement: persistent persuasion, fraud, coercive tactics, appeals to sympathy, or escalation after the target expressed reluctance. In State v. Lopez-Garcia (Second DCA, 2022), the court emphasized that giving someone an opportunity to offend does not constitute entrapment and that predisposition is ordinarily a fact question for the jury.

In an internet sex sting case, building an entrapment defense means obtaining the full, unedited communication history and analyzing who first introduced sexual content, how often the accused hesitated or declined, whether law enforcement escalated after reluctance, what inducements were offered, and what the accused did independently.

Read our sex sting defense guide for deeper analysis.

Williams Rule and Prior Bad Acts Evidence

Florida’s rules on prior-act evidence in sex crime cases are broader than many defendants expect. The traditional “Williams Rule” under Section 90.404(2)(a) allows similar-act evidence for purposes like proving motive, intent, identity, or absence of mistake, but not solely to prove bad character.

However, Florida separately enacted much broader provisions for sex offense cases. Section 90.404(2)(b) allows other child-molestation acts to bear on any relevant matter in a qualifying child-molestation prosecution, and Section 90.404(2)(c) does the same with other sexual offenses in qualifying sexual-offense prosecutions.

The defense still has avenues to challenge this evidence:

• Whether the alleged prior act qualifies under the statute
  
• Whether the State provided adequate 10-day pretrial notice
  
• Whether dissimilarity or remoteness reduces probative value
  
• Whether the presentation becomes cumulative or a distracting mini-trial
  
• Whether Section 90.403 requires exclusion because unfair prejudice substantially outweighs probative value
  

Defense investigation of a proposed Williams Rule witness should be nearly as intensive as investigation of the charged allegation itself: original reports, identification history, communications, timing, inconsistencies, and whether similarities are genuine or selectively presented.

For our full analysis, see our article on Williams Rule in sex crimes.

Florida’s Rape Shield Law

Section 794.022 prohibits evidence of specific consensual sexual activity between the complainant and persons other than the accused, bars reputation evidence about prior sexual conduct, and makes arguments based on the complainant’s clothing irrelevant.

The statute does contain defense-relevant exceptions. An in-camera hearing can allow evidence of third-party sexual activity where it could establish an alternative source of semen, pregnancy, injury, or disease. When consent is at issue, a separate narrowly worded exception may apply if a highly similar pattern is shown to be relevant.

These exceptions intersect directly with forensic defense work. When the prosecution infers assault from semen or genital injury, a defense expert can provide the factual foundation needed to make a rape-shield exception legally relevant by identifying a scientifically plausible alternative source of DNA or injury.

An important statutory note: Section 794.022 also states that a sexual battery complainant’s testimony does not require corroboration. The State does not need DNA, physical injuries, or an eyewitness before a case can proceed. Defense strategy must account for this.

Our full guide on Florida’s rape shield law covers the procedural requirements and exceptions in detail.

Child Hearsay Challenges

Under Section 90.803(23), an out-of-court statement by a child concerning abuse or an unlawful sexual act can be admitted only after the court holds a hearing outside the jury’s presence and finds sufficient safeguards of reliability. The statute invites consideration of the child’s age and maturity, the nature and duration of the alleged abuse, the relationship to the alleged offender, and the reliability of both the statement and the child.

A 2024 amendment expanded this provision to cover a child whose physical, mental, emotional, or developmental age is 17 or less.

Defense litigation can target the reliability hearing itself:

• Was the initial disclosure elicited through repeated or suggestive questioning?
  
• Who first brought up the allegation?
  
• Did the child’s account change between versions?
  
• Was age-appropriate language used?
  
• Was the child exposed to adult information about the alleged events?
  
• What was the sequence of family, law enforcement, and forensic interviews?
  
• Were interviewer techniques consistent with accepted protocols?
  
• Was statutory notice provided at least 10 days before trial?
  
• If the child is unavailable, does the required corroborative evidence exist?
  

Unrecorded interviews are not automatically inadmissible. In Oliver v. State (Second DCA, July 2024), the court affirmed child hearsay from unrecorded law enforcement and child protection interviews where the trial court made sufficient reliability findings. The absence of a recording can support a reliability challenge, but it does not by itself result in exclusion. The defense has to connect the problem to the statutory criteria.

For a deeper analysis, see our child hearsay defense guide.

Statute of Limitations in Florida Sex Crimes

Florida’s sex crime limitation rules under Section 775.15 are far more complex than most people realize. The answer depends on the exact offense, the degree at the relevant time, the victim’s age, the date the offense allegedly occurred, the date it was reported, whether any later statutory amendments extended the deadline, whether DNA identification provisions apply, and whether the case was already time-barred before an extension took effect.

A few examples of the current framework:

Section 775.15 repeatedly preserves cases that were already time-barred before a later extension took effect. A limitations defense therefore requires an offense-date-specific analysis, not a glance at the current statute.

Where a historical accusation is facially time-barred, counsel can put the statutory analysis before the prosecutor before an information is filed. This is one of the clearest applications of pre-file advocacy.

What Is NOT a Defense in Florida

Florida Statute 794.021 states plainly: where criminality depends on the victim being below a specified age, ignorance of the victim’s age, misrepresentation by the victim, and a bona fide belief that the victim was older are not defenses. Section 800.04 independently contains the same prohibition for lewd or lascivious offenses.

“The profile said 18,” “the minor told me she was 18,” and “I genuinely believed he was of age” cannot simply be presented as defenses where these statutes govern.

This does not mean the communications are irrelevant to every possible issue. In an undercover case involving no actual minor, what the accused was told and what the accused believed can bear on the elements and intent of the particular offense. But counsel must distinguish those element questions from a prohibited age-mistake defense.

Our article on ignorance of the victim’s age covers this in full.

Talk to a Defense Team That Handles These Cases

If you or someone you care about is facing a sex crime charge or investigation in Tampa Bay, the defense needs to start now. Evidence disappears. Witnesses forget. Filing decisions are made. The earlier we get involved, the more we can protect.

The Brancato Law Firm defends clients facing sex crime charges across Hillsborough, Pinellas, and Pasco Counties. We handle sexual battery, lewd or lascivious offenses, internet sex stings, CSAM cases, child abuse allegations, and sex offender registration challenges, with the forensic science capability and trial experience these cases require.

Call (813) 727-7159 for a free, confidential consultation.

That distinction is not academic. The misapplication of forensic science contributed to 52% of wrongful convictions in Innocence Project cases, and false or misleading forensic evidence is a contributing factor in roughly 24% of all exonerations tracked by the National Registry of Exonerations. At The Brancato Law Firm, our forensic science defense work is built around a single premise: a forensic report can look like proof and still be wrong. This guide explains what the role actually is, why it matters more than most people realize, and how to tell whether a lawyer can do the work or just talk about it.

What “Forensic” Actually Means

“Forensic” does not mean “scientific.” It comes from the Latin forensis, meaning “of the forum,” the public square in Rome where legal and civic business was conducted. Cornell’s Legal Information Institute defines it as “used in or suitable to courts of justice.” So a forensic science is any science applied to the questions a court has to answer. A forensic defense lawyer, by extension, is an attorney who applies that science to the courtroom on behalf of the accused.

The American Academy of Forensic Sciences puts it simply: when a scientist’s knowledge is used to help lawyers, juries, and judges understand the results of scientific tests, that scientist becomes a forensic scientist. And the same organization is clear that any party to a case can challenge whether the scientist performed the tests correctly, whether the results were interpreted accurately, and whether the underlying method is even valid. That challenge function is the entire job.

How a Forensic Defense Lawyer Differs From a General Criminal Defense Attorney

Every criminal defense attorney handles the full arc of a case: arraignment, discovery, plea negotiations, and trial. A forensic-focused defender does all of that and adds the ability to take the science apart. The difference shows up in what the lawyer does when a lab report lands on the desk.

An attorney who lacks forensic knowledge cannot effectively challenge forensic evidence. The conclusions on the report go unquestioned, and the jury hears the state’s version of the science as settled fact. An attorney who understands the science can find the weaknesses other lawyers miss.

The Core Job: Refusing to Take the Science at Face Value

The work of a forensic defense lawyer comes down to one discipline: not accepting a forensic conclusion just because it arrived in a lab report on official letterhead. Laboratory errors happen. Analysts misinterpret data. Experts sometimes reach conclusions the science does not support. And prosecutors routinely overstate what a result actually proves.

The National Institute of Justice identifies five types of forensic error that a defense lawyer can probe:

• Misstatements written into the forensic report itself
• Individualization or classification errors, where an analyst declares a “match” the data does not support
• Testimony errors, such as overstating the statistical weight of a result
• Officer-of-the-court errors
• Evidence-handling errors, including broken chain of custody and lost or contaminated samples

Notice how many of those live in the process, not the headline conclusion. A clean-looking result can sit on top of a sloppy collection, a contaminated sample, or a misread data point. The forensic defense lawyer’s job is to demand the underlying material and check.

Why This Matters: The Data on Forensic Error

Forensic evidence carries enormous weight with juries because it sounds objective. The record says otherwise. Flawed forensics is one of the most measurable causes of wrongful conviction in the country.

• Among DNA exonerations nationwide, unvalidated or improper forensic science was a factor in roughly half of the underlying wrongful convictions, according to the Innocence Project.
• The National Registry of Exonerations attributes false or misleading forensic evidence to roughly a quarter of all exonerations it has recorded, a database that now holds more than 3,400 cases since 1989.
• In its review of hundreds of cases, the NIJ concluded that in about half of the wrongful convictions analyzed, better technology or stricter testimony standards may have prevented the conviction at the time of trial.

The starkest example is the FBI’s own. The Justice Department and FBI formally acknowledged that 26 of 28 examiners in the Bureau’s microscopic hair comparison unit gave testimony or lab reports containing errors, with erroneous statements in at least 90% of the trial transcripts reviewed from the period before 2000. Among those cases, defendants in at least 35 received the death penalty, and errors were found in 33 of them. This was not a rogue lab. It was the gold-standard federal laboratory, and the science it presented as certain was overstated for decades.

Not All Forensic Evidence Is Equally Reliable

The phrase “the forensic evidence” hides a wide range of reliability. Two national reviews settled this. The 2009 National Academy of Sciences report, Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States, found that many disciplines admitted in court lacked the scientific foundation to support the conclusions drawn from them. The 2016 PCAST report reviewed more than 2,000 papers and graded six feature-comparison methods. Only single-source DNA, and with caveats, latent fingerprints, came out as foundationally valid.

Here is how the major evidence types stack up, and where a defense challenge usually lands.

A few of these deserve a closer look, because the gap between how reliable they sound and how reliable they are is where cases turn.

DNA Is Not One Thing

Single-source DNA from a clean sample is genuinely powerful. The science is sound. But NIST cautions that DNA mixtures, samples containing genetic material from more than one person, present far greater challenges, and that there is not enough publicly available data to independently assess the software used to interpret them. So “they found your DNA” can mean a near-certain identification, or it can mean an analyst made a judgment call about a muddy mixture. Those are not the same, and a forensic defense lawyer treats them differently.

Fingerprints Are Subjective

Most people assume a fingerprint match is binary. It isn’t. PCAST found latent print analysis to be valid but with a false-positive rate the report called substantial, citing study results ranging from roughly 1 error in 306 cases to 1 in 18, depending on the lab. The comparison still depends on a human examiner’s judgment about whether two prints “match.” We covered this in more depth in our breakdown of why fingerprint evidence is less reliable than most people think.

Some Courtroom “Sciences” Have No Scientific Basis

Bite mark comparison is the clearest example. PCAST concluded it does not meet the standard for foundational validity, and the Innocence Project has tied at least 26 wrongful convictions or indictments to it. When a discipline has been found scientifically invalid, the strategy is not to rebut it with a competing expert. It is to move to exclude it entirely.

Toxicology Depends on Assumptions

In a DUI case, the breath or blood test usually happens well after the traffic stop. To estimate your level at the time you were driving, the state relies on retrograde extrapolation, a backward calculation built on assumptions about absorption and elimination rates. One of the field’s foundational researchers warned that extrapolating a later test back to the time of the offense is “always of uncertain validity.” We walk through a real version of this problem in our case study on why your BAC at the station is not your BAC behind the wheel.

The Cases Where Forensic Defense Decides the Outcome

Forensic challenges matter most in the cases where the science is the case.

• Homicide: autopsy and cause-of-death findings, blood spatter, ballistics, and DNA. In one homicide defense matter we handled, a former state medical examiner reviewed the scene photos and tissue slides and concluded a child’s death was an accidental drowning, with a liver injury consistent with CPR compressions rather than inflicted trauma. First-degree murder and aggravated child abuse charges were dismissed.
• Sexual assault: DNA analysis and sexual assault nurse examiner findings, where mixture interpretation and the source of an injury are often contestable.
• DUI and vehicular homicide: toxicology, retrograde extrapolation, and accident reconstruction.
• Drug offenses: substance identification, where field test kits, not lab analysis, drove the single largest error category in the NIJ’s data.
• White-collar crime: forensic accounting, used to establish or rebut intent in fraud, embezzlement, and money-laundering cases.
• Cybercrime: digital forensics, which NIST defines as acquiring, preserving, and analyzing evidence using methods that are demonstrably reliable, accurate, and repeatable, all of which can be challenged when the process falls short.

Each case is unique. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.

The Legal Tools That Make the Challenge Possible

Knowing the science is only half of it. A forensic defense lawyer also has to know the rules that let a court keep bad science out or force the state to defend its methods. Four matter most.

You can read the Confrontation Clause holding in full in Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, and the duty-to-investigate language in the ABA’s Defense Function Standards. Together these tools are why a forensic challenge is possible at all: the law gives the accused the right to test the science, retain independent experts, and demand that analysts answer for their methods under oath.

How to Vet a Lawyer for a Science-Heavy Case

If your case turns on forensic evidence, the most useful thing you can do is figure out whether a prospective lawyer actually does this work or only references it. The questions are simple, and the answers are revealing.

• “Which forensic experts have you worked with?” A lawyer who does this work can name disciplines and, often, specific experts: forensic pathologists, DNA analysts, toxicologists, firearms examiners, digital forensics professionals. Vague answers are a flag.
• “What would you demand beyond the summary report?” The right answer involves bench notes, raw electronic data, lab accreditation records, analyst proficiency-testing results, and full chain-of-custody documentation. A lawyer who plans to work from the one-page summary is telling you something.
• “How would you cross-examine the state’s expert?” Look for specifics about methodology, error rates, and the analyst’s own assumptions, not a general promise to “challenge” the witness.
• “Would you re-test or get an independent review?” The ABA standards contemplate exactly this, and independent review is frequently where exculpatory findings surface.

Forensic defense lawyer is not a credential you can verify on a bar website. There is no separate license, and some attorneys market scientific labels without the trial experience to back them. Evaluate demonstrated experience over titles. The right question is not “are you a forensic lawyer,” it is “show me a case where you took the state’s science apart.”

This is the work we treat as central rather than optional. Our approach routinely involves subpoenaing bench notes, sending raw data to independent labs, and retaining experts who sit beside us through every deposition of the state’s analysts. In one cold-hit DNA case, that process surfaced a misread allele the state’s own analyst had relied on, and the charge was dismissed. Each case is unique, and past results do not guarantee future outcomes. We also wrote separately about why expert witnesses are not optional in serious cases, because in many of them, the right expert is the difference between a conviction and a dismissal.

The “CSI Effect” Cuts Both Ways

Television shapes what jurors expect. One forensic scientist estimated that 40% of the scientific techniques shown on crime dramas do not actually exist. The so-called CSI effect describes how those expectations bleed into real courtrooms, and it works in two directions. Jurors may demand forensic evidence that a case does not actually require, which can help the defense. Or they may over-credit forensic testimony simply because it is presented in a lab coat, which helps the prosecution.

The research is genuinely mixed. A large study of more than 1,000 jurors found heightened expectations but no clear link between watching crime shows and a tendency to convict. So the CSI effect is not a reliable advantage for either side. What it does confirm is that juries arrive primed to trust forensic science, which is exactly why someone has to be in the room who can show them when that trust is misplaced.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is a forensic defense lawyer the same as a forensic scientist?

No. A forensic scientist performs lab analysis, such as testing DNA or examining fingerprints. A forensic defense lawyer is an attorney who knows enough about that science to challenge it in court, retain independent experts, and cross-examine the analysts who did the testing.

Do I need a forensic defense lawyer for a DUI?

Often, yes. DUI cases turn on breath or blood toxicology, and the science behind a result is more contestable than most people assume. Retrograde extrapolation, the calculation used to estimate your level at the time of driving, depends on assumptions that a knowledgeable lawyer can challenge.

Can forensic evidence be wrong?

Yes. Lab errors, contamination, broken chain of custody, and analyst misinterpretation all occur, and some courtroom disciplines such as bite mark comparison have been found to lack scientific validity. False or misleading forensic evidence is a documented factor in a significant share of wrongful convictions nationwide.

What is a Daubert motion?

A Daubert motion asks the judge to exclude expert testimony whose method has not been properly tested, peer-reviewed, or shown to have an acceptable error rate. Florida adopted the Daubert standard in 2013, which gives the defense a tool to keep unreliable science out of the courtroom entirely.

The Bottom Line

A forensic defense lawyer is a criminal defense attorney with the scientific fluency to challenge the evidence that looks the most airtight. The role is defined by what the lawyer does with a lab report: reads the underlying data, retains independent experts, files the motions that keep weak science out, and cross-examines the state’s analysts on the parts they would rather not explain. The wrongful conviction data is the case for why it matters. When the science is wrong and no one checks, people go to prison for things they did not do.

If you or a family member is facing a charge that hinges on forensic evidence in Hillsborough, Pinellas, or Pasco County, get a lawyer who will read the bench notes, not just the summary. Call The Brancato Law Firm at (813) 727-7159 or request a confidential consultation to talk through how the science in your case can be tested.

The Importance of Hands-On Evidence Review

In serious criminal cases, the State’s evidence can seem overwhelming on paper. Lab reports show DNA matches. Forensic analysts provide confident conclusions. Police reports document careful evidence collection. However, paper tells only part of the story.

After 25+ years of criminal defense experience, I have learned that what happens between evidence collection and laboratory analysis matters enormously. How were items packaged? Where were they stored? What other evidence shared the same container? Only by going to the evidence room and examining the physical items yourself can you answer these questions.

Unfortunately, many attorneys never conduct this critical review. Instead, they rely on discovery documents and lab reports, seeing the actual evidence for the first time at trial. By then, it is too late to challenge storage conditions, contamination issues, or chain of custody problems that could have changed everything.

What Paper Discovery Misses

Discovery documents provide essential information: police reports, witness statements, lab results, and photographs. Nevertheless, they cannot show you how officers actually handled and stored evidence. For example, a lab report might confirm a DNA match, but it will not reveal that analysts stored the DNA sample in the same container as other biological evidence from the case.

Similarly, crime scene photographs document what investigators found, but they cannot reveal what happened to that evidence over years or decades in storage. Consequently, only a personal inspection can uncover these critical details.

Paper Discovery vs. Physical Evidence Inspection

How I Conduct Evidence Reviews

When a case involves physical evidence that could determine my client’s fate, I schedule time at the law enforcement evidence room to conduct a thorough inspection. This is not a quick visit. Depending on the volume of evidence, a comprehensive review can take hours or even a full day.

Timing the Evidence View

I typically conduct evidence inspections close to trial so the details remain fresh in my mind during cross-examination and closing argument. However, I never wait until the eve of trial. If the inspection reveals problems—contamination issues, storage failures, chain of custody gaps—I need time to file motions, retain experts, and adjust trial strategy accordingly.

Who Attends the Evidence Review

I bring my investigator, a camera, and a notepad to every evidence view. In capital cases, my trial partner attends as well because two sets of eyes are essential when a client’s life is at stake. Additionally, the lead detective or evidence custodian is typically present. My team photographs every item and documents every storage container. Furthermore, we record detailed notes that can later support motions to suppress or exclude evidence.

What I Look For During Inspection

The goal is to identify anything that could undermine the reliability of the State’s evidence. First, I examine storage conditions: Did technicians keep biological evidence at proper temperatures? Second, I check packaging: Did officers place items that should remain separate in the same container? Third, I assess handling: Do the items show signs of tampering, degradation, or contamination?

Critical Areas to Examine During Evidence Inspection

Case Study: The Cold Hit DNA Case

This capital case from my files demonstrates why evidence inspection can be case-changing—and potentially life-saving. The State sought the death penalty against my client based on DNA evidence from a homicide that occurred more than twenty years earlier.

The State’s Evidence

A “cold hit” had linked my client to the decades-old crime. Investigators found a cigarette butt at the original crime scene, and when DNA from that cigarette was eventually run through the CODIS database, it came back to my client. He was already on death row for a separate homicide, making him an easy target for this cold case.

How Cold Hits Work: DNA Amplification Technology

DNA testing technology has improved immensely over the past few decades. Modern techniques can extract genetic material from even the smallest biological samples. Through a process called amplification, forensic scientists add reagents to the sample that “amplify” or increase the visibility of the DNA profile.

As a result, cold hits on cases from twenty or thirty years ago have become increasingly common. A tiny amount of biological material—such as saliva on a cigarette butt or skin cells on a doorknob—can now yield a usable DNA profile. In other words, evidence that was insufficient for testing decades ago can now generate matches through CODIS.

On paper, the case against my client looked strong. The prosecution had DNA evidence from modern amplification technology and a defendant already convicted of murder. Consequently, they felt confident.

The Evidence Room Visit

Because this was a capital case, my trial partner and I scheduled a full day at the police department evidence room. Our investigator joined us with a camera and notepad, and the lead detective was present as we methodically examined every piece of evidence.

Together, we documented how officers had stored each item over the past two decades. Our team photographed containers, recorded storage locations, and noted which items shared packaging. Although the process was tedious, it was essential. Then we found it.

The Critical Discovery

The Daubert Motion

Armed with photographs and documentation from our evidence room visit, I filed a Daubert motion challenging the admissibility of the DNA evidence. Under Daubert, scientific evidence must meet reliability standards before a court can admit it. Evidence that officers stored in a manner that creates contamination risks fails this standard.

The motion detailed exactly what we found: two pieces of biological evidence, both critical to the case, stored together for decades. Any competent forensic expert would acknowledge that this storage method created an unacceptable risk of cross-contamination.

The Result

Why Many Attorneys Skip Evidence Inspection

Conducting a thorough evidence review takes time—hours or even days that many attorneys are unwilling or unable to invest. Furthermore, scheduling access to evidence rooms requires coordination with law enforcement. The work itself is tedious: opening boxes, photographing containers, and recording observations.

As a result, too many “trial” attorneys see the physical evidence for the first time when it appears in the courtroom. By then, the opportunity to challenge storage conditions, contamination issues, or chain of custody problems has passed. Consequently, the jury sees the evidence without ever learning about problems that a thorough inspection would have revealed.

When Failing to Inspect Evidence Is Ineffective Assistance

Defense attorneys have a constitutional obligation to investigate their client’s case. When physical evidence is central to the prosecution—such as DNA, fingerprints, drugs, or weapons—failing to personally inspect that evidence can constitute ineffective assistance of counsel.

Consider the cold hit case above. If I had simply accepted the lab report at face value, my client might have received a death sentence based on contaminated evidence. The storage problem only came to light because we spent a full day in the evidence room examining every item. Consequently, an attorney who skipped this step would never have discovered it.

Therefore, if a court convicted you based on physical evidence that your attorney never personally examined, you may have grounds for post-conviction relief. An experienced appellate attorney can evaluate whether the failure to inspect evidence prejudiced your defense.

Frequently Asked Questions

Questions About Evidence Inspection

Questions About Contamination and Storage

Questions About Working With Your Attorney

Questions About Appeals and Post-Conviction Relief

Experience in Capital Cases

I am Tampa Criminal Defense Attorney Rocky Brancato. With over 25 years of criminal defense experience, including service as Chief Operations Officer of the Hillsborough County Public Defender’s Office, I understand what thorough case preparation requires. As a death-qualified attorney, I have handled capital cases where the stakes could not be higher.

The cold hit DNA case taught me—and should teach every defendant—that lab reports are not the final word. Physical evidence has a history: collection, transportation, storage, and handling. Problems can arise at any point in that chain. Ultimately, only an attorney willing to spend hours in an evidence room will uncover them.

My client faced the death penalty based on DNA evidence that seemed airtight. Nevertheless, a full day of tedious evidence inspection revealed that improper storage had compromised the State’s key evidence. That discovery saved his life.

Call (813) 727-7159 for a Confidential Consultation

The Brancato Law Firm, P.A.

620 E Twiggs Street, Suite 205, Tampa, FL 33602

Serving Hillsborough, Pinellas, and Pasco Counties

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A combat veteran still serving in the Army Reserves. A cold-hit DNA match from an eight-year-old sexual battery case. And crime scene photos so graphic they would have guaranteed a conviction if this case had gone to trial without the right investigation.

The prosecution believed they had an airtight case. Years earlier, investigators had recovered a partial DNA profile from a brutal sexual assault. Then, when they ran it through CODIS—the national DNA database—it produced a “cold hit” linking to my client.

However, cold hits are only as reliable as the science and interpretation behind them. And in this case, the science was wrong. I am Tampa Criminal Defense Attorney Rocky Brancato. This post is part of our forensic series put out by the Brancato Law Firm, P.A., your Tampa criminal forensic evidence law firm.

Why I Challenged the State’s DNA Evidence

Most attorneys accept DNA evidence at face value. After all, juries treat DNA as almost infallible. But I knew that DNA analysis involves human interpretation—and humans make mistakes.

So I started by subpoenaing the bench notes from the state’s forensic laboratory. These are the raw, handwritten or typed records that DNA analysts create during testing—notes on procedures, observations, amplification levels, and more. Essentially, they reveal not just the conclusions, but the entire process.

Additionally, I obtained the electronic raw data from the lab’s DNA analysis. Then I sent everything to a confidential private laboratory for independent review. These consultants would never testify—instead, they provided a neutral second opinion and advised me on what to look for.

The Turning Point: A Critical Mismatch

My confidential lab’s review uncovered a critical issue. According to their analysis, the state’s DNA analyst may have misinterpreted one of the alleles on my client’s DNA profile at a specific genetic location.

In forensic genetics, this matters enormously. A DNA profile must match at every required location; otherwise, the person is excluded. Consequently, one mismatch can mean the difference between identification and exoneration.

Bringing in the Right Expert

To fully address the issue, I retained a university professor—an expert geneticist and DNA specialist with extensive courtroom experience. Importantly, this expert could not only understand the science but also explain it clearly to a judge or jury.

He reviewed everything: the state’s lab reports, the bench notes, the raw data, and the findings from my confidential lab. His conclusion confirmed what we suspected—there was a mismatch. Specifically, the DNA profile the state relied on did not match my client at one critical locus.

But his work did not stop there. He traveled with me and sat by my side during every deposition of the state’s forensic experts. Furthermore, he prepared me with the right questions, flagged subtle inconsistencies in their findings, and helped shape a clear and persuasive challenge to their interpretation.

When the State’s Own Experts Admitted the Truth

Then the tide began to turn. One of the state’s own experts ultimately agreed: they had it wrong. The DNA did not match at the required threshold.

Meanwhile, another state expert could not bring herself to admit her mistake. However, her testimony crumbled under scrutiny. Faced with mounting scientific evidence and internal disagreement among their own analysts, the prosecutor had no choice.

What This Case Taught Me

Had we not gone the extra mile—had we not challenged the assumptions and brought in the right expert—my client might have spent the rest of his life behind bars for a crime he did not commit.

Like many of my most significant victories, this case was won not by theatrics or charm. Instead, it was won by science, preparation, and partnership with a true expert.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can DNA evidence be wrong?

Yes, absolutely. While DNA science is powerful, the results depend entirely on proper laboratory procedures and accurate interpretation. Consequently, analyst errors, contamination, degraded samples, and misread alleles can all lead to false matches.

What is a CODIS cold hit?

A CODIS cold hit occurs when DNA from an unsolved crime matches a profile in the FBI’s national DNA database. However, these matches require the same rigorous verification as any other DNA evidence. A cold hit is only as reliable as the science behind it.

What are DNA bench notes?

Bench notes are the raw, contemporaneous records that DNA analysts create during testing. Specifically, they document procedures, observations, amplification levels, and interpretive decisions. Defense attorneys can subpoena these notes to evaluate whether the analyst followed proper protocols.

How do you challenge DNA evidence in Florida?

Challenging DNA evidence requires obtaining the laboratory’s bench notes and raw electronic data, then retaining independent experts to review the analysis. Most importantly, defense counsel must depose the state’s analysts and expose any errors or inconsistencies in their methodology.

What does it mean if DNA doesn’t match at one locus?

In forensic DNA analysis, a profile must match at every required genetic location. Therefore, if there is a mismatch at even one locus, the suspect should be excluded. One mismatch can mean the difference between conviction and exoneration.

Why do I need a DNA expert in a sexual battery case?

Sexual battery cases often rely heavily on DNA evidence. Juries treat DNA as nearly infallible, so without your own expert to challenge the state’s analysis, you have almost no chance of fighting back. As a result, the right expert can mean the difference between prison and freedom.

Facing DNA Evidence in Your Case?

DNA evidence is not infallible. Unfortunately, laboratory errors, analyst mistakes, and flawed interpretations happen more often than prosecutors want to admit. If you are facing charges based on DNA evidence, you need an attorney who knows how to challenge the science.

For over 25 years, I have defended clients against the most serious charges in Tampa Bay. As a result, I understand how to subpoena laboratory records, retain the right experts, and expose flaws in the state’s forensic analysis.

Call (813) 727-7159 for a Confidential Consultation

The Brancato Law Firm, P.A.

620 E Twiggs Street, Suite 205, Tampa, FL 33602

Serving Hillsborough, Pinellas, and Pasco Counties

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