What specific DNA and bite‑mark testing methods did the Pennsylvania State Police use in the Collins trial and were they contested at trial?

1. Collins case: what the record actually shows about DNA evidence

The appellate decision in Collins v. State recounts that the alleged victim provided law‑enforcement DNA samples from her cell phone and from beneath her fingernails, and that Collins later said he had been told police had DNA and ballistics evidence linking him to the crimes—arguments he raised when seeking to withdraw a guilty plea ^[1]. The FindLaw opinion does not catalogue laboratory reports or list the analytical techniques (e.g., STR typing, Y‑STR, mitochondrial DNA) used to generate—or exclude—any profiles ^[1].

2. What the Pennsylvania State Police lab system can and does do (context for interpreting the record)

PSP’s Bureau of Forensic Services maintains regional laboratories with a dedicated Forensic DNA Division in Greensburg that performs body‑fluid identification, bloodstain analysis and DNA testing for agencies across the commonwealth, and the public PSP pages identify DNA analysis as a core service ^{[2] [3]}. Pennsylvania law sets procedures for post‑conviction DNA testing and expressly contemplates testing by the State Police lab when parties cannot agree or when an applicant is indigent, and it requires that such testing be carried out under PSP protocols ^[4].

3. Bite‑mark testing in Pennsylvania reporting — general background, not Collins‑specific

Independent reporting and Innocence Project materials show that bite‑mark testimony has a troubled history in Pennsylvania exonerations: experts who had testified decades earlier recanted as scientific standards evolved, and courts later called bite‑mark conclusions “problematic” in cases where later DNA testing excluded the original defendants ^[5]. Those documents demonstrate the broader forensic controversy but do not tie bite‑mark testing to the Collins proceedings described in the appellate opinion ^{[5] [1]}.

4. Were DNA and bite‑mark methods contested at Collins’s trial or plea‑withdrawal hearing?

The FindLaw summary records Collins’s claim that he believed DNA evidence existed and that this belief affected his plea, but it does not document contested expert testimony about laboratory techniques, chain‑of‑custody disputes, or litigation over the validity of particular DNA assays at trial or the plea‑withdrawal hearing ^[1]. The available sources therefore establish that DNA samples were collected and that Collins asserted the State possessed DNA evidence, but they do not show detailed methodological challenges or bite‑mark testimony in that record ^[1].

5. What is confirmed, what remains unknown, and why it matters

Confirmed: PSP operates DNA labs and Pennsylvania law governs when the State Police performs post‑conviction DNA tests; in Collins the record reflects collection of DNA samples and Collins’s statements about DNA evidence ^{[2] [3] [4] [1]}. Not confirmed in the sources provided: the exact laboratory methods (for example, which STR kit or instruments), whether the PSP used rapid or conventional DNA workflows in Collins’s matter, whether any bite‑mark examination occurred in that case, and whether any scientific methods were litigated as unreliable at trial—these specifics are not present in the appellate summary or PSP material supplied ^{[1] [2] [3] [4]}. Given published examples of bite‑mark recantations and DNA exculpations in Pennsylvania, independent records—trial transcripts, lab reports, or prosecution disclosure—would be needed to definitively answer which assays PSP ran in Collins and whether experts contested them ^[5].