Dery v. State

ALTENBERND, Judge.

Michael T. Dery, Jr., appeals his conviction for first-degree murder and the resulting sentence of life imprisonment. The evidence against him was primarily, if not exclusively, circumstantial. The forensic science skills of the lead detective, a medical examiner, and a DNA expert were a major feature of the State’s case. A juror, who did not reveal that she had any background in forensic sciences during voir dire, and who appeared simply to be a bus driver in her mid-fifties, admitted during the second day of trial that she had taken a seventeen-week course in forensic…