State v. Riley

• Court: Ohio Court of Appeals
• Decided: April 23, 2026
• Docket: 115512
• Status: Published

Opinion

[Cite as State v. Riley, 2026-Ohio-1453.]

COURT OF APPEALS OF OHIO

EIGHTH APPELLATE DISTRICT COUNTY OF CUYAHOGA

STATE OF OHIO, :

Plaintiff-Appellee, : No. 115512 v. :

MICHAEL RILEY, :

Defendant-Appellant. :

JOURNAL ENTRY AND OPINION

JUDGMENT: AFFIRMED RELEASED AND JOURNALIZED: April 23, 2026

Civil Appeal from the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Case No. CR-16-608045-A

Appearances:

Michael C. O’Malley, Cuyahoga County Prosecuting Attorney, and Kristen Hatcher, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellee.

Patituce & Associates, LLC, Megan M. Patituce, and Joseph C. Patituce, for appellant.

SEAN C. GALLAGHER, J.:

Michael Riley appeals the denial of his application for postconviction

DNA testing, in which he claims advances in DNA collection techniques could lead to the detection of DNA material that would have been outcome determinative had

it been available at trial. For the following reasons, we affirm.

This postconviction proceeding has a long history despite a

preliminary issue with Riley’s 2022 application for the State to conduct

postconviction DNA testing — his implicit concession that no parent sample exists.

The existence of a parent sample of biological material, material containing human

DNA, is a statutory prerequisite to the trial court’s accepting an application for

postconviction DNA testing under R.C. 2953.74(C)(1). Riley’s concession is

dispositive.

In 2016, Riley was indicted on charges of aggravated murder, felony

murder, attempted murder, four counts of felonious assault, discharge of a firearm

on or near prohibited premises, improperly handling a firearm in a motor vehicle,

and having a weapon while under a disability. The charges arose from a drive-by

shooting in which a person wearing unique clothing that enabled witnesses to

identify Riley entered the back seat on the driver’s side of a vehicle, all of which was

recorded on surveillance cameras. The video depicted shots being fired from the

window of the door Riley entered. State v. Riley, 2024-Ohio-5712, ¶ 2, citing State

v. Riley, 2019-Ohio-981, ¶ 3 (8th Dist.). The shots struck and killed Juan Mitchell

and injured another. The trial court sitting as the trier of fact “found Riley not guilty

of aggravated murder because, according to the trial court, the identity of the person

who had fired the gun or guns from the car could not be determined.” Id. at ¶ 2,

citing Riley, 2019-Ohio-981, at ¶ 38. The trial court expressly found Riley complicit in the remaining offenses and sentenced him to an aggregate prison term of 26 years

to life. Id.

As part of his postconviction challenges, Riley filed an application for

DNA testing under R.C. 2953.71 to 2953.81 seeking to retest the shell casings

collected during the investigation of Riley’s crimes. According to Riley’s application,

“[i]n the past, obtaining useful DNA off shell casings was almost always unsuccessful

because the testing standards were not sensitive enough to capture the small

amount of touch DNA present.” Citing a professional article published in 2016, Riley

argued that there could still be touch DNA present on the shell casings, uncollected

by the forensic examiner who collected the original samples from the shell casings.

See Jim Dawson, Who Loaded the Gun? Recovering DNA from Bullet Casings,

Forensics Magazine (August 2016), https://njj.ojp.gov/topics/articles/who-loaded-

gun-recovering-dna-bullet-casings (accessed Mar. 31, 2026) [available at

https://perma.cc/JML7-2PWG]. The trial court denied the application, but before

it could issue findings, Riley perfected an appeal. The panel affirmed the denial of

the application after accepting the trial court’s belated findings, concluding that the

DNA testing would not be outcome determinative. Notwithstanding, the Ohio

Supreme Court reversed with three justices claiming it was error for the trial court

to accept the State’s proposed findings, three justices claiming the appellate court

erred by considering the appeal filed before the findings were made by the trial

court, and one justice in favor of dismissing the appeal as improvidently allowed.

See generally Riley, 2024-Ohio-5712. As the Ohio Supreme Court recognized in the earlier appeal of the

postconviction DNA testing application, this matter arises from Riley’s “application

seeking DNA testing of six shell casings discovered at the scene of the shooting.” Id.

at ¶ 4. As noted in the application, however, the lab testing conducted before trial

“detected an ‘insufficient quantity of human DNA’ on the swabs collected from the

outer surface of the casings.” Id. “Riley argued in his application that

‘advancements in DNA testing technology not available’ at the time of his trial made

it possible to test the casings again and yield a result that would exclude him as the

shooter or establish who the shooter was.” Id. In other words, according to Riley,

the State’s forensic examiner could collect a new sample of biological material from

the shell casings for further testing. This request is outside the realm of testing

permitted under R.C. 2953.74(C)(1) when that language is applied as written.

“A court may accept an R.C. 2953.73 application for DNA testing only

if it determines that six conditions apply, [one] of which [is] central to this

appeal. . . . [T]he court must determine that biological material was collected from

the crime scene or the victim and that the parent sample still exists.” State v.

Bonnell, 2018-Ohio-4069, ¶ 19, citing R.C. 2953.74(C)(1). In his application for

DNA testing, Riley claimed it was possible to collect new biological material from

the bullet casings secured during the investigation based on advancements in

forensic collection techniques. As the State argued in the hearing conducted on

remand, in order for the trial court to accept an application for postconviction DNA

testing under R.C. 2953.74(C)(1), however, the court must determine that biological material was both collected from the crime scene (or victim) for the

offense at issue and that parent sample still exists. See Riley, 2024-Ohio-5712, ¶ 12

(“It is axiomatic that there must be some proper biological material to test.”). If no

parent sample exists, the trial court may not accept the application. Bonnell at ¶ 19.

“Parent sample” is defined as “biological material first obtained from

a crime scene or a victim of an offense for which an offender is an eligible offender,

and from which a sample will be presently taken to do a DNA comparison to the

DNA of the subject offender under sections 2953.71 to 2953.81 of the Revised Code.”

The phrase “biological material” expressly means “any product of a human body

containing DNA.” “Biological material may include blood, semen, hair, saliva, and

skin tissue.” State v. Warren, 2022-Ohio-4743, ¶ 13 (2d Dist.), citing R.C.

2933.82(A)(1)(a)(ii). The “collection of a shell casing does not necessarily establish

the collection of biological material.” Id. The collection and retention of a parent

sample of biological material from an item must exist at the time of the application.

R.C. 2953.74(C)(1). Collecting new biological material from tangible objects like

shell casings does not fall under the definition of what constitutes an existing parent

sample of “biological material.”

As the Ohio Supreme Court also recognized in an earlier appeal, the

State’s argument has been steadfast: “the swabs collected from the six shell casings

had been consumed during the lab testing and therefore could not be tested again.”

Riley, 2024-Ohio-5712, at ¶ 5. Riley does not contend and, in fact, has never

claimed otherwise, leading the trial court to the conclusion that the original samples of biological material collected no longer existed. As Riley stated in his

application and later clarified in the proceedings following the remand from the

Ohio Supreme Court, he is not seeking a DNA test on a sample taken from the

parent sample currently in existence. Instead, he is requesting the State’s forensic

examiner to generate a new sample of biological material by attempting to collect

additional biological material from the shell casings held in evidence. Tr. 41:20-

42:7. Riley’s request does not adhere to the limitations of R.C. 2953.74(C)(1).

Riley’s argument is based on the tacit concession that no parent

sample exists, and he is expressly seeking the collection of an additional sample of

biological material retrieved from tangible evidence for further testing.1 If such a

request is permitted, it is not through the statutory procedure outlined in R.C.

2953.71 to 2953.81, under which this case proceeded to force the State to conduct

additional DNA testing. See R.C. 2953.84 (“[S]ections 2953.71 to 2953.81 of the

Revised Code . . . are not the exclusive means by which an offender may obtain

postconviction DNA testing, and the provisions of those sections do not limit or

affect any other means by which an offender may obtain postconviction DNA

testing.”).

Riley’s argument primarily focused on the State forensically

obtaining a new sample of biological material from the shell casings and from which

1 The State presented this argument to the trial court at the hearing conducted on

remand from the Ohio Supreme Court. Tr. 44:9-22. further DNA testing could occur.2 He is not requesting the State to test a sample

taken from a parent sample as statutorily defined.3 His claim is limited to advances

in collecting the biological material from shell casings, and as a result of this

distinction, Riley’s application was fatally flawed. Under R.C. 2953.74(C)(1), the

trial court was unable to do anything but reject the application based on Riley’s

argument and the information submitted along with the application. State v.

Marshall, 2025-Ohio-3132, ¶ 11 (1st Dist.) (“If any of the factors listed in R.C.

2953.74(C) are not satisfied, the court is precluded from accepting the

application.”), quoting State v. Emerick, 2007-Ohio-1334, ¶ 15 (2d Dist.), overruled

in part on other grounds by State v. Wilson, 2024-Ohio-4712 (2d Dist.), and R.C.

2953.74(C); see also State v. Williamson, 2018-Ohio-2226, ¶ 10 (8th Dist.)

(concluding no parent sample existed and therefore the trial court did not err in

denying the postconviction application for DNA testing). By seeking the collection

of new biological material from the shell casings, Riley is implicitly conceding that

2 Although the trial court concluded that a parent sample existed in paragraph 20

of the findings of facts and conclusions of law, that conclusion is irrelevant to Riley’s only request, which seeks new testing samples be collected from the shell casings. The trial court’s statements referred to the original samples that contained insufficient biological material for further testing. Riley is not asking for any additional testing of those samples but instead seeks that new samples be preserved from the shell casings directly. 3 It should be noted that the analysis surrounding advances in DNA testing pertains to whether a “definitive DNA test” occurred in the trial proceeding. A “definitive DNA test means a DNA test that clearly establishes that biological material from the perpetrator of the crime was recovered from the crime scene and also clearly establishes whether or not the biological material is that of the eligible offender.” Because there was no “definitive DNA test” in this case, Riley’s discussion regarding R.C. 2953.71(U) is not relevant to the analysis. no parent sample exists for the purposes of R.C. 2953.74(C)(1). If there is relief to

be had, it is not through R.C. 2953.71 to 2953.81 as this case has been presented.

Accordingly, any arguments pertaining to whether the requested

DNA testing would be outcome determinative are moot.4 In light of our conclusion

that no parent sample exists under R.C. 2953.74(C)(1), it cannot be determined that

the trial court erred in concluding that a scientifically sufficient amount of material

does not exist from which a test sample could be extracted under subdivision (C)(2).

The absence of a parent sample necessarily means that there is insufficient material

under (C)(2). The decision of the trial court denying the application for DNA testing

is affirmed.

It is ordered that appellee recover from appellant costs herein taxed.

The court finds there were reasonable grounds for this appeal.

It is ordered that a special mandate issue out of this court directing the

common pleas court to carry this judgment into execution.

4 Even if the issue was not moot, the panel’s conclusion that the postconviction

DNA would not be outcome determinative because Riley was found guilty of complicity and not implicated as the shooter, still holds true. State v. Riley, 2023-Ohio-2588, ¶ 48 (8th Dist.). The Ohio Supreme Court’s decision reversing the panel decision rested on procedural grounds, not as to the merits of that conclusion. See generally Riley, 2024- Ohio-5712. A certified copy of this entry shall constitute the mandate pursuant to Rule

27 of the Rules of Appellate Procedure.

______________________ SEAN C. GALLAGHER, JUDGE

EMANUELLA D. GROVES, P.J., and MARY J. BOYLE, J., CONCUR