The People v. Clifford Jones

OPINION OF THE COURT

Pigott, J.

Defendant sought an evidentiary hearing as part of his postjudgment motion to vacate his conviction on the ground that newly discovered evidence in the form of mitochondrial *627DÑA (mtDNA) testing excluded him as the perpetrator of crimes of which he was convicted in 1981 (see CPL 440.10 [1] [g]). Supreme Court and the Appellate Division, in the exercise of their discretion, summarily denied defendant’s motion. The jurisprudence of this Court, for nearly 40 years, has been that “[t]he power to review a discretionary order denying a motion to vacate judgment upon the…