The New Jersey Supreme Court dealt with N.J.S.A. 2C:1-6(c), which states that a statute of limitations does not start to run until the State has both the physical evidence and the DNA evidence necessary to establish the identification of the actor through comparison to the physical evidence. The issue in this case was complicated because the suspect’s DNA was retrieved and entered into CODIS in 2001. But some policies and procedures precluded all the data from being admitted into the system. In 2004 based on an unrelated matter, more data from this defendant was entered into the system. And in 2016, after a change to CODIS’s policies and procedures, the sample at issue was more fully entered into the system, and a match was made, leading to the defendant’s arrest in the instant matter. The Supreme Court held that N.J.S.A. 2C:1-6(c) shows that the Legislature intended the statute of limitations to begin to run once the State had both the physical evidence from the crime and the suspect’s DNA. As such, the Court vacated the defendant’s conviction because the State violated the statute of limitations.
