New Zealand Case Law: Decisions & Judgments | LexChat

Topic

Immunohistochemistry (ihc)

Legal area

Court

9 Oct 2018

LUNDY v R [2018] NZCA 410

Citation

[2018] NZCA 410
Court

Court of Appeal

The Court held the mRNA (messenger RNA) evidence inadmissible because it lacked sufficient independent validation, peer review, standards, known error rates and general scientific acceptance to be reliably put to a jury on a highly technical issue; the IHC evidence was admissible because multiple independent neuropathologists replicated and corroborated the results and methodological concerns had been addressed; notwithstanding exclusion of mRNA evidence the Court applied the proviso to s385(1) and dismissed the appeal because, on the remaining admissible evidence (CNS tissue established by I…
15 Oct 2014

R v LUNDY [2014] NZHC 2527

Citation

[2014] NZHC 2527
Court

High Court

The court held that the Crown had established sufficient reliability under s25 to admit DNA profiling and IHC evidence that the stains are CNS tissue, and by a narrow margin admitted the NFI RNA organ-typing (brainplex) evidence for specimen 3003/3 as a credible extension of validated methods, but excluded all FISH evidence and certain IHC assertions as unreliable; chain of custody and contamination concerns did not require exclusion of the admitted scientific evidence; uncertainties must be addressed by expert testimony and jury directions.