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By
Patrick Hillmeyer
, Allyson Nelles - April 15, 2025
Court
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Daily Stories
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Homicides
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Shooting
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Parties spared over the qualifications of a DNA expert in a hearing before DC Superior Court Judge Craig Iscoe on April 14, reviewing a decade old homicide case.
Antwon Green, 36, was initially convicted of first-degree murder while armed, felony murder while armed, four counts of possession of a firearm during crime of violence, attempt to commit robbery while armed, assault with a dangerous weapon, and unlawful possession of a firearm for his involvement in the fatal shooting of Breond Keys, 38, at a barbershop on the 1400 block of Good Hope Road, SE, on Oct. 10, 2014. Green was sentenced to 48 years for the crime.
The conviction was appealed partly on the basis of inadequate representation in 2022 and though affirmed four charges were dismissed including felony murder. DNA evidence was a major part of the trial and it is under attack by the defense.
In court, Steven Kiersch, Green’s attorney, reviewed a DNA specialist’s professional credentials, to establish his credibility before offering him as an expert witness.
The prosecution objected stating the witness hadn’t earned a master’s or doctorate degree, only a premedical sciences certification. The prosecutor also said the witness was fired from two previous forensic analysis jobs at National Medical Services (NMS) and Acadiana Imaging.
The witness said he “chose to be fired” from NMS.
He claimed they overworked him and when he tried to get compensation, his supervisors accused him of sexually harassing an intern. He said he was given the option to resign or be fired, so he quit. He stated he was fired from Acadiana Imaging because he reported his supervisor for malfeasance.
The prosecution also challenged the conferences the witness attended, stating there were no evaluation at the end of the meetings and there was nothing to indicate whether or not the attendee grasped the information.
The witness stated that not how those events work.
The prosecution also revealed that the witness was not accepted as a DNA expert in two cases in New York State. According to court documents, the witness lacked “sufficient qualifications to testify regarding DNA analysis.”
”The judge accepted a 24-year-old analyst with two years of experience and not me who’s been doing this longer than he’s been alive,” the witness said. He implied that the transcripts from his past cases in New York were overemphasized by the prosecution.
Kiersch informed Judge Iscoe that the witness has been accepted as an expert in DC every time he testified. Judge Iscoe noted this and found the witness qualified as an expert in DNA analysis, stating that the “issues go to weight not admissibility.”
The witness stated that he reviewed the original DNA analysis in this case from 2015. He came to the conclusion that the forensic analyst who conducted the examination should have used a three person mixture test, due to the presence of foreign DNA in the samples. The samples included the right pocket of Keys’ cargo pants and a cartridge casing from the suspect’s weapon.
The witness stated portions of the recovered DNA were inconsistent with both Green and Keys, so there had to be a third party.
The prosecution stated that the original forensic analyst testified that her lab didn’t have protocol for a three person mixture in 2015. The witness challenged that claim, stating the software and guidelines to do the analysis were available at the time.
You can still draw conclusions regarding the major contributor in the sample even with third party contributions, the prosecutor said. According to testing reports, Green was a likely major contributor in the DNA profile of both samples.
A member of Green’s defense team from his trial in 2017 said there were “serious problems with the way the DNA was tested” in this case.
She stated that the amount of DNA claimed to have been recovered did not make sense, referring to video of the suspect touching Keys’ pants pocket. She also voiced concern with the composition of evidence due clutter in the barbershop.
The prosecution stated that the defense did file a specific request to exclude DNA evidence at the time of the trial,but DC Superior Court Judge Judith Bartnoff denied the motion, finding that Green did not meet the requirements for an evidentiary hearing at the time.
An eyewitness from the DC Jail said he was hanging out in a park across the street from the barbershop at the time of the incident, claiming he saw someone run out of the shop holding a gun with a ski mask on. He said the individual definitely wasn’t Green because of the man’s physical build, facial structure, and darker complexion.
Green told the jury that he did not kill Keys, claiming the DNA evidence was incorrect and potentially stolen.
Green is scheduled to finish his testimony on April 15.