M. Ariel Payan

Ariel is Director of Legal Services for the Capital Area Private Defender Service (CAPDS) and oversees 150+ defense attorneys in Travis County (Austin). He has been a defense attorney for 30 years and has spent the last 15 years focused on capital cases, both trial and appeal. He is a frequent lecturer on all thing’s science, but mostly DNA which he almost understands.

Ariel was the lead attorney on one of the first STRMix cases in Texas, successfully precluding its admission in a capital non death case, State v. Criner in 2017. He has also successfully challenged DNA admission in multiple other cases and advises Texas defense attorneys on how to approach DNA issues in their cases. He has worked on DNA cases since 1999, (RFLP, STR, Y-STR, M-DNA, Minifiler, and STRMix).