P
R O C E E D I N G
[In the Superior Court of Gwinnett County,
Lawrenceville, Georgia; 9:00 a.m., Wednesday, August 30, 1995; the STATE OF
GEORGIA v. MICHAEL HAROLD CHAPEL, 93-B-1818-6; Criminal Jury Trial, Judge Fred
A. Bishop, Jr., presiding.]
THE
COURT: Good morning. Anything else to take up this morning?
MR.
SMEAL: Not from the state, Your Honor.
THE
COURT: All right.
MR.
MOORE: Your Honor, there were a couple
of things that we never did tender yesterday, I don't believe, Defendant's
Exhibit Number 70 and Defendant's Exhibit Number 60. Defendant's Exhibit Number 70 was Brian Reddy's statement.
THE
COURT: I show Defendant's 70 as being
admitted without objection for the record only.
MR.
MOORE: I wasn't sure, Your Honor. Defendant's Number 60, also, I don't believe
we've tendered.
THE
COURT: Mary, do you show 70 admitted?
THE
REPORTER: I show 70 admitted, but not
60.
THE
COURT: 70's in for the record. Okay.
MR.
MOORE: Defendant's Number 60, which is
Brian Reddy's log sheet for April 15, a blowup of it.
THE
COURT: I don't show that being
identified. Is that the one you showed
Investigator Burnette and he said he didn't know what it was? Has anybody identified it?
MR.
MOORE: Your Honor, I'm not positive,
but the state has one, I believe it's State's 137, which is an identical, the
small version that's not blown up that was shown to the witnesses and
identified.
THE
COURT: All right. And that's state's which one?
MR.
DAVIS: 137, Your Honor.
MR.
MOORE: The 15th.
THE
COURT: Okay. I show that as Officer Reddy's daily log sheet. I don't show it being admitted either.
MR.
MOORE: State's 137 is your copy of the
log sheet. Do y'all intend to tender
that?
MR.
DAVIS: We do intend to tender that for
admission.
THE
COURT: All right. Do you want to stipulate them both in for
the record?
MR.
DAVIS: No. For the record only?
THE
COURT: Yes.
MR.
DAVIS: That's fine. Yes, sir, we do.
THE
COURT: Mr. Moore?
MR.
MOORE: That's fine, Your Honor.
THE
COURT: All right. Defendant's 60 is admitted without objection
at this point, and that's for the record only.
And State's 137 is admitted without objection for the record only. All right.
Anything else, Mr. Moore?
MR.
MOORE: Your Honor, I believe Ms. Rogan
had an objection to the testimony by Dr. Frist.
MS.
ROGAN: Yes. I neglected to do that at the time, but we would renew our
objection and motion for mistrial based on the testimony yesterday for Dr.
Frist about an alleged blood spatter pattern on the raincoat.
We
do not believe the state has laid a sufficient foundation for expert testimony
on that issue in that neither of the people who they've tendered as witnesses
in this field were able to identify the marks they claimed to have seen as
blood and certainly not as human blood.
So on that basis, we believe it was extremely prejudicial for that
testimony to come in.
THE
COURT: All right. Mr. Smeal, Mr. Davis?
MR.
SMEAL: Well, Your Honor, Kelly Fite
testified as to his qualifications in the area of high velocity blood
spatter. He was also asked a
hypothetical which included prior testimony by Jennifer Wilson that there were
certain markings on the raincoat that were --
THE
COURT: Okay. Now, that's Kelly Fite.
Her objection is toward Dr. Frist, I believe.
MR.
SMEAL: I took the objection to be -- I
think she mentioned at one point both witnesses, but in any event Dr. Frist did
testify as a medical examiner that he has viewed blood on many occasions and
knows what blood marks look like, and based upon that training and experience,
he certainly is a qualified individual to say that the marks are consistent
with blood; that is, he gave those qualifications and he so testified on that
basis. Your Honor, the state feels that
testimony was appropriate for this jury to hear.
THE
COURT: Your motion is denied. Anything else?
MR.
MOORE: No, Your Honor.
THE
COURT: All right. Is the state ready?
MR.
SMEAL: Yes, Your Honor.
THE
COURT: Defendant ready?
MR.
MOORE: Yes, Your Honor.
THE
COURT: Bring the jury back in,
please. Mr. Goff, you want to re-take
the stand, please.
[The
witness stepped to the stand.]
[The
jurors were escorted to the courtroom.]
THE
COURT: Good morning, ladies and
gentlemen.
[Jurors
respond]
THE
COURT: Everybody find their pens, pads,
and notes? All set?
All
right. Mr. Goff, I'll remind you you've
been sworn and remain under oath.
THE
WITNESS: Yes, sir.
THE
COURT: Go ahead, please.
MR.
SMEAL: Thank you, Your Honor.
Whereupon,
having
been previously called as a witness and duly sworn, was examined and testified
further, as follows:
DIRECT EXAMINATION - RESUMED
BY
MR. SMEAL:
Q. Mr. Goff, when we recessed court yesterday
you had just testified to some figures, specifically a frequency calculation
that you did as the result of your DNA analysis in this case; is that correct?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And you mentioned a figure one in ten
billion; is that correct?
A. That's correct.
Q. What I'd like to do is to have you explain
for the members of the jury how you arrived at that figure. If we could digress for one second, do you
have an analogy that you can use to explain the method of calculating that
frequency for the jury?
A. Yes, sir, I do.
Q. Okay.
Would you please explain in the simplest terms you can how -- what's the
method for arriving at such a frequency calculation.
A. Okay.
When you do a frequency calculation, you have to have a database, and
you will compare characteristics that you have on your sample to your
database. Say you had a database of ten
people, something I can do real easily in my head, and you were going to look
at the color of clothing that they're wearing, and we'll consider that color of
clothing as independent, that, you know, you're not color-coordinated so you
don't care what color clothes you have on.
You just grab clothes in the morning and put them on.
So
if you went in your database and you wanted to look and see how many of the ten
had on, say, a red shirt, and you said one out of the ten has on a red
shirt. So you'd have one out of your
ten with a red shirt on. Then you went
in and looked at the database again and, say, you're looking for a pair of blue
pants. Well, one out of ten has blue
pants on.
And
then you also look at shoe color, and you're looking for black shoes, and one
out of ten have black shoes on. So you
have three factors that are independent.
So you multiply one over ten times one-tenth times one-tenth, and you'd
end up with one out of a thousand. So
you'd end up, if you went out and looked for somebody that had on a red shirt,
blue pants, and black shoes, if you used this database, you would say that a
frequency of one out of every one thousand people would have that combination
of colors on when they dress in the morning.
Q. And did you perform a similar frequency
calculation in this case with respect to the six probes that you used?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Mr. Goff, if I could have you come down from
the witness stand for a minute and maybe you could bring your notes with you.
A. [The witness stepped down from the stand.]
Q. I believe you have previously testified that
you calculated, on the basis of your database information you had, you
calculated a frequency with respect to each probe; is that your testimony?
A. Yes, that's right.
Q. Okay.
And did you do that with respect or with the use of more than one
database?
A. Yes, sir.
We -- I calculated using a Caucasian database and a black database.
Q. And does the crime lab have both types of
databases and use both types of databases?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And how has that information -- how was that
information collected with respect to those databases?
A. We put out a request to health clinics,
particularly those that weren't here in the metro Atlanta area, and asked them
to submit blood samples, just asked the people who came in to volunteer to give
a sample of their blood anonymously, and the samples were marked with the race,
and I think the sex was also indicated, but that really doesn't play any part
in what we do. And the samples were
submitted, and we extracted the DNA from those samples and established the
banding patterns and then recorded that information to our database in the
computer.
Q. And that information is kept on the GBI's --
the crime lab's computer?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Okay.
And did you use that information to arrive at the frequency calculations
in this case?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Okay.
Could you show the members of the jury, and I'll hand you a -- let's
see. You have a pen. Could you write in the frequency numbers
that you utilized in this case to arrive at your overall frequency calculation
by writing in, with respect to the Caucasian and black databases, the frequency
calculations for each probe?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Can you do that?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Okay.
Could you please do that at this time?
A. [Witness complies]
Q. Would you explain what those numbers mean?
A. Sure.
Okay. For the probe MS-1, here
are the frequencies. This is for the
Caucasian database. It's 0.0035, and
the frequency for a black database is 0.0020.
Q. What does that figure represent?
A. Okay.
How you arrive at this number is when you compare the -- this is
actually used in the known blood sample of Emma Thompson is what those
frequencies are. Okay. You take the banding pattern that I got from
probe MS-1, you put that information in the computer, and it goes to the
database, and it has a range of other fragment sizes in the database that it
will count as being similar to Emma Thompson's.
In
our case, the range is 10 percent. It
will go 5 percent above the fragment from a known sample and 5 percent below,
and any fragment that fits into that area, it will count. It will also check on the other band, she
has two bands, and make sure that it also has a fragment that falls within that
range of ten percent. If there's a
fragment in both areas, it will get counted.
And so, when you look at our database, .0035 was the frequency of the
samples which were similar to hers.
Q. And is that the same -- with regard to the
rest of the figures on the board, are these the frequency calculations that
were calculated in a similar fashion with respect to the remaining five probes?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. With respect to YNH-24, you've written two
figures on here, one for the Caucasian and one for the black database, can you
translate that number what .0205 means?
Can you explain that more simply for the jury?
A. You're referring -- moving down into saying
one out of so many people?
Q. Yes.
Or a percentage, one out of a hundred if you can.
A. Okay.
Q. Can you translate .0205 in simpler terms?
A. I have to use my calculator. Just a minute. [Pause] Okay. If you take .0205, divide that number into
one, one divided by .0205, you'll find out that about one out of every
forty-eight people have a pattern similar to that.
Q. Now, after you have arrived at these figures,
how do you arrive at the overall frequency calculation figures?
A. Okay.
Once I have the frequencies for each individual probe, I can multiply
these together because these are each independent. They're on different chromosomes. So all I do is multiply this number times this, this, this, and
this, and then I get a final number here at the bottom.
Q. And with respect to each of the databases
that you've identified, the Caucasian and the black, what were the figures that
you arrived at?
A. You're talking about the final figures?
Q. Yes.
A. Okay.
I converted the final figure from a frequency since it's got so many
decimal places to a one in a -- you
know, one in ten billion. The actual
final number on the Caucasian database was one in forty billion. And the actual number on the black database
was one in one trillion.
Q. Okay.
Now, if you arrived at those figures as final frequency calculations
with respect to the Caucasian and black databases, why did you testify
yesterday as to a one in ten billion figure?
A. We determined that since our frequency figures
are, as we added probes, we're going up into the upper billions to the
trillions, we were going to put essentially a cap on our frequency. If the frequency exceeds one in ten billion,
we're just going to say one in ten billion, because that's already
approximately twice the world's population.
Q. Who decided what that cap was going to be,
the ten billion cap?
A. Dr. Herrin was the one that brought it out,
and we just had a meeting and all agreed that that's what we felt like we
should do.
Q. You mentioned something a few minutes ago
that the probes are looking for sequences on different chromosomes. Could you explain that to the jury, please?
A. Right.
This probe is looking for a -- this is MS-1, and it's looking at
chromosome number one. YNH-24 looks at
chromosome number two. TBQ-7 looks at
chromosome number, I believe it's ten.
PH-30 looks at chromosome number four.
V-1 looks at chromosome number five.
LH-1 looks at chromosome number five, I believe. Let me check that and make sure. [Pause] Yes.
So if a factor you're looking at is on different chromosomes, it's
independent because what's on one chromosome doesn't affect what's on another
one. So that means they're independent
and you can multiply the frequencies together.
Q. Just for completeness, can you fill in the
last two lines on that chart consistent with your testimony?
A. [Witness complies]
Q. You can write out the word as opposed to
using zeroes if that's easier.
A. Thank you.
Q. If you could just stay right there for a
second. I want to ask you a few other
questions at the easel. Mr. Goff, I
would at this time direct your attention to State's Exhibit 139, which is the
-- you've previously identified as the original autorad with respect to the
probe MS-1, I believe, and the corresponding photograph, State's Exhibit 139B,
which is the photograph of this same autorad.
I'd like to ask you a series of questions, if I could, at this time.
A. Yes, sir.
Q. First of all, could you explain for the jury
what determines the -- either the lightness or the darkness of a particular
band?
A. The lightness or darkness of a band, such --
you can see this one is darker than this one, is determined probably by three
factors. The first thing is the amount
of DNA. If you have less DNA, of
course, you will not get as dark a band.
The length of the exposure of the x-ray film, and the amount of probe
that stuck to the band, which is really a function of the amount. So if you have a large amount of DNA, you'll
get a dark band. It's heavier and a
little bit wider. If you have a small
amount of DNA, you'll get a lighter band.
Q. Why, with respect to this particular autorad,
are the bands lighter in the column that's labeled car seat than in the columns
that are labeled Emma Thompson and M. Chapel?
A. Well, on a known sample, usually you'll
recover a large amount of DNA. On an
unknown stain or something, you generally don't recover as much DNA, so your
banding pattern will be lighter.
Q. Is there an approximate minimum quantity of
DNA which must be recovered from a particular stain in order to do a DNA
analysis?
A. There may not be a minimum flat out. Usually, if you get fifty nanograms of DNA,
you're going to get a five- or six-probe result. You're going to have enough.
You can get results with smaller amounts of DNA, but you may not get as
many results or you might not get any at all if you have too small an amount.
Q. And from reviewing your notes in this case,
do you know the approximate amount of DNA which was extracted from the stain on
the car seat?
A. Just a moment. [Pause] I noted that I
had less than five nanograms in a microliter, and I have twenty microliters
total, so somewhere less than a hundred nanograms of DNA was picked up from
that stain.
Q. Mr. Goff, directing your attention again to
the bands, what does a band on the film actually represent? In other words, what are we looking at when
we view a band?
A. When you're looking at a band, what you're
seeing is the result of the radiation coming off of a probe and just striking
the x-ray film. So you're not -- you
don't actually see the band of DNA. You
see the image that's left by the radiation that's attached to that band.
Q. Okay.
Would it be useful for you to -- could you illustrate that on the white
board behind you?
A. Sure.
[Witness complies] Now, when you
have your DNA fragments, there will be several of them. Let me draw them straighter. Okay.
You'll have your DNA fragments here. Then the probes will come in and
attach to that. Then the radiation
that's on the probe will come off and strike the x-ray film, and that will give
you your black band that's on the x-ray film.
Q. How do you size a band, in other words,
either visually or with the computer, when you have a band that appears to have
some fuzzy edges. How do you size the
band?
A. Well, what you'll do is the bio-image system
will mark the bands, and I will look at where it's marked the band, and we want
it to mark it in approximately in the middle of a band. So I will look at it and I will confirm
whether or not it's marked it in the middle of the band, in the middle of
whichever band, say, on this band right here, we want it to mark it right in
the middle. If the bio-image has not
marked it in what I'd say is the middle of the band, then I have the option of
moving that mark to what I consider to be the middle of the band.
Q. Would you explain for the members of the
jury, there have been some columns in this autorad which also appear in the
photograph that I don't believe you have identified or explained yet. I believe you did explain, and could you
perhaps repeat briefly for the jury, the DRL ladder which is, I think you've
testified, repeated four times? What's
the purpose of that ladder?
A. All right.
That's these four columns.
That's actually a sizing ladder. Each of these DNA fragments has a known link, and that information
is recorded in the bio-image. You can
mark these. You'll have the known sizes
and the known sizes here, and then you compare it to your samples. Then you can, you know, arrive at an estimate
of what the fragment size is of your sample.
Q. There is a column labeled at the bottom
K562. Can you explain what the purpose
of that column is?
A. Okay.
That's a control sample that we purchase from a company. The company tells us approximately what the
fragment sizes are, and we have calculated what the fragment size range is
acceptable in our laboratory. We can
use this to determine if our electrophoresis has proceeded as normal so the
fragment size ranges follow what we -- the range we expect them to. Also, you can check this and see if the
probe that's listed up here was actually used on this -- or to create this
x-ray film.
Q. Okay.
Could you point to that column on the photograph as well, in case the
gentleman back there in the corner can't see the x-ray?
A. Okay.
This is K562 right here.
Q. Is K562, is that something that's used often
in DNA analysis?
A. Yes.
Q. Is it used in every one?
A. Yes, it would be, generally speaking. There might be an occasion where you are
running a known sample that you might not have a K562, but other than that you
will have a K562 on every gel you run.
Q. Are you able to identify the banding pattern
of K562 with respect to each probe?
A. Yes.
Q. Is that something that you're familiar with?
A. Yes, sir.
I usually have to go ahead and actually go to the bio-image and
calculate the fragment sizes to be sure.
I can't visually look at it, you know, and actually say, well, this is
from probe MS-1. So I have to get the
fragment sizes. Then I can tell which
probe was used.
Q. Okay.
And do the use of K562, did that assume any particular importance in
this case?
A. Yes, sir, it did.
Q. Would you explain that for the jury, please?
A. Okay.
There was one x-ray film which came off and it was labeled YNH-24. And when I analyzed it to determine the
fragment sizes of K562, and that was labeled YNH-24, and I determined the
fragment size of the K562 on that x-ray film, I realized that it really was not
YNH-24, that the probe used was really TBQ-7.
Q. And how were you able to figure that out?
A. Just by calculating or determining the
fragment sizes of the K562. When I
compared that to the expected sizes under YNH-24, it didn't meet those
sizes. And then I looked over and found
that it did meet the size under TBQ-7.
Q. And as a result of that, what did you do?
A. The only thing I did is I took the film that
was marked YNH-24, marked through that, and re-labeled it TBQ-7, and on our
gel-loading sheet I also re-labeled it as being TBQ-7.
Q. Based upon your training and experience and
education and expertise in the area of DNA analysis, was that an error which
affected the reliability of the results in this case?
A. No, sir, it didn't.
Q. There is a -- out to the far right side of
this autorad, there appears to be some -- a banding pattern that's not labeled.
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And I believe on the photograph, it would be
this far right side. Can you explain
for the members of the jury what that is?
A. Yes, sir.
That is a minimum quantity standard.
It's a minimum amount of DNA that we expect that we can detect within
seven days of exposing that x-ray film.
The main purpose for it being there is if you expose the film for seven
to ten days and this pattern is visible, but, say, on your evidence lane,
there's no pattern visible, that means, generally speaking, you can stop
probing because you're not going to get an answer. If this one comes up and there's still nothing here, you're not
going to be able to expose it long enough to get an answer out of this lane.
Q. Is there a phrase that you use with respect
to that column? I mean, it's not
labeled, but is that -- do you have a name for that?
A. The short name for it's MQ or MQ-1.
Q. And, once again, what's the purpose of MQ-1?
A. It's a minimum quantity standard. It has the smallest amount of DNA that we
would expect to be able to detect using our system within a period of, say,
seven to ten days.
Q. And with respect to the six probes that were
utilized in this case, did a banding pattern appear in the MQ-1 column?
A. I'd have to look at each one of them
individually because we don't check the MQ-1 column unless we're not getting an
answer on our evidence columns.
Q. Okay.
Directing your attention to another column that you have not identified
that's labeled QC128. I believe it's
the third from the right --
A. Yes, sir.
Q. -- on the photograph. It would be this column here, can you
explain what does QC128 mean?
A. Okay.
That essentially is an internal proficiency test. It's a swab that has a combination of a
blood sample and a semen sample on it.
I think we have, I believe, it's five donors of blood and five donors of
semen. Those are mixed randomly and
placed on a swab. And the only thing on
the swab is the label saying that it's QC128.
I don't know who the donors are on that swab. I process it alongside the evidence sample and then get a banding
pattern from it and compare it back to a chart and pick out the donors of that
QC sample.
Q. Okay.
Do you know who the donor of the blood and semen is prior to your
analysis?
A. No, sir.
Q. Is the QC128 sample unique to this test in
the sense of that number 128?
A. Yes, sir, it is.
Q. Now, I believe on yesterday you explained
briefly a phenomena which you call partial digestion?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Okay.
And with respect to the chart on the board, would you just briefly
explain again what is partial digestion?
A. Okay.
Just a moment. Can I erase this
that's up here already?
Q. Can you use this area to explain it or do you
need to do it in another fashion?
A. Not really.
I need to do it a little bit different way.
Q. Okay.
Fine. Fine. Go ahead.
A. Okay.
I'm just going to draw the DNA as just one strand. It's really double-stranded, but I'm just
going to draw it as one just to make it simple. If the DNA segment that you want to detect with your probe is
right here, okay, the restriction enzyme Hae-III is going to go in and cut in
certain areas. Say that it can -- it
has restriction sites where it can cut in these four areas, so Hae-III should
go in and cut here, here, here, here on each of these.
Q. And what base pair combination would it be
looking for at those restriction sites?
A. It's looking for GGCC.
Q. Okay.
Please continue.
A. Okay.
In a partial -- well, in a full digestion, it would go in and it would
cut at all of those sites. In a
partial, for some reason, it won't cut at all the sites. Let's say it only cuts here and here or it
only cuts here, so what you end up with, instead of this short area of DNA
that's detected by the probe, you end up with a larger piece. It still goes and sits on this, but then
you've got a longer fragment of DNA, so you actually have a larger fragment
than you normally would have in a partial digestion.
Q. In terms of the creation of the autorads,
what is the effect of partial digestion?
A. It will cause an effect similar to this. These will be the bands that you would
normally see in a completely digested sample.
If you have a partial, you'll see some other bands. It will be like this. It will have extra bands here, and you may
or may not have extra bands here.
Q. Okay.
And does the crime lab have a protocol for dealing with partial
digestion?
A. Yes, sir, we do.
Q. Okay.
And would you explain that for the jury, please?
A. Basically, what we'll do when we have a
partial digestion is we'll take the known DNA sample, and we'll intentionally
do a partial digestion. Instead of
putting the enzyme in when incubating it overnight so it would cut all of the
DNA, we will only incubate it from about a range from like two minutes to ten
minutes, so we stop it before it gets a chance to cut everywhere. So then we'll get a sample that's been
intentionally partially digested and then we can compare it back to our
evidence sample.
Q. Okay.
If you could take the stand for just a minute.
A. [The witness returned to the stand.]
Q. Mr. Goff, at this time, I would ask you to
identify a number of items. What's been
marked as State's Exhibit 145, can you identify that item?
A. Yes, sir.
This is the original autorad for the probe MS-1 during the partial
digestion experiment.
Q. And I'm showing you what's been marked as
State's Exhibit 145B. Can you identify
that photograph?
A. Yes, sir.
This is a photograph. It's an
enlargement of that same autorad from MS-1 showing the partial digestion
experiment.
Q. All right.
Is that a fair and accurate photograph of what's depicted on the x-ray
film?
A. Yes, sir, it is.
Q. I'm showing you what's been marked as State's
Exhibit 146. Can you identify that
photograph, please?
A. This is the original x-ray film for the
partial digestion experiment using the probe YNH-24.
Q. I'm showing you what's been marked as State's
Exhibit 146B. Can you identify that
photograph, please?
A. This is a photographic enlargement of the
original autorad from the partial digestion experiment for the probe YNH-24.
Q. I'm showing you what's been marked as State's
Exhibit 147. Can you identify that
photograph, please -- or I'm sorry, that item, please?
A. This is the original autorad for the partial
digestion experiment, and it's the probe TBQ-7.
Q. I'm showing you what's been marked as State's
Exhibit 147B. Can you identify that
item, please?
A. This is a photographic enlargement of the
autorad for the probe TBQ-7 on the partial digestion experiment.
Q. Does that fairly and accurately depict what's
shown on the x-ray film?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. I'm showing you what's been marked as State's
Exhibit 148. Can you identify that
item, please?
A. This is the original autorad for the probe
V-1 for the partial digestion experiment.
Q. I'm showing you what's been marked as State's
Exhibit 148B. Can you identify that
photograph, please?
A. This is a photographic enlargement of the
autorad for V-1 from the partial digestion experiment.
Q. Does that fairly and accurately depict what's
shown on State's Exhibit 148?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. I'm showing you what's been marked as State's
Exhibit 149. Can you identify that
item, please?
A. This is the original autorad for the probe
LH-1 in the partial digestion experiment.
Q. I'm showing you what's been marked as State's
Exhibit 149B. Can you identify that
item, please?
A. This is a photographic enlargement of the
autorad using the probe LH-1 in the partial digestion experiment.
Q. Does that fairly and accurately depict what's
shown on State's Exhibit 149?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Mr. Goff, at this time, I would also ask you
to identify two more items. Can you
identify State's Exhibit 150?
A. Yes, sir.
This is an original autorad from a replicate sample that we ran. It's for the probe TBQ-7.
Q. All right.
What sample was run on that gel?
A. The blood sample of Emma Thompson.
Q. I'm showing you what's been marked as State's
Exhibit 150B. Can you identify that
photograph, please?
A. This is a photographic enlargement of that
same autorad from the replicate and it is a -- for the probe TBQ-7.
Q. Does that fairly and accurately depict what's
shown on State's 150?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And finally, can you identify State's Exhibit
151?
A. This is an original autorad for the replicate
run and it is for the probe PH-30.
Q. And what sample was run on that gel?
A. A blood sample from Emma Thompson.
Q. And finally, State's Exhibit 151B, can you
identify that photograph for the members of the jury, please?
A. This is a photographic enlargement of the
autorad for the probe PH-30 on the replicate run.
Q. Okay.
And does that fairly and accurately depict what's shown on State's
Exhibit 151?
A. Yes, sir.
MR.
SMEAL: Your Honor, at this time, the
state would move to admit State's Exhibits 145 and 145B through 151 and 151B.
THE
COURT: Mr. Moore?
MR.
MOORE: Your Honor, no new
objections. We had pretrial rulings on
a lot of this.
THE
COURT: All right. 145 and 145B, 146 and 146B, 147 and 147B,
148 and 148B, 149 and 149B -- are you offering 150 as well?
MR.
SMEAL: Yes, sir.
THE
COURT: 150 and 150B, and 151 and 151B,
all State's Exhibits, are admitted without objection.
BY
MR. SMEAL:
Q. Mr. Goff, if you could please return to the
-- in front of the jury box for another minute.
A. [The witness stepped down from the stand.]
Q. You can use this pointer. With respect to the probe MS-1 as shown on
State's Exhibit 139, which is the original autorad used for that probe, did you
find the occurrence or was there any partial digestion?
A. Yes, sir.
There is some partial digestion.
Q. Okay.
Could you explain that by pointing out whatever you need to point out on
both the original x-ray film and also the corresponding photograph here.
A. Sure.
As you'll see here, this is what we call the primary band. They match up. Also, you'll notice there are at least a couple, maybe three
bands here that are lighter. And also,
if you'd look at the bottom band, you can also see a couple of very light
areas. I'll show them all to you on the
photograph. Here's the primary bands
and also you can see the lighter bands over here, and those are a result of
partial digestion.
Q. Okay.
And how did you determine that that was in fact partial digestion? And if you could make reference to State's
145 and 145B.
A. Okay.
We went through a process or I went through a process where I
intentionally took a DNA sample that's from Emma Thompson and I did a partial
digestion and this is the results of that partial digestion. You'll see these are progressively longer
times that I allowed the enzyme to work.
This last column, if you'll look at it, you can see the primary
bands. You can also see these lighter
bands here and here.
If
you look at the photograph, it's the same thing. Primary bands, which are the true bands that you're looking for,
and then you can see the lighter bands just above them. And those lighter bands are a result of that
partial digestion.
Q. Okay.
Directing your attention to this area of State's Exhibit 139B, which is
in the column car seat --
A. Yes.
Q. Okay.
Is there partial digestion in that area?
A. Yes, sir, there is. You can -- here's the primary band and you can see the small or
lighter bands above it, and those are the result of partial digestion.
Q. And can you explain that in reference to 145B
in this second last column here?
A. Okay.
When you have a partial digestion, when you run through the partial
digestion experiment, what you'll do is you'll just visually compare this
pattern you have here to this pattern over here. And you can see that the bands, those extra bands present here
are also present here. And that way you
know that these are a result of the partial digestion.
Q. You also explained yesterday or briefly
explained yesterday a phenomenon known as incomplete stripping?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Okay.
Would you briefly tell the jury again what that involves?
A. When you're probing the membrane, of course,
you'll have one probe on it and then you'll strip that probe off and put
another one on. And sometimes the first
probe won't completely strip off, so you'll have a little bit of the probe remain
there. So when you put the second one
on and then put the film on top of it, you'll get the dark bands from the first
probe -- I mean from the second probe, but then the other -- the previous probe
will show up very lightly. And that's
called incomplete stripping.
Q. Can you tell by looking at this original
autorad whether or not there was any incomplete stripping with respect to the
probe MS-1?
A. Yes, sir.
On the MS-1 autorad there are a couple of instances of incomplete
stripping.
Q. Okay.
Could you point that out, please?
A. Okay.
The first is in this column which contains the sample of Emma
Thompson. You see this light band here
and the light band there.
Q. Could you show those on the photographs 139B?
A. Okay.
On the photograph, this is the blood sample of Emma Thompson. You can see this light band and this
one. And that is a result of incomplete
stripping of the probe TBQ-7.
Q. And how do you know it was the result of
incomplete stripping?
A. Once you see a pattern that you think is incomplete
stripping, you will take the autorads in question, say, I'll take the MS-1
autorad and the TBQ-7 and just lay them on top of each other. And if the TBQ pattern matches up to these
light bands, then that is incomplete stripping. And you just do it visually.
That's all it requires.
Q. And did you do that in this case?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Okay.
Did you examine the autorad of the previous probe to determine whether
or not there was incomplete stripping with respect to MS-1?
A. Yes, sir, I did.
Q. All right.
And did you find that there was?
A. Yes.
It was -- the previous probe is TBQ-7, so that's the one that is the
incomplete stripping on the autorad for the probe MS-1.
Q. Let me substitute, if I can, another
autorad. This is the original autorad
of TBQ-7, State's Exhibit 141, which you just said was the previous probe that
was utilized. Could you show how
incomplete stripping resulted with reference to State's Exhibit 141?
A. On the TBQ-7 autorad in the lane for Emma
Thompson, you see a dark band here and a dark band here. And if you go across, you'll see that this
band matches up to that light band and up here, and it matches up to that one.
Q. Would you also show that with respect to the
photographs, 139B and also 141B?
A. Yes, sir.
This is a photograph of TBQ-7.
And you can see the two bands.
And if you look at the photograph for the probe MS-1, you can see a
light band. And if I can sort of pull
this across, you can see they match.
And here you see the dark band, and it goes over and will match up to
this light band here. So that would be
incomplete stripping of the probe TBQ-7 that causes these two light bands to
appear.
Q. Okay.
Are there, in fact, you've been referring to them, but would you call
these faint areas on this column of Emma Thompson, are those in fact bands?
A. They are -- they're bands, but they're a
result of incomplete stripping so they don't really count. You wouldn't mark them as a true band
because they're from another probe.
Q. In the bio-imaging process, would you edit
those bands?
A. No, sir.
Q. Why not?
A. Since you can overlay the autorads, you can
account for the fact that these are actually from MS-1 -- I mean, from TBQ-7,
excuse me. So there's no real need to
size these bands or record that on your sizing sheet.
Q. And did you perform that partial digestion
and incomplete stripping, the protocols that you have described, did you
perform that with respect to each probe wherever you saw those two items occur?
A. Yes.
If we saw -- of if I saw the either incomplete stripping or partial
digestion, I would have done the partial digestion experiment for that probe
and also would have overlaid the autorads to see that it was, in fact,
incomplete stripping to account for those light bands.
Q. Okay.
With respect to State's Exhibit 141, which is the original autorad for
the probe TBQ-7, is there partial digestion on that autorad?
A. Which autorad, again?
Q. TBQ-7, State's Exhibit 141.
A. Yes, sir.
There is partial digestion.
Q. Okay.
Would you point it out and explain it, if you can?
A. This is the lane that contains the DNA from
the blood stain from the car seat. And
again, this band is a primary band and this band is a primary band. Here's a band that's a result of partial
digestion. This light band is partial
digestion, this one, and this one.
Q. Okay.
Could you also point out those corresponding areas on State's Exhibit
141B, which is the photograph of the autorad you just referred to, 141?
A. Yes, sir.
Again, this lane is the DNA from the blood stain from the car seat. Here are your primary bands. And this light band, this one, and these are
starting to fade out on the photograph, those are a result of partial
digestion.
Q. Okay.
Directing your attention to State's Exhibits 147 and also the
corresponding photograph 147B, could you further explain your conclusion
regarding partial digestion with reference to those two State's Exhibits?
A. Yes, sir.
147 is the partial digestion experiment using the probe TBQ-7. And the most important lane to look at,
again, is this last one over here next to the sizing ladder. You can see the primary bands that are heavy
and you can see the partial digestion bands.
And so if you compare this pattern over to this pattern, you can see
that the bands, the extra bands here, are a result of the partial digestion.
Q. All right.
Could you also show that to the jury on State's Exhibits 141B and 147B?
A. Yes.
Again, here's the blood stain from the car seat, the primary bands, the
extra bands that are a result of partial digestion. And if you look at the next to the last lane on the partial
digestion experiment, you can see the primary bands here and here and the
partial bands. You'll see these
patterns are similar, so these extra bands here and this one here is a result
of partial digestion.
Q. Okay.
And once again, what is the sample that was used to create the banding
pattern on 147B?
A. The known blood sample from Emma
Thompson. Actually, it was the DNA that
I already had extracted from that known sample.
Q. Let me show you another exhibit, if I can,
Mr. Goff. Directing your attention to
State's Exhibit 142 and the corresponding photograph 142B, which you have
previously identified as being the autorads created with respect to probe
PH-30, did you find any partial digestion with respect to this probe, PH-30?
A. Using this probe, we did not find any partial
digestion. As you can see in the lane
that contains the blood stain from the car seat, there are only two bands, and
there's no indication of partial digestion.
This probe, generally speaking, does not show partial digestion.
Q. Why is that?
A. It's because the fragment sizes are fairly
long, so there are not as many sites to be cut in reference to this probe, so
the enzyme has enough time to cut everywhere, and so it usually does not show a
partial. And, in fact, I don't think I
can ever remember seeing a partial with the probe PH-30.
Q. And you've already indicated that this column
labeled car seat and the column labeled Emma Thompson, you determined that to
be a match; is that correct?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Why are the bands so much darker on Emma
Thompson's lane than on the car seat?
A. They're darker on this lane because it's the
known, and I had more DNA.
Q. Okay.
Could you show that on State's Exhibit 142B?
A. Yes.
This is the known sample of Emma Thompson, you can see the bands are
dark, and this is the sample from the car seat, and they're lighter because
they don't have as much DNA in this lane.
Q. And with respect to the column labeled M.
Chapel, could you explain with reference to this probe whether M. Chapel
matches the label -- the column labeled car seat?
A. If you'll look in the lane that's labeled M.
Chapel, which is a sample from Mr. Chapel, you can look at this band, and you
look over here in the lane from the car seat, you don't see anything. And you look at the other top band, you look
in the car seat lane, you do not see anything that matches up to Mr. Chapel.
Q. Okay.
Could you also explain that with reference to State's Exhibit 142B,
please?
A. This is Mr. Chapel's pattern. And if you look at the car seat, there's no
band there. And if you look at this
one, there's no band on the car seat. So
he could not have contributed the DNA sample that I got from the car seat.
Q. Directing your attention to State's Exhibit
143 and also the corresponding photograph 143B, which you have previously
identified as the autorad that was created with respect to the probe V-1, did
you find any partial digestion with respect to this -- the use of this probe?
A. Yes, sir, I did.
Q. Would you explain that to the jury, please?
A. If you look in the lane that's labeled car
seat, you'll see that you have a couple of extra bands. You have a band that matches up to Emma
Thompson and another band matching Emma Thompson. You also have two extra bands, and those are a result of partial
digestion.
Q. Okay.
Would you show that on the photograph 143B as well, please?
A. Yes, sir.
All right. Here's the lane Emma
Thompson. Looking over to the car seat,
you'll have a band matching here, a band matching here. You also have these two extra bands.
Q. When you do the bio-imaging process, would
you edit this banding pattern in the column labeled car seat on -- with regard
to probe V-1?
A. Originally, when I did the first imaging, I
only edited the actual bands. Later, I
went back -- well, I actually sized the bands.
Later, I went back and sized all the bands in the partial digestion.
Q. Okay.
And with respect to the columns labeled M. Chapel, did you reach a
conclusion with respect to this probe V-1 whether M. Chapel was the source of
the blood on the car seat?
A. Okay.
If you'll look at this column, this is labeled M. Chapel, and you look
over here, if his band was present, it would be just below this one, and I do
not see a band there.
Q. Directing your attention to -- well, before I
ask you that next question, as a result of the testimony that you've just
testified, can you make a conclusion about M. Chapel being the source of that
blood?
A. Looking at the probe V-1, I do not see a band
that would match up to Mr. Chapel, so he could not be a donor of the blood from
the car seat.
Q. Now, you've previously or a few minutes ago
testified that there was partial digestion with respect to V-1. I'm showing you what's been marked as
State's Exhibits 148 and 148B. Could
you explain that conclusion by referencing those two State's Exhibits? A. Yes, sir.
Again, this is the partial digestion experiment, probe V-1, and if you
look at the last column, you have your primary band there and there and your partial
bands. And you see that pattern will
match up to the pattern I obtained from the car seat. And on the photograph, again, here's your partial digestion that
I intentionally did. And that matches
up to the pattern from the car seat.
Q. Directing your attention to State's Exhibit
144, which is the original autorad for the probe LH-1, and the corresponding
photograph of that autorad which has been labeled and identified as 144B, can
you tell the jury whether or not you found any partial digestion with respect
to this probe LH-1?
A. On this probe, if you look in the lane from
the car seat, I did not find any partial digestion.
Q. Could you also point that out on 144B?
A. Okay.
On the photograph, again, you can see the bands match up, and there are
no extra bands in that lane, so there's no partial digestion.
MR.
SMEAL: Your Honor, I would ask that
this be marked as the next state's exhibit.
You can just stay right there, Mr. Goff.
THE
COURT: State's 152; is that correct?
[State's
Exhibit Number 153 was marked for identification by the court reporter.]
MR.
SMEAL: 153 she's labeling it.
THE
COURT: Okay. What is 152?
MR.
SMEAL: 152, Your Honor, is the probe
chart.
THE
COURT: Okay. Thank you.
BY
MR. SMEAL:
Q. Mr. Goff, I'm showing you what's been marked
for identification purposes as State's Exhibit 153. Can you identify that document?
A. Yes, sir, I can. This is a copy of a sizing sheet and it also has a photograph of
the sizing done for the probe LH-1.
Q. Okay.
And when was that image created?
A. I can't give you an exact date. We did this sometime in either late July or
early August.
Q. And who was present at that time when that --
THE
COURT: Which year is that, Mr. Goff?
THE
WITNESS: Which year?
THE
COURT: Yes.
THE
WITNESS: 1995.
THE
COURT: All right.
BY
MR. SMEAL:
Q. Okay.
And who was present when this image was created?
A. I was present, you were present, Mr. Smeal,
Dr. Herrin was present, Mr. Moore was present, and Dr. Shapiro was present.
Q. And what was the purpose of that meeting or
what was done at that time at that location?
Was that done at the crime lab?
A. Yes, sir, it was.
Q. What was the purpose of that meeting?
A. We had been requested to save an image of
LH-1 from a previous analysis, and at some point it got deleted off our
computer system, so we went back and re-scanned the autorad and re-edited or
re-sized it in the presence of the individuals I just named.
Q. Now, was the original autorad LH-1, which
was, I believe you testified, created back in 1993, was that still available?
A. Well, the original autorad for LH-1 was
actually created in 1995, early -- I think it was July -- excuse me, January of
1995. The original autorad was
available, so we re-scanned the original autorad and then did the sizing again.
Q. Okay.
Let's digress for one second.
And if you would explain for the jury why was the autorad with respect
to LH-1, why was that only created in 1995?
A. At the time we originally we did the
analysis, we were not using that probe in our analysis for case work. We had received the probe and we were in --
I think we were -- may have been actually developing our database for it. In December of 1994 a decision was made, and
it involved Dr. Herrin, and I
think it involved me, and I'm not sure who else, to go ahead and probe this
membrane with the LH-1 probe. So at the
end of December of 1994, we did the probing and in January of '95, we developed
the x-ray film.
Q. Okay.
Up until the time that this probe was added, LH-1, was the crime lab
only doing a five-probe DNA analysis?
A. Yes, sir, we were. I think we started using LH-1 routinely -- I can't give you an
exact date. I want to say sometime in
1994.
Q. Okay.
And, in fact, at the time that this additional probe was run in this
case, had a report -- had you already generated a report with a conclusion in
this case?
A. Yes, sir, we had.
Q. What was the result that you had reached with
respect to a five-probe analysis?
A. On the five-probe analysis I had reported
that there was a five-probe match between the blood sample from Emma Thompson
and the blood stain on the car seat.
Q. Okay.
And what was the frequency of occurrence that you arrived at with the
five-probe analysis?
A. Could I go back and refer to my notes?
Q. Sure.
A. Okay.
On the five-probe analysis, we only did a comparison to the Caucasian
population, and the frequency was one in four hundred million.
Q. As a hypothetical, Mr. Goff, if you had run
the sixth probe and you had not -- it had not matched, the match -- you found
that there was not a match between the car seat and Emma Thompson, what effect
would that have had on your overall conclusion to this case?
A. It would have changed the overall conclusion.
Q. On that point, what are the various
conclusions that you do reach in a DNA analysis case; in other words, what are
the possible conclusions?
A. Usually, there are -- we usually have an
inclusion or a match, and we can have an exclusion, and we could have an
inconclusive, and we could have an uninterpretable. That's probably the basic four conclusions you can reach. Usually, you get either an inclusion, an
exclusion, or an inconclusive. Seldom
do you get an uninterpretable.
Q. What's the difference between an
uninterpretable and an inconclusive?
A. I don't have the protocol in front of me, so
I can't get it exactly. Usually, an
uninterpretable would mean that the autorad, there would just not be anything
visible, so you can't tell anything about what you've got. An inconclusive, as an example, you might
have results from a single probe and two knowns and the questioned sample might
appear to be the same and that would end up being inconclusive because you
can't tell with just a single probe result.
Q. Directing your attention back, then, to what
we were talking about originally, which was the creation of this bio-image, and
there appears to be a date on this document.
Does that reflect the date it was created?
A. Yes, sir, it does.
Q. What is that date?
A. July 27, 1995.
Q. All right.
You had said that there was some type of deletion of that bio-image; is
that correct?
A. Yes.
As far as the original image from January.
Q. Had that image been stored at some point?
A. Yes.
It had been -- when you finish sizing an imaging or editing a image, you
use the words size and edit interchangeably, an image is stored in the
bio-image system.
Q. Okay.
And had the crime lab agreed to retain that image?
A. Yes, sir, we had.
Q. And was it in fact retained?
A. No, sir.
It was -- at some point it got deleted, and I don't know when it
happened. We went back to look for it,
and it wasn't there any longer.
Q. Okay.
And to the best of your knowledge and recollection, did you delete it?
A. As far as I know, I didn't delete it.
Q. Directing your attention to July 27, 1995,
when the persons that you've described as present were there and you re-created
that bio-image, do you recall whether or not you had to edit the scan that was
created by the computer?
A. Yes, sir, I did.
Q. Okay.
And would you explain that for the jury with reference to State's
Exhibits 144 and 144B?
A. Yes, sir.
When the computer looks at this image, it will make a mark on everything
that it considers to be a band, so it will put a little mark here and, say,
right here in the middle of this dark band.
Also, anything else that it thinks is a band it will mark, so like this
little -- this spot here, it may place a mark there because it sees this spot
and it thinks it's going to be a band.
Q. Okay.
Could you make reference to that on 144B, the area that you are pointing
to?
A. Sure.
Say this little spot right here, the computer may make a mark there
thinking this is a band also because it sees this dark area. Or it might make a mark here. Seeing this dark area, it might think it's a
band. So the computer, it can't pick
out the bands by itself totally. It can
pick them out to an extent, but sometimes it will either fail to pick out
something that is a band or it may pick out something that it thinks is a band
which really isn't.
Q. And in this particular case, at that time and
at that location, did you delete an image which the computer had picked up as a
band?
A. Yes, sir, I did. In the lane that's the blood stain from the car seat, there was
at least one other thing other than these two bands that the computer
marked. And I did not consider that a
band and, as you see, there's one band here, one here. I don't see any more bands in this
lane. So whatever the computer marked,
I deleted that mark.
Q. And that was done in the presence of the
persons you've described?
A. Yes, sir, it was.
Q. Which included myself, Dr. Herrin; is that
correct?
A. Yes.
Q. Mr. Moore and Dr. Shapiro?
A. Yes, that's correct.
Q. Directing your attention again to State's
Exhibit 144, with reference to the column labeled M. Chapel, what conclusion
would you reach regarding the banding pattern found in that column with respect
to the car seat column?
A. If you'll look in the column marked M.
Chapel, you'll see a band here, a band here.
If you look over in the column marked car seat, those two bands are not
present, so Mr. Chapel could not have contributed that -- the DNA in that blood
stain.
Q. With respect to the five probes that we have
so far discussed, did you find a match between M. Chapel and the blood stain in
the car seat?
A. The way you're phrasing it, no, I did not
find a match because visually I can eliminate Mr. Chapel as being a donor of
the blood stain from the car seat, so I don't do any kind of comparison as far
as the band sizes to see how close they are since he doesn't have any that
match up to the car seat.
Q. Directing your attention to State's Exhibits
140 and the corresponding photograph 140B, 140 is the original autorad that
you've identified as being created with respect to probe YNH-24 and the
corresponding photograph State's Exhibit 140B.
First of all, would you tell the jury whether or not you found any
partial digestion with respect to the creation of this probe?
A. Yes, sir.
There's partial digestion present.
If you'll look in the lane that's the car seat, you'll see the two
primary bands, and you'll also see these lighter bands that are a result of
partial digestion.
Q. And showing you what's been marked as State's
Exhibit 146 and also 146B, can you identify these items and explain to the jury
their use in your conclusion that partial digestion exists with respect to
YNH-24?
A. Okay.
This is the autorad from the partial digestion experiment with YNH-24
and also a photograph of that autorad.
And if you'll look at the last column, then you can see the two primary
bands and the partial digestion bands.
And if you compare it to the blood stain from the car seat, you'll see
that they are similar to each other, and you can account for all the bands up
here as being from the partial digestion.
Q. Can you again -- can you explain that again
with reference to State's Exhibits 140B and 146B?
A. Yes.
Okay. Again, the car seat. You have the primary bands. Then you have the partial digestion
bands. On this one, the photograph is a
little bit light so you can't see with the photograph -- you can't see those
lighter bands and partial digestion quite as well. But if you compare this column to this one, you'll see they have
a similar pattern. You have the primary
bands again. And up here, you have your
partial digestion bands.
Q. Directing your attention to the column
labeled M. Chapel in State's Exhibit 140 and also 140B, those appear to be
similar to the banding pattern of Emma Thompson?
A. Yes, sir, it does.
Q. Would you comment on that, please?
A. If you look at Mr. Chapel's pattern right
here and Ms. Thompson, you see the top bands.
They look about the same. The
bottom bands don't appear to be exactly the same, but they are very close.
Q. Okay.
Could you also show that on State's Exhibits 140B and 146B?
A. Okay.
Here's Ms. Thompson's pattern. Mr. Chapel. You see the
top bands look to be about the same.
The bottom bands appear to be very similar. There might be a slight difference in the size of the two.
Q. Based upon that, those banding patterns, did
you reach any different conclusion with respect to whether M. Chapel was the
source of blood found on the car seat?
A. No, sir.
I didn't because I don't use just the results of one probing, unless
that's the only one I have. I will use
all of them together to reach my final conclusion. So I would still conclude that Mr. Chapel did not donate any DNA
to the blood stain from the car seat.
Q. And why would you not conclude that? Or explain that conclusion, please --
A. Okay.
Q. -- with reference to the other five probes.
A. What you do is you will take all of your
information from all six probes and look at it when you're reaching your
conclusion. You don't just take the
information from this one and not take into consideration anything else that
you have. If this were the only probe
you had, then you would have to reach your conclusion from these, but it's
not. So I use all of them to reach my
final conclusion.
Q. Okay.
As a hypothetical, if you had only run a one-probe analysis and YNH-24
was the only probe that you utilized and it created the banding pattern shown
on State's Exhibit 140, can you say what your conclusion would have been in
this case?
A. Since the patterns are so similar, probably
we may have called this an inconclusive because these patterns are very
similar, and with just the information of this one probe, I don't think we
would have called it an exclusion if we only had the information from this one
probe, and we would not have said that Mr. Chapel could not have donated this
sample. And, likewise, we would not
have said that Emma Thompson could have.
But that's only if we had just the results from this probe.
Q. And directing your attention again to State's
Exhibit 152, I believe you did a calculation with respect to the frequency on
the Caucasian database with respect to this probe YNH-24?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. I believe you said it was one in forty-nine;
is that --
A. Yes, sir.
I was going to re-check it real quick. [Pause] Approximately one in forty-eight.
Q. Okay.
Does that mean, and correct me if I'm wrong, does that mean that one
could expect to find that banding pattern shown on 140 in the column labeled M.
Thompson one time out of every forty-eight persons checked?
A. Yes, sir.
That's essentially what it means.
If you wanted to look for a pattern similar to this, about every
forty-eight individuals you looked at would have one that was similar to the
pattern of Emma Thompson.
Q. Did you run what are called replicate samples
in this case?
A. Yes, sir, I did run a replicate sample.
Q. Directing your attention to State's Exhibits
150 and the corresponding photograph 150B, State's Exhibit 151 and the
corresponding photograph 151B, could you, first of all, identify these items
and explain them to the jury?
A. Okay.
150 and 151, these are original autorads. They are produced running what we call a replicate sample. And by that, what we do, when we completed
an analysis and we have, say, one questioned stain and two knowns, to make
absolutely sure we didn't mix the knowns up at some point, we will run a
replicate sample.
To accomplish this, I will go back to the
original tube of blood, in this case of Emma Thompson, and I'll withdraw a
sample of the blood. Then I'll give it
to one of our technicians. They will
extract it, go through the entire DNA process, and come up with an autorad, and
then we'll just take the banding pattern that is from that replicate sample and
compare it back to the original case.
It's just a visual comparison, just look at it, to make sure that we
didn't get the samples mixed up on the original case.
Q. Okay.
If you had mixed up the known samples in the original case, if you had
accidentally mixed up the known sample of Emogene Thompson and the known sample
of Michael Chapel, what could have been the conclusion in this case?
A. If they had been mixed up, then you would say
it was Mr. Chapel's blood on the car seat instead of Ms. Thompson's.
Q. Okay.
And did the use of these replicate samples confirm your conclusion in
this case?
A. Yes, sir, it did.
Q. And was that that you were comparing the known
sample of Emogene Thompson with the car seat in reaching your conclusion?
A. That's correct. When you look at the replicate sample, especially on the
photograph I have labeled, there's a pattern of Emma Thompson, and there's a
pattern of Emma Thompson.
Q. With respect to -- going back to the
bio-imaging process, Mr. Goff, I'd like to ask you just a couple of more
questions on that. Why is it necessary
for you as a scientist to edit the bio-image scan that the computer has done?
A. Well, the computer is set up to pick out
bands, but it will also pick out, if there's a little dark spot on the autorad
that's in the lane, it will pick it out, too.
It looks for dark areas, so if there's anything that looks darker than,
you know, what else is in the lane, it will mark it. It doesn't mark it every time as a band, but sometimes it
will. I could use an example -- say
we're looking at this lane right here.
You notice up here there's a little smudge. Well, if you put this on the computer, the computer will most
likely mark this as a band, mark this as a band, and will also say that's a
band. And I know that's not a band
because that's a K562 lane. It only has
two bands. So the computer will pick
out things that aren't truly bands sometimes and will mark them.
Q. Did the fact that there was some extra
banding in this case and the fact there were partial digestion and also
incomplete stripping and also at one point what you've described as the
mislabeling of one probe, do any of those factors affect the result that you've
reached in this case?
A. Not in this case. It didn't affect the final result I reached.
Q. Mr. Goff, do you have any -- do you know Mr. Chapel?
A. No, sir.
Q. Do you have any personal interest in the
outcome of this case?
A. No, sir.
Q. Do you consider yourself to be a scientist?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Have you reported out exclusions as a result
of DNA analyses?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. When you report out an exclusion, first of
all, what does that mean?
A. When you report out an exclusion, that would
mean that the sample you have compared to an unknown, that person could not
have contributed to the unknown sample.
It says essentially, just to use an example real quickly, say we compare
this lane to this lane. Well,
obviously, it's an exclusion because this pattern's different.
Q. And in reaching a result of either an
inclusion, an exclusion, or inconclusive, do you do that on the basis of
whatever the results show you in a case?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And do you do that regardless of any other
external factors that may be present; in other words, do you rely upon your
test results?
A. Yes, sir, I do.
MR.
SMEAL: May we approach the bench, Your
Honor.
THE
COURT: Yes, sir.
[Counsel
approached the bench and the following conference ensued outside hearing of the
jury.]
MR.
SMEAL: Your Honor, I think that I might
be finished with my direct of Mr. Goff.
Could we take a brief recess?
THE
COURT: I plan on as soon as you finish
your direct, we're going to take a fifteen-minute recess.
MR.
SMEAL: Okay. That's fine.
[Bench
conference concluded.]
MR.
SMEAL: If I may have the Court's
indulgence for just a second to check my notes.
THE
COURT: Yes, sir.
[Pause]
MR.
SMEAL: Your Honor, at this time, I have
no further questions for Mr. Goff.
THE
COURT: All right. I believe before we proceed with the
cross-examination, we're due for a recess, so we'll take fifteen minutes at
this point.
I'll
ask you to leave your pens, pads, and notes in your seats. If anybody wants to smoke a cigarette or
something to drink, if you'll make that available as well. We'll take fifteen minutes at this point.
[The
jury was excused from the courtroom for the recess.]
THE
COURT: Anything else, Mr. Smeal?
MR.
SMEAL: No, Your Honor.
THE
COURT: Mr. Moore?
MR.
MOORE: No, Your Honor.
THE
COURT: We'll take fifteen minutes. You can come down, Mr. Goff.
THE
WITNESS: Thank you.
[Break
taken]
[Proceedings
resumed with the jury not present]
THE
COURT: State ready?
MR.
SMEAL: Yes, Your Honor. Before the jury comes in, it came to my attention
during the recess that this morning Mr. Goff identified and was testifying from
the original autoradiographs and also the photographs of those
autoradiographs. And I neglected to
have him identify the x-ray copies. And
in accordance with our bench conference yesterday, at an appropriate time, the
state will be asking to substitute the copies of the x-rays for the original
x-rays.
THE
COURT: Yeah. Well, we have -- I believe we have at this point the originals,
the copies, and the photos of the originals are all admitted into evidence.
MR.
SMEAL: Not with respect to 145A through
151A, Your Honor.
THE
COURT: Okay. You're right.
MR.
SMEAL: The first half of them were
yesterday.
THE
COURT: Well, at this point, all of the
originals are in, and I suppose that's a matter, once we've concluded the
trial, insofar as perfecting the record or preservation of originals or that
sort of thing, that's a matter we'll just come back to and do that however need
be. With respect to originals,
obviously, particularly these kinds of materials, they ought to be preserved if
they should be needed in the future and they ought to be secured and that's a
matter we can -- we'll address and that's a matter we can cure one way or the
other. But at this point, they're in. They'll be in at the conclusion of the trial
and then we'll perfect the record as to securing the originals at that time.
MR.
SMEAL: I would just point out, Your
Honor, that Mr. Goff has not identified 145A through 151A.
THE
COURT: The copies? Okay.
That's the copies?
MR.
SMEAL: The copies of the x-rays.
THE
COURT: The negatives which are copies
of the original negatives?
MR.
SMEAL: That's correct.
THE
COURT: Okay. Do you want to have him identify those and put them in?
MR.
MOORE: Your Honor, I told him I didn't
object to him having copies identified outside the presence of the jury, if you
want to, since they're just for the record.
THE
COURT: Okay. All right. You want to do
that now?
MR.
SMEAL: Sure.
THE
COURT: Okay. Go ahead, please.
DIRECT EXAMINATION RESUMED - JURY OUT
BY
MR. SMEAL:
Q. Mr. Goff, I'm handing you what's been marked
as State's Exhibit 145A. Can you
identify that item?
A. Yes.
It's a copy of the partial digestion experiment for the probe MS-1.
Q. Okay.
Is that an accurate copy of State's Exhibit 145 that you have previously
identified?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. I'm handing you State's Exhibit 146A. Can you identify that item, please?
A. It's a copy of the original x-ray film for
the partial digestion experiment using the probe YNH-24.
Q. I'm handing you State's Exhibit 147A. Can you identify that item, please?
A. This is a copy of the original x-ray film for
the partial digestion experiment using the probe TBQ-7.
Q. I'm handing you State's Exhibit 148A. Can you identify that item, please?
A. This is a copy of the original x-ray film for
the partial digestion experiment using the probe V-1.
Q. I'm handing you State's Exhibit 149A. Can you identify that item, please?
A. This is a copy of the original x-ray film for
the partial digestion experiment using the probe LH-1.
Q. I'm handing you State's Exhibit 150A. Can you identify that item, please?
A. This is a copy of the original x-ray film for
the replicate sample and it's for the probe TBQ-7.
Q. State's Exhibit 151A, can you identify that
item, please?
A. This is a copy of the original x-ray film for
the replicate sample and this is for the probe TBQ-7 -- excuse me, PH-30.
Q. With respect to 146A through 151A, are those
all fair and accurate copies of the original autoradiograph x-ray films that
were produced in this case?
A. Yes, sir.
MR.
SMEAL: Thank you, Your Honor.
THE
COURT: Are you offering those?
MR.
SMEAL: Yes, Your Honor. We would offer those at this time.
THE
COURT: And that was 145A through 151A?
MR.
SMEAL: Yes, Your Honor, and those will
correspond to 145 through 151 and also 145B through 151B.
THE
COURT: All right. Mr. Moore?
MR.
MOORE: Your Honor, we had agreed that
copies could be substituted for the record and we wouldn't have any objection
to those. We would retain our previous
objections pretrial to the originals and to the --
THE
COURT: Yes, sir. I understand. No prior objections are waived, and those will be admitted
without objection, the copies of the original x-rays as offered. All right.
Anything else, Mr. Smeal?
MR.
SMEAL: Not at this time, Your Honor.
THE
COURT: Mr. Moore?
MR.
MOORE: No, Your Honor.
THE
COURT: Bring the jury back, please.
[The
jury returned to the courtroom and proceedings resumed, as follows.]
THE
COURT: Proceed when you're ready, Mr.
Moore.
CROSS EXAMINATION
BY
MR. MOORE:
Q. Mr. Goff, my name is Johnny Moore. I have a few questions I wanted to ask
you. There was something I didn't quite
understand that you were testifying to a minute ago. Could I get you to come down and perhaps --
A. [The witness stepped to diagram board.]
Q. Could you leave that and then erase this
where we'd have room to draw something over here?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Could you reproduce what you did earlier
there?
A. Sure.
That?
Q. Sure.
A. You want me to exactly as I -- as you wrote
it down?
Q. Well, however you did it the first time. That's how I wrote it.
A. That looks like the way. [Witness complies]
Q. Now, you illustrated to the jury earlier how
the Hae-III would cut that?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And you said it would cut between the GC and
the CG; was that correct?
A. Yes, sir.
It looks for GGCC. And when it
sees this, it will cut across there.
Q. Okay.
And if you went down here and you had that same pattern repeated down
here further --
A. Like that?
Q. Yes.
And it would normally cut it there also; right?
A. Yes, sir.
It would come back and it would again cut along there.
Q. Okay.
And when you have the partial digestion, it might not cut here, but it
might go on down to the next set and cut and include all of that; is that what
you're saying?
A. Yes, sir.
That's what it will do.
Q. Okay.
A. [The witness returned to the stand.]
Q. And that would cause it to have material in
there, bands that it wouldn't
ordinarily have, wouldn't it, because it cut it further down?
A. It would cause bands to appear that are
larger than what you would normally see because when it skips those spots, it
will still give you the recognition site for that probe so the probe will still
recognize it, but the fragment will be longer so you'll get, yeah, extra bands.
Q. Okay.
And you have no way of knowing how many pairs it skipped before it cuts
when it doesn't cut where it's supposed to, do you?
A. No, sir, I don't.
Q. I was going to ask you, with regard to the
bio-images on LH-1, the probe LH-1 --
A. Yes, sir.
Q. -- that's the one that was done at a later
time in 1995; is that correct?
A. That's correct.
Q. Okay.
And Mr. Smeal asked you about that.
In fact, the crime lab was not just requested or agreed to, but the
crime lab was under a court order to preserve that bio-image, weren't they?
A. Yes, sir, we were.
Q. And the crime lab -- tell me what steps you
took to make sure that that image was preserved so that the court order could
be followed?
A. Well, as far as I know, when you delete the
images, you print out a list of the ones you're going to delete and then you
would go down that list. Dr. Herrin
usually has that list printed out and he approves what gets deleted. Otherwise, the only way to delete something
would be go in and just pick out that particular image and just delete it out,
normally. And I'm not sure what
happened. I did not go in and delete it
myself. And as far as I know, nobody
was instructed to go in. At some point,
it got deleted, though.
Q. Is there any list anywhere that shows when it
got deleted?
A. I doubt that there is. That list is printed out, as far as I know,
you know, if you print out a list to be destroyed, then it's thrown away after
you delete those images.
Q. Okay.
So as far as you know, there weren't any additional steps taken to
preserve that to make sure it didn't get deleted?
A. As far -- yeah, as far as I know, there
weren't.
Q. Okay.
Now, once that original image is erased from the hard drive in the
computer, it's stored in the computer; is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. Am I using the right terminology?
A. I think you are. I'm not real familiar with computer terminology.
Q. Okay.
But it's stored in the computer somehow?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Okay.
And you retrieve it and pull it back up if you want to work with it or
do something to it again; is that correct?
A. Yes, sir, I can.
Q. Okay.
Now, once that original is erased, it could never be recreated exactly
again; is that correct?
A. If you're referring to the image in the
computer, no, you won't get that exactly re-created, but we still have the
original autorads, so we can re-create an image from the original autorad.
Q. Okay.
But the way the autorad is placed on the light machine, the differences
in light and everything, it may not be exactly the same the second time around;
is that correct?
A. That's correct. It may not be exactly the same.
Q. Now, in you search for the LH-1, which had
been deleted, you in fact discovered another one that we had been told earlier
that had been deleted, didn't you?
A. Yes, sir.
We did discover one that was still there.
Q. And that was TBQ-7?
A. That's correct.
Q. Now, I believe you testified earlier that
there are no notes or records kept of whether or not you manipulate the
starting point or the center point for the bio-imaging; is that correct?
A. That's correct.
Q. So you have no way of knowing whether or not
you did or did not center those things manually or whether the computer did it
on the other bio-images?
A. No, sir.
Not on each individual image, I don't know.
Q. Okay.
And the only way to know that is to have the original, isn't it?
A. Well, what you would have to have had was, at
the time we did the original image, you'd have to have a copy of a photograph
or a copy of that screen with the computer set up to indicate where I had taken
off bands or moved bands around.
Q. What I'm saying is, though, once that is
deleted from the computer, there's no way to know whether you manually
positioned the center or whether the computer did it?
A. That's correct.
Q. Okay.
And you didn't keep any notes or records as to which ones you
manipulated and which ones you didn't?
A. No, sir.
We don't keep any records like that.
Q. Okay.
And, in fact, on the TBQ-7, the one that we had erroneously been told
had been deleted, when you pulled it up it had in fact been changed manually,
hadn't it?
A. I don't remember exactly, but I think that's
correct. I think I did have a mark on
there that I had done my own or manually overrode the computer.
Q. Okay.
If you had the original, when you pull it up, it's easy to tell if it
was done manually, isn't it?
A. Yes, sir.
It will make a different mark.
The computer makes essentially a minus sign, just a straight mark, and
when I move the mark around, it puts it on as a plus.
Q. Right.
In other words, it will show a minus if it hasn't been manipulated, if
the computer did it automatically, but if you did it manually, it will show a
plus?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And once those images are deleted from the
computer, there's no way to know how many or if you manually centered those
bio-images, is there?
A. No, sir, there's no way to know.
Q. Okay.
And you don't know because you don't have any independent memory or
recollection of that, do you?
A. No, sir.
I've looked at a lot of images since then.
Q. Okay.
And so there's absolutely no way this jury knows whether or not the
original settings for measuring it were done manually or done by the computer?
A. That's correct.
Q. Now, those could have been preserved if you'd
wanted to, couldn't they?
A. Well -- excuse me -- when you preserve the
images, that takes up space in the bio-image, so eventually you'd have to take
them off, because once it gets full you can't put on any more to edit, so
eventually those have to come off.
Q. Okay.
But there's a simple way to preserve that if you wanted to do it, and
that would be to photograph the screen, wouldn't it?
A. Well, you know, it sounds simple, but
photographing the screen would mean we'd have to set up a time with somebody
from photography and they'd have to come upstairs, set up their equipment, and
take a photograph. And when you do that
for each image we process, that takes a lot of time.
Q. It takes time, but it would preserve the
image so that anybody in the future could look at it and know what you did,
whether it was done manually or whether the machine did it automatically, et
cetera; is that correct?
A. Yes, sir, it would.
Q. Okay.
And, in fact, on your wall down there leading to your office, you have
photographs that were made of screens for visitors there to look at, don't you?
A. Yes, sir, we do.
Q. Okay.
And they're about the size of -- approximately of these photographs of
the autorads, aren't they?
A. Yes, sir, they are.
Q. So it's not that the crime lab doesn't have
the equipment or the capability, it's just you choose not to do it?.
A. Well, it's -- like I said before, it would be
very difficult to do in the amount of time it would take to set all that up.
Q. How much time does it take to photograph a
screen?
A. It wouldn't take much time at all to
photograph it, but getting it set up to do would take a while.
Q. What do you have to do to set it up?
A. You'd have to make arrangements with somebody
in photography for them to come up, and then they'd have to set up their equipment
and, I guess, check the lighting or whatever they would need to do.
Q. Okay.
So what it would mean is that in a murder case each time you would have
to have a technician to come up and photograph the screen?
A. Yes, sir.
And they'd have to do that for each individual autorad.
Q. And once they had their equipment set up and
you pulled the autorad up on the screen, it would just be a matter of pushing
the shutter, wouldn't it, the button for the shutter?
A. Yes, sir, once everything was set up.
Q. And then you'd pull the other one up and the
same thing for the next one?
A. Yes, sir, you could do that.
Q. And so you've got how many autorads here?
A. We have six.
Q. You have six, and then you have the
partials. You have --
A. I think there are four more of those.
Q. Okay.
So it would take ten photographs to preserve those?
A. Yeah.
Actually, I think there's five more of the partials. Yes, it would take ten or eleven
photographs.
Q. Okay.
Who made the decision not to preserve these; do you know?
A. You're talking about the original images?
Q. Yes, sir.
A. In the past, we have not taken photographs
like you're talking about, and we have saved them on the computer for as long
as is possible, but once the computer gets its memory full, then we start
deleting them off.
Q. Now, State's Exhibit Number 129, which is the
rain jacket that was sent to the crime lab, are you familiar with that? That's it there in the back. Have you had a chance to look at State's
Exhibit Number 129?
A. Yes, sir.
I've seen this before.
Q. Okay.
Is that the rain jacket that was delivered to the crime lab by the
district attorney's office or the police department in Gwinnett County?
A. It has the case number and the item number
and the initials on it that indicates that's what it is.
Q. Now, with respect to your databases at the --
there at the state crime lab, can you give an opinion with a reasonable
scientific certainty that those are accurate?
A. The database itself?
Q. Yes, sir.
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Have you examined it to determine whether or
not there's any errors in it?
A. To my knowledge, there are no errors in it.
Q. So to a reasonable scientific certainty you
can say that there are not duplications in there?
A. As far as I know, there are not duplications
in it.
Q. Could there be as many as one?
A. As far as I know, there's not.
Q. Maybe five?
A. As far as I know, there are not any
duplications.
Q. Or maybe as many as ten?
A. As far as I know, there are not any.
Q. And you're as certain of that as you are of
your testimony on the other things here?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Now, do you exercise the same degree of care
that you do in running your tests each time you have an occasion to take the
evidence out?
A. Yes, sir, we do.
Q. Now, are you reasonably certain that all of
the evidence in this case was preserved in the same manner and with the same
care that you would if it was going to be tested?
A. What are you referring -- are you referring
to that it's preserved in the exact same way like everything is frozen or
everything is refrigerated? Is that
what you mean?
Q. It's preserved in a -- if something was still
going to be tested, it's preserved in such a manner so that if it were tested,
the test would be reasonably accurate and certain so that --
A. Yes, sir, I think it is.
Q. So that the integrity of it is not in any way
compromised?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Do you recall when we came down to the crime
lab and we viewed all the evidence, and you and Ms. Wilson took it out for us
to look at?
A. Yes, sir, I do.
Q. And that was under your supervision and
control, wasn't it?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Do you recall taking out Ms. Thompson's
clothing and everything and displaying it on a conference room table there?
A. Yes, sir, I believe I do.
Q. Okay.
And it was laid out on a conference room table?
A. Yes, sir, I think so.
Q. Was anybody wearing gloves or anything?
A. To the best of my knowledge, I don't think we
were, but I'm not absolutely certain.
Q. So everybody was handling these -- you
remember people handling these materials that had blood on them without gloves?
A. I believe that's correct.
Q. Now, after Ms. Thompson's clothing was laid
out, do you recall laying that raincoat, State's Exhibit Number 129, on that
conference room table?
A. I recall laying it out. I don't remember what order it was in, but I
do recall laying it out.
Q. Okay.
And do you recall that when Ms. Thompson's clothing was laid out that
there were little bits of dried blood flaking off all over the table?
A. There may have been.
Q. Is it likely it would have been?
A. It's very possible there could be some.
Q. Mr. Goff, I'm going to show you what's been
marked as Defendant's Exhibit Number 95 and ask you if you recognize that?
A. It's a photograph. It appears to be of a shirt with blood stains on it.
Q. Is that the one Ms. Thompson had or can you
tell?
A. Do you remember what our item number was?
Q. I'm not sure if I know the item number or
not.
A. Okay.
Q. Number six, I believe, on your lab report.
A. I can't say absolutely for certain this is
her clothing because I don't remember independently, but it appears to be.
Q. Okay.
Can you see anything on the table there beside the clothing, any flakes
of dried blood or anything?
A. There are some reddish-brown flakes that
could be some dried blood there on the table.
Q. Okay.
And given the fact that a bunch of bloody clothing was -- dried
clothing, was laid out there, it's likely there would be flakes of dried blood,
isn't it?
A. Yes, sir, it is.
Q. And the raincoat, 129, State's 129, was taken
out and laid on that table there?
A. Yes, sir, I believe it was.
Q. It was taken out of a freezer where it was
being stored; is that correct?
A. I'm not sure it was in a freezer. I think it was in a refrigerator.
Q. Okay.
If Ms. Wilson testified that it was a freezer, would you defer to her
testimony?
A. Yes, sir, I would, because she had possession
of it most of the time.
Q. Okay.
And the jury will remember what she testified to, of course. Now, that was taken out of the freezer and
laid on those dried blood flecks of Ms. Thompson there on that table. Do you --
A. It could have been. If there were flakes on the table, it could have laid on some of
them.
Q. The raincoat wasn't the first thing we looked
at, was it?
A. I can't recall independently exactly which
order we went in, so I'm not sure, you know, which items we looked at and what
order they were in.
Q. Now, at that time, that raincoat was still
being held for possible testing, wasn't it?
A. Yes, sir, it was.
Q. And that's the reason it was being either
refrigerated or frozen?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And if there was any moisture still left in
that coat when it was taken out of the freezer or storage and you lay it on
that table, it could pick up blood from Ms. Thompson on it, couldn't it?
A. If there was a sufficient amount of moisture
on it and if the flake was small enough, it might pick up a very small amount,
but that's not too likely.
Q. Okay.
And people handling it with perspiration on their hands and handling
this other clothing could have transferred DNA material to that raincoat,
couldn't they?
A. In my opinion, that's fairly doubtful. I don't think you would pick up enough and
get it moist enough to make it stick to something like this raincoat.
Q. Okay.
But things like that have happened in the labs, haven't they?
A. You're referring to our laboratory?
Q. I'm talking about in labs. You know about -- you've had experience with
incidents that have happened in labs.
A. I don't know of anything where someone has
like touched an item that had blood on it and then transferred that blood to another
item, you know, like that. I don't know
of an instance like that.
Q. Okay.
So you don't know whether it could or not; you never tested it?
A. Well, based on my experience when I work with
blood stain evidence, unless the blood is still wet, the likelihood of
transferring a sufficient amount to another item to get a result would be very,
very slim.
Q. Okay.
It might be small, but the likelihood is there, isn't it?
A. I guess you could say the likelihood, you
know, could be there, but it would be very slim.
Q. Okay.
And that's the reason normally people wear gloves when they handle
things like that, isn't it?
A. Well, actually the reason they would wear
gloves would be, number one, to dispose of the gloves if you got some blood on
them and, two, to protect yourself from whatever might be in those blood
stains.
Q. You would agree, though -- you would agree,
though, that that's not a good way to preserve the integrity of evidence that
you might be going to test?
A. I'm not so sure I'd agree with that statement
totally. Like I said before, the chance
of transferring blood over to this coat would be very slim.
Q. So you think there's nothing wrong with
putting it on a table with Ms. Thompson's blood when you may be going to test
it?
A. It would probably have been a better idea if
we'd have wiped the table down in between, but we probably didn't think of
wiping it down in between those two items.
Q. And, in fact, that raincoat never was tested,
was it?
A. No, sir.
It has not been tested for any kind of DNA or blood typing type
analysis.
Q. Okay.
And that the -- the crime lab has the ability to do that, don't they?
A. Yes, sir, we do.
Q. Okay.
And did you discuss that with the police department?
A. Personally, I didn't discuss it with them.
Q. Do you know the reason why it was not done,
why the PCR test was not done? First of
all, tell the jury what a PCR test is so they'll know what we're talking about.
A. Okay.
A PCR is one of the two types of DNA analysis. On the blood stain from the car, I did the RFLP test; the other
is PCR. In PCR, you take a very small
amount of blood stain material, in this case it would be blood stain material,
and you can amplify the DNA to the point that you can test it and get a result.
Q. Okay.
And how do you do that amplification process? I want to move that rain jacket out of the way so you can look
over at the jury.
A. What you do is you extract the DNA from your
sample, and once you extract a small amount of DNA, you go through a process
that he -- as Mr. Moore says is called amplification. You heat up the DNA that you've extracted, and it will split
apart. There are primers that will go
in, that's a very small piece of DNA, and they'll stick to that -- those two
strands of DNA that you've -- that one strand you split apart into two
strands. The primer will stick to each
of those strands. Then it will add
those A's, T's, G's and C's in the proper order. Then you'll have two new strands. And you keep heating and cooling and just repeating that over and
over again till you eventually have enough DNA that you can test.
Q. Okay.
And you've checked that rain jacket, number 129, and there was
sufficient amounts to do that; is that correct?
A. I was involved in a conference, and I was
there, Dr. Herrin was there, and I think Mr. Smeal was there, and we were
looking at the stains on the rain jacket.
And our conclusion was that we -- it might be possible to get a PCR
result, but more than likely we would not get a PCR result from it.
Q. But you never did try, so you don't know?
A. That's correct. We never did try, so we don't know for sure.
Q. And how much do you need for the PCR to work?
A. You need a very small amount. It definitely would have to be enough you
could see, which you can see what's on the raincoat, but the raincoat is not an
absorbent material, so only -- all you have is what is on the actual
surface. I can't give you a number
really in nanograms, for sure, about PCR.
Q. Okay.
But you would have been able to determine pretty early on in the test
whether you had enough or not, wouldn't you?
A. You would go through the amplification more
than likely. You would extract it and
go ahead and go through and try to amplify it.
And, of course, if it amplified, then you had enough.
Q. Okay.
And once you amplified it, then you'd put it in the -- is it the
centrifuge where it would be to determine if you had enough in there?
A. No, sir.
It's according to which way you pursue it. You can either extract the DNA and run what's called a slot blot
and see if you have enough or you can actually extract the DNA from that item
and go ahead and try to amplify it.
After you go through that amplification, you run a gel to see if the DNA
amplified. And at that point, if you
can see amplified DNA, then you know you can go ahead and run your test. And more than likely, you'll get a result.
Q. Okay.
And since you didn't run the test, you can't tell the jury anything
about what the results might have been?
A. No, sir, I can't.
Q. And if you had run the test and there was
enough there to do it, you would have been able to give this jury an opinion
one way or the other whether the blood on that raincoat was Ms. Thompson's,
wouldn't you?
A. What you would get from a PCR test, you would
either include somebody as possibly leaving a stain or the DNA in that stain or
you can conclusively exclude people.
Q. Okay.
So one way or the other, you'd have gotten some kind of result if you
had enough?
A. If I had enough and got a result, I could
have reached a conclusion.
Q. And do you know why that test was not done?
A. Like I said before, when we had that
conference and looked at the stains, at that point, I think it was decided not
to pursue the PCR analysis, mainly since we already had a result on the car
seat.
Q. And wasn't that an economic decision, the
reason it wasn't done?
A. I don't know if it was economic or not. I can't really say for sure on that.
Q. Okay.
The crime lab will not do that unless the county agrees to pay for the
test; isn't that correct?
A. That's correct. We don't have sufficient funds to buy those PCR kits, so either
the law enforcement agency, the county or someone has to buy the kit for us.
Q. And the decision was made not to buy the kit
in this case?
A. As far as I know, it was made not to buy a
kit.
Q. And how much does that kit cost?
A. It's according to which kit you use. There are two kits. They run about $900 apiece. There's a more recent kit that doesn't give
as much information. It's about four
hundred.
Q. Okay.
So if there's enough there, for $900, you would have been able to tell
this jury whether or not that blood on the raincoat would include Ms.
Thompson's?
A. If I'd been able to get a result, yes, sir.
Q. Or whether it would have excluded it?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Now, at the present time, in DNA testing
there are no national standards, are there?
A. At the time this case was examined, there
weren't. And as of today, there are
some interim national standards.
Q. And by interim, that means temporary, doesn't
it?
A. That's correct.
Q. So there are no permanent national standards
in place for DNA testing?
A. Not at this time.
Q. Okay.
And the ones that are in effect are what's called the TWGDAM guidelines?
A. That's correct.
Q. And that's not the same as the National
Research Council, is it?
A. As far as I know, they're two different
things.
Q. Okay.
And tell the jury what the National Research Council is, if you would?
A. Basically, it's a group of scientists that
looked at DNA procedures and issued a report regarding how to do DNA testing or
how they felt it should be done, and they just dealt with the various
issues. I think they dealt with
extraction, but I'm not sure, and they dealt with calculating frequencies and
other issues that were of interest to them.
Q. Okay.
And was the National Research Council an attempt to get everybody
together, establish standards that everybody would follow, and to have
standards in place for how testing would be done, how results would be
interpreted, how matches would be called, that sort of thing?
A. I'm not sure it was an attempt to really lay
down, you know, permanent protocols for everybody to follow. It was just -- they looked at all the
procedures that were available and they issued suggestions and what their
opinions were about, say, how you calculate frequencies or how you do your
match criteria and things like that.
Q. I understand it's not permanent because it's
an evolving technology; it's changing all the time?
A. That's right.
Q. Okay.
And I understand you have to keep developing your standards as the technology
changes, but the purpose of the NSR was to try to establish some standards, to
try to get people to agree that on certain procedures that would be followed so
that it could be deemed reliable; is that correct?
A. Like I said, I'm not sure if that was the
total purpose of it. I know they were,
you know, studying issues and looking at everybody's opinion, all the members
of that research council's opinions, and trying to formulate a report with
recommendations, but I don't know if, you know, the purpose was going to be in
the end to say this is how you're going to do this, this is how you're going to
do that.
Q. They did give suggestions, though?
A. Yes.
They did give suggestions.
Q. And the NSR, is that a group of scientists
from all over the country or what is that?
A. It's really NRC.
Q. I'm sorry, NRC.
A. Say that again?
Q. Is that -- who's members of that? Who contributes to that?
A. I can't name the members, but they are
scientists from around the country that are members of that.
Q. Okay.
So it's not just one little group up in Washington. It's people from all over the country that's
contributing to it?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Now, does the Georgia state crime lab follow
the suggestions in the NRC guidelines?
A. We have went through it and we've looked at
all their suggestions. We don't
necessarily agree with everything they said, but I'm sure there are things in
there that they say to do that we do.
Q. And there are things that they say that you
don't do?
A. That's correct.
Q. And they recommend in the NRC true blind
proficiency testing, don't they?
A. How do you define true blind proficiency
testing?
Q. I'm not sure if I know the definition, but I
can show you what Dr. Herrin testified to.
Maybe that would help.
A. Okay.
MR.
SMEAL: Your Honor, I'm going to object
to the reference to someone else's testimony.
This witness, obviously, that day was a sequestered witness. He was not there when Dr. Herrin testified. I don't believe it's appropriate for him to
be referring to a transcript of some other witness.
THE
COURT: Mr. Moore?
MR.
MOORE: Your Honor, I had no intention
-- when Dr. Herrin testifies, I can ask him about it, but he asked me what I
meant by that, and I'm not a scientist, so I was trying to attempt to show him
what -- how Dr. Herrin had
answered the question.
THE
COURT: Well, you can pose the question
if you wish, but I don't believe that -- I don't believe -- well, the
objection's sustained.
MR.
MOORE: Can I allow him to look at the
document without --
MR.
SMEAL: Your Honor, Mr. Moore either
knows what he wants to ask or he doesn't know what he wants to ask, but it's
inappropriate for him to be relying upon some hearsay statement by another
witness to pose a question.
THE
COURT: Mr. Moore?
MR.
MOORE: Your Honor, I'll attempt to ask
the question.
BY
MR. MOORE:
Q. If I understand true blind proficiency
testing, that would be where samples, known samples, and known perhaps mixed
samples, that sort of things, would be submitted to the crime lab, you would
not know that they were not real samples that were being tested. And then you would run your test on them,
and then the outside agency would evaluate those and see how well you did in
your test results, whether or not you determined when they were mixed samples,
whether or not you got the correct results, or that sort of thing. Does that define what I mean by blind --
A. Yeah.
I think I know what you're talking about now. What you're talking about is a proficiency test that's submitted
to the lab as a case, essentially, without our knowledge that it's a
proficiency test. And then we run
through it just like any other case and issue a report, and then we, I guess,
find out later that it actually was a proficiency test.
Q. And it might be a series of samples and not
just one sample?
A. Yes, sir, it could be.
Q. Okay.
Are you aware of whether that procedure is followed by labs?
A. As far as I know -- are you referring to our
lab in particular, or just labs?
Q. Well, does your lab follow it?
A. Okay.
As far as I know, our lab doesn't, you know, unless somebody came to me
and said one had passed through, and it was a proficiency test and we didn't
know it. You know, there'd be no way
for sure that I'd know it had taken place.
Q. Now, you -- my memory may be wrong. Did you ever work at another lab besides the
state crime lab?
A. No, sir, I haven't.
Q. Okay.
I've got the wrong one.
Okay. Do you know whether or not
blind proficiency testing is done by other labs in the United States that do
DNA testing?
A. Are you talking about the ones that come
through as a case where you really don't know?
Q. Yes, sir.
A. To my knowledge, I can't say. I'm not that familiar with their procedures.
Q. You just don't know, then?
A. Right.
I just don't know.
Q. Now, would you agree that a two-probe match
is by no means an identification?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. All you could say in that case would be that
it wouldn't -- it wouldn't exclude the suspect; is that correct?
A. Well, what we would say is we would say we
have a match using probe A, probe B, and then we would give a frequency.
Q. Do you recall testifying in the case of State
of Georgia v. Joseph Patrick Washington in the Augusta Judicial Circuit in
1994, November 1994?
A. It's been a long time, but I think I remember
testifying over there.
Q. Okay.
And do you recall testifying that -- the question was, 'Then in this
case, when we have a two-probe match which you're only willing to say won't
exclude a suspect.' And your answer,
'That's correct. I would say that's not
an identification, but they do not exclude that individual as being the donor
of that sample.' Do you recall that?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Is that what you testified to?
A. I believe that's correct.
Q. So a two-probe match would be not sufficient
for an identification?
A. No.
It wouldn't be a match where I would go in and say that this person, you
know, left the DNA to the exclusion of everyone else.
Q. Would you agree, Mr. Goff, that your probe
PH-30 and your probe LH-1, where there was no partial digestion, are your two
best probes in this case?
A. No, sir, I wouldn't agree with that really.
Q. So you don't think partial digestion has any
effect?
A. No, sir.
Once you've done the partial digestion experiment, you can confirm what
contributed the extra bands, so really the information for all the probes is
good.
Q. Now, the partial digestions, is that
generally accepted in the scientific community throughout the United States?
A. Are you referring to the experiment or are
you referring --
Q. The experiment. The partial digestion experiment you used.
A. I'm not sure. That's a protocol that Dr. Herrin wrote, and I don't know whether
he based that on what other people do or whether he came up with that
himself. It does work.
Q. So you don't really know, though. You just apply the test like he told you to,
and if it fits the criteria he told you to, then you declare it okay?
A. I follow the protocol as to how to handle it
when you have a partial digestion.
Q. Okay.
And if Dr. Herrin's protocol says that that's okay, then you say it's
okay in your results; is that correct?
A. Yes, sir.
And I also will -- you know, I can look at it and think about it and it
is a reasonable way to do it.
Q. Okay.
You read publications and you keep up with the technology in the field
of DNA, don't you?
A. I try to.
Q. Do you remember any publications regarding
the use of partial digestion experiments?
A. To be honest, I don't remember reading one.
Q. Wouldn't you have noticed something like that
since you do it at the crime lab?
A. Generally speaking, you know, I read the
publications, but I can't remember every one I've read. I don't remember reading one about partial
digestions.
Q. Have you ever published anything about
partial digestion experiments?
A. No, sir.
Q. To your knowledge, has Dr. Herrin ever
published anything regarding partial digestion experiments?
A. To the best of my knowledge, he hasn't.
Q. He has not?
A. To the best of my knowledge. Now, I can't speak for everything he's
published.
Q. I understand. But I'm asking if you've seen if he's published it?
A. I don't think I've seen it.
Q. Okay.
Now, partial digestion is an indication of some kind of contaminant or
something, isn't it?
A. Yes, sir, it is.
Q. Which causes the Hae-III solution not to cut
the DNA correctly?
A. Well, it causes it to skip places where it
should have cut it.
Q. Okay.
Ordinarily, it would cut it every place; is that correct?
A. It would ordinarily cut at every one of the
restriction sites or the areas that it's -- have the GGCC.
Q. Okay.
And that's not something you can see.
That's not something you put under a microscope and look at, is it?
A. No, sir, you can't.
Q. Okay.
You can only tell if it worked afterwards from your result?
A. That's correct.
Q. Okay.
Now, you have no way of knowing how many pairs or -- not pairs -- I
don't think that's the right word -- how many bases it skipped before it cuts
again, when it does that, do you?
A. Well, I don't know how many of the
restriction sites that it has skipped.
Q. I mean, it could be one or it could be ten?
A. That's correct.
Q. You don't have any way of knowing?
A. No, sir.
Q. How many could it be? How far could it go?
A. I can't really give you a figure since I
don't know for sure how many restriction sites are in that strand of DNA, but,
you know, the cutting would be fairly well at random so, you know, it could
skip one or it might skip three or four.
Q. And that could give you unusual bands, then,
when you try to render a result?
A. Well, what it would do, it would give those
extra bands that I've shown to you that are above the primary bands.
Q. Okay.
Are you familiar with the term mixing experiment?
A. Yes, sir, I'm familiar with that term.
Q. Okay.
And was any such experiment run in this case?
A. No, sir, there wasn't. And usually, in a laboratory like a forensic
lab you don't do a mixing experiment. I
don't know of anybody in a forensic lab that does one.
Q. Okay.
And the reason forensic labs don't do them is because you don't have
enough of a sample, isn't it?
A. That's correct. There's not enough sample to conduct a mixing experiment, and
there have been studies published that say that samples from, say, evidence
samples, with the contaminants in them, they may migrate slightly differently
even if they're from the same person, say, as your known sample, so a mixing
experiment really wouldn't work.
Q. Okay.
But it's used all the time routinely in paternity cases, isn't it?
A. I've read it's used in paternity, and I
believe that's correct.
Q. And the reason forensic laboratories don't do
it is you rarely have enough of a sample; isn't that correct?
A. That's correct. We usually don't have enough.
If we had split sample, say, in this particular case, we might not have
gotten an answer.
Q. And the crime lab does not test for band
shifting, do they?
A. No, sir. There's no reason to test for band shifting.
Q. You say there's no reason. You agree that bands can shift, don't you?
A. Yes, sir.
They can shift, but the thing about band shifting is they will never
shift into a match.
Q. They can shift away from a match, but not
toward a match?
A. That's correct. To shift bands into a match, that would be, you know, the
furthest explanation you could get on band -- on a match being caused by -- a
false match occurring, rather.
Q. Do you know why they shift away from each
other when you call it a match when it is band shifting?
A. Do we know why?
Q. Yes.
A. Not really.
A contaminant usually causes the shift to occur.
Q. Okay.
And so since you don't know why, you can't say scientifically that it
couldn't shift either direction, can you?
A. It can shift in any -- you know, either up or
down; but, you know, if you take two DNA samples from two different
individuals, in my opinion, I don't think there's any way you could get them to
shift or one of them to shift where they would match each other.
Q. You use what's called a 4 percent variance
technique?
A. Yes, sir.
That's our match criteria.
Q. Okay.
And you convert that to numbers after you -- you base it on the size of the largest sample that you have
there. Maybe sample's not the right
word, but --
A. Are you referring to how we actually
calculate the match criteria and see --
Q. Yes.
A. What we'll do, say you have two bands, one
from your known, one from your unknown.
The smaller band is one thousand base pair long, so you'll calculate 4
percent of that is I think 40, and if you're up -- your other band is say
1,030, then you would add that 40 to the 1,000, you have 1,040, so your bands
would fall within that 4 percent range.
Q. Okay.
And at some point when you compute those numbers, you come to a point where 40 would be included but 41
would not?
A. That's correct.
Q. Okay.
And if you had a slight shifting there of the bands, then it could fall
within 41 and be included, couldn't it?
A. I don't -- I don't -- I don't really think
I'm getting your question.
Q. Okay.
If the band were at one place and you computed it and it was 40 --
A. Yes.
Q. -- okay, was your variance that was
allowed. Then if that band -- maybe I'm
not asking the question right. Maybe
I'll try again. This 4 percent, how was
that arrived at?
A. That was arrived at by taking the same DNA
sample and running it on different gels numerous times. We used more than one DNA sample. We used numerous samples that we knew were
the same, ran them on different gels and calculated the fragment size to see
how much variance we had in our system.
Q. Okay.
And that's not a nationally accepted standard either; that's something
the crime lab developed. Is that
correct?
A. Each individual laboratory develops their own
match criteria.
Q. Okay.
Now, in developing that, do you know why the 4 percent method was chosen
as opposed to the plus or minus 2 and a half percent like the FBI uses?
A. Yes, sir, I do. The 4 percent is a lot easier to explain to someone. The plus or minus 2 and a half involves
counting 2 and a half percent from one sample, say the lower sample going up, 2
and a half percent coming down from the other sample and see if they
cross. So it's a lot harder to explain
that 2 and a half plus or minus.
Q. So the 4 percent was chosen simply for
expediency to be able to explain it in court?
A. Well, after we went through our, you know,
checks to see what our variance was, then we just decided to say 4 percent from
the lower. You know, I guess we could
have almost said plus or minus 2 percent; but, you know, it's a lot harder to
deal with that plus or minus 2 percent when you're explaining.
Q. Plus or minus 2 percent is not the same thing
as 4 percent, is it?
A. No.
It won't be exactly the same, but it will be close.
Q. Now, the databases that we've talked about,
those were gathered by volunteers at clinics; is that correct?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Okay.
And where were those clinics located?
Were they geographically spread out?
Are they all in one place?
A. The majority of the samples came from a
health clinic in -- I think it's in DeKalb County. There are some samples from a clinic in Floyd County, and I think
the other clinic was in Albany.
Q. Okay.
And it was just whoever volunteered was who got included; is that
correct?
A. Yes, sir, that's correct.
Q. People who chose not to volunteer didn't get
their blood included?
A. That's correct.
Q. There was no scientific going out and saying
we're going to pick a random group of people and then we're going to get --
randomly select samples from them?
A. Well, the trouble with doing that -- it
sounds good, and it would be a good idea if we could do it. But, say, in the state of Georgia what we
would have to do is get a number assigned to everybody in the state, and then
we'd have to randomly pick numbers.
Then we'd have to go to that person and say you're going to give us a
blood sample. And that's not going to
work. People aren't going to do that.
Q. Has anybody ever considered trying to do
something similar to that; for example, getting all the law enforcement
agencies in the state to have the people to volunteer to agree to be part of a
random group and then they'd be randomly selected in that group who's going to
be tested?
A. As far as I know, we've never considered
that; and, you know, Dr. Herrin may know more about that than I do since he
helped set up the database.
Q. Okay.
And you don't have any personal knowledge of the database, do you?
A. What way are you talking about?
Q. You didn't help set it up, you didn't go out
and help collect the blood, or anything like that?
A. I didn't help collect blood or anything like
that, but I did extract some of the bloods and carry them through the procedure
to come up with a banding pattern.
Q. As far as the database itself, though, Dr.
Herrin developed that, didn't he?
A. For the most part he went through the, you
know, the procedure of approaching the clinics and setting up the volunteer
system and everything.
Q. Okay.
And the database itself that's in the computer, do you know anything
about the computer program that runs it?
A. Are you talking about the software?
Q. Yes, sir.
A. I'm not really familiar with it. I know how to operate it, and, you know, I
know how to check it to see if there's anything wrong with it, but as far as
actually getting the software out and looking at the software and telling you
what each line means, I couldn't do that.
Q. It's kind of like -- I don't know if you use
word processing or not, but kind of like with WordPerfect, my secretary may be
able to type in and produce documents, but she doesn't understand how the
innerworkings of the machine works.
A. That may be correct.
Q. Is that similar to what --
A. You know, like I said, I know how the program
works, and I know when it's working properly or not, but, you know, I can't
take it out and look at it and say, well, this line says this and that means
it's doing this.
Q. And you're relying on that program that Dr.
Herrin wrote to be working correctly?
A. Yes, sir.
I do rely on it to work correctly.
Q. You put the data in and you accept whatever
comes out?
A. Yes, sir, I do. I can also, if I wanted to, I could go back and do a check by
hand to see.
Q. And if the database were not correct, then
that would affect your figures, wouldn't it, your statistical figures?
A. Theoretically, it could.
Q. You say theoretically. If you had an incorrect database that had
duplications in it, would that not affect your calculations?
A. Well, if you had a duplication, if, say, on a
particular case that duplication wasn't used, it really wouldn't have much of
an effect on your frequency. You know,
if it did include that duplication, it would have more effect on your
frequency.
Q. But if you didn't know it was there, you
wouldn't know whether it was being included or not, would you?
A. That's correct until, you know, it was
identified.
Q. And you wouldn't have any way of knowing how
much it would affect your calculations?
A. Well, like I said before, you know, if you
have one duplication, it wouldn't affect them a whole lot. But, you know, it would have an effect, but
it wouldn't be --
Q. The more you had, the more effect you'd have;
right?
A. Yes.
The more you had, the more effect you'd have as long as they were being
used when you were doing the frequency calculation.
Q. This new probe LH-1, the one that you have
now --
A. Yes, sir.
Q. -- do you know how many cases in the database
are similar enough to this case to be considered?
A. If you'll give me just a minute, I think I
can figure it out. [Pause] Okay.
In the black database -- well, excuse me, let me go back and re-figure
this a little bit differently. You're
wanting to know how many samples?
Q. How many samples are the same size that would
be considered in this case to decide whether it's a match or not, you know, on
each one?
A. Approximately the same size?
Q. Approximately. I realize you don't have your computer here.
A. [Pause]
Okay. On the Caucasian database,
there should be two samples, which would be one sample from the database and
Ms. Thompson's sample.
Q. So there's one other sample in your database
like the one we've got in this case in LH-1?
A. That's what it appears to be. And on the black database, it appears that
Ms. Thompson's sample is the only one that's similar.
Q. Okay.
A. Well, actually, the only one that's
counted. Since there's not one in the
database that is similar, she would be the only one that would be counted.
Q. Does that cause any problem in your
calculations?
A. No, sir, it doesn't.
Q. The fact you've only got one sample in your
database?
A. Well, only one sample that is similar. No, it doesn't cause any problem.
Q. That doesn't affect your calculations?
A. No, sir, it doesn't affect our calculation.
Q. Now, when we came down to the crime lab to
view the bio-images and when you and Dr. Herrin assisted us in doing that, you
had two machines there, You had an old
machine and a newer machine.
A. That's correct.
Q. And I forget the name of the newer machine,
Sun something or the other?
A. Well, I don't know the exact name. They're both a bio-image system. One is just a newer instrument.
Q. Okay.
And when you were pulling up the LH-1 for us, you were experiencing some
difficulty in knowing which keys. Dr.
Herrin was coaching you as to which keys to use, wasn't he?
A. Yes, sir.
Because there's a setting on there for drawing the lanes, when you draw
it up, and it was on a different setting.
And it's much more difficult to draw the lanes on that other setting, so
I wanted him to get it back on the original setting that it should have been on
in the first place.
Q. How many vials of blood remain in the -- from
the case?
A. The only ones that I know for sure are still
around are the two tubes from Mr. Chapel and the one tube from Ms. Thompson.
Q. Okay.
Now, which ones were tested, the gray tubes or the red tubes?
A. From Emma Thompson, I have to look at it to
be sure, but I'm almost certain it's the gray-stoppered tube.
Q. Okay.
And that's the one that contains preservatives; is that correct?
A. Yes, sir, it does.
Q. And there were other vials originally. Do you know what happened to those?
A. Are you referring from Emma Thompson?
Q. From either one of them, Mike Chapel or Emma
Thompson.
A. From Mr. Chapel, I think both tubes are
here. He had two purple-stoppered tubes,
and I think they're both here.
Q. Okay.
A. Ms. Thompson, usually, our tox section, when
they get blood samples in, they only retain them about six months or maybe a
year and they destroy them.
Q. And so those have probably been destroyed in
this case, then?
A. Probably.
You'd probably have to ask somebody from tox to be sure because they
could check and find out.
Q. And there's one case that Mr. Smeal asked you
about on direct where a probe was mislabeled.
Are you familiar with that?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And a lady at the crime lab -- it was
actually a technician was actually performing the test using the probes, and
she used the wrong probe, didn't she?
A. Yes, sir.
She was supposed to use the probe
YNH-24, and she accidentally put the probe TBQ-7 in on the membrane.
Q. Okay.
And it was some time before you caught that error?
A. Yes, sir.
I think it was when I did the actual sizing of the bands.
Q. Now, does the crime lab use the same
standards as is used in diagnostics by research and doctors for determining
whether or not they'll interpret a sample?
A. Actually, I can't answer because I'm not
familiar with what kind of standards they use.
Q. Would you agree the standards ought to be the
same for both?
A. If you're referring to diagnostics and medical
--
Q. Treating someone for something or for
paternity, that sort of thing.
A. Actually, our standards probably are a little
bit higher.
Q. Now, coming back to your databases, when you
were doing those, how did you determine a person's race?
A. By whatever they put on the outside of the
test tube. Either the person drawing
the blood or the person who actually gave the blood indicated their race.
Q. Okay.
And so if they put a white, then they were considered white? If they put black, they were considered
black?
A. That's correct.
Q. Okay.
And we're all aware that there's all kinds of variations in between,
dark black people, light brown, and they made their own determination of which
database they'd be included in?
A. Yes, sir, they did.
Q. Okay.
And the crime lab didn't really have any control over that?
A. No, sir, we don't.
Q. Now, you talked about the incomplete
stripping, and I believe there's some evidence to that in this case; is that
correct?
A. Yes, sir, there is.
Q. Now, you told the jury that the way to
determine whether or not that happened was simply to take the previous autorad
and lay it over it and see if it matched; is that right?
A. That's correct. That's what you do. You
do a visual examination and see if you have a visual match up. And if you do, then you know it's incomplete
stripping.
Q. Okay.
And you told us on YNH-24 that there was a one in forty-eight chance of
just a random match on there?
A. Well, not actually that. What you would say out of that one in
forty-eight is if you took a group of fifty people and you compared them to the
pattern Ms. Thompson has, probably one of them would have a pattern with that
probe that would be similar.
Q. Okay.
And so if you took one probe and lay it on top of another one, there's
approximately a one in forty-eight chance that the one on that probe will
happen to be in the same place as the one on the other probe that you're
overlaying?
A. When you're talking about that particular
pattern, that's true.
Q. And so you can't really tell for sure with
this overlaying whether or not that was an incomplete stripping or whether it
would have been a band that was there?
A. Actually, you can because with the probes we
have, generally, you get two bands.
Sometimes you get one. Very
rarely, you'll get three. So if you
have over two bands in a lane and you can overlay the previous autorad, then
you can account for those extra bands as being incomplete stripping.
Q. But you're just making that assumption
without computing the probability that one would happen there randomly in both
of those places?
A. There's no real need to do that. When you look at the intensities of the,
say, I think it was on MS-1, I had incomplete stripping. You have two dark bands which are obviously
primary bands. You have two light bands
and you know those two light bands are there for some other reason.
Q. Okay.
And you have very light bands a lot of times where you've got a little
sample material to work with, don't you?
A. Well, that's true. You would have light bands where you have a small amount of
sample.
Q. And so you're just making that assumption
that when you lay one on top of the other, that's a good way to decide that
that was incomplete stripping?
A. In my opinion, that is probably the best way
to do it.
Q. Okay. But you haven't computed the likelihood that that could happen
randomly by overlaying those two, have you?
A. I haven't, and I'm not sure, you know, I
would know exactly how to go about computing that likelihood.
Q. If you could come down to the jury to show
some things, Mr. Goff, I would appreciate it.
A. [The witness stepped down from the stand.]
Q. And if you could -- if you don't mind, I'm
going to repeat it at one end of the jury and the other, because it's hard for
all of them to see.
A. Sure.
Q. I'm showing you what's been marked as State's
Exhibit Number 140B, which is a photograph of YNH-24.
A. Yes, that is YNH-24.
Q. Okay.
And on YNH-24, if you could show the jury which one is the car seat and
which one is Ms. Thompson and which one is Mike Chapel.
A. All right.
In this lane you've got the banding pattern from the car seat. These are the two primary bands. In this lane you have the banding pattern
from Emma Thompson. In this lane you
have the banding pattern from Mike Chapel.
Q. Okay.
And on this particular probe, all three of those are a match, aren't
they?
A. If you only went by a match criteria, the top
band would most likely and, in fact, probably would be a match. The bottom band would probably be a match,
too, if you only took into account the match criteria and only this probe.
Q. Okay.
Let's go down to the other end and let the people down here see,
too. Now, if you would, once again,
point out the three there so the people down here can see.
A. Okay.
In this lane you have DNA from the car seat. Here's the two primary bands.
In this lane would be the DNA sample from Emma Thompson. In this lane you have the DNA sample from
Mr. Chapel.
Q. Okay.
And all three of those bands are from Mr. Chapel's blood, Ms.
Thompson's, and the blood from the car seat?
A. On the top band they would and probably on
the bottom band they would if you only take into account this probe.
[The
witness returned to the stand.]
BY
MR. MOORE:
Q. Now, Mr. Goff, when you have a sample like
that where it's obviously from your testimony all three of them match,
shouldn't that be excluded from any probability calculations?
A. No, sir, it isn't, but it's because you have
more information. If that was the only
probe we got and the only result, we'd probably end up calling it inconclusive,
and that would be the end of it. That
would be all we would do. But we have
other probes with other results, so you have to take everything you have into
account.
Q. Now, this partial digestion experiment that
you do, who developed that?
A. As far as I know, Dr. Herrin came up with
that.
Q. Okay.
At the Georgia state crime lab?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Okay.
And how long has that been being done?
A. Honestly, I can't tell you. I've done it before, but I can't tell you
how long ago he put that in the protocol.
Q. Do you know whether or not the FBI uses such
a procedure?
A. Well, I've been to the FBI school, and I
don't remember if they've got a procedure like that. I can't recall it.
Q. And when you do your bio-imaging, which is
where you go in and the computer marks the various bands on the photograph, or
not on the photograph but on the computer screen, then like you testified
earlier, if you don't believe one of them's a band in your judgment, then you
can delete it; is that correct?
A. Yes, sir, that's correct. I ultimately make the final decision as to
what is a band and what is not a band.
Q. Okay.
And that's a judgment call on your part?
A. It's based on my experience doing DNA
testing.
Q. And since you don't keep any notes or records
of those bio-images when you do that, you don't know whether you did that or
not when you conducted these original calculations of tests, do you?
A. Yes, sir.
When we originally did it, there was no way to keep up with whether you
had deleted a band or not once the image is deleted, so I don't know if I had
deleted off any bands or added any bands.
Q. And when you do your frequency calculations,
what is your margin of error, plus or minus?
A. Are you referring to like the final number
that we come up with?
Q. Well, is it like 5 percent or is it --
A. Well, we don't have, I guess, you'd say a
margin of error defined. What I say is
this is an estimate -- I mean, this is -- the frequency you come up with, that
one in ten billion is the estimate. We
don't say it's actual, you know, it's going to be one in ten billion. It's an estimate.
Q. So there's no margin of error like within 5
percent or within 2 percent or --
A. No. I
can't really give you anything like that.
Q. Okay.
You understand what I'm talking about?
A. Yeah, I think I know what you're talking
about when you -- I think you're --
Q. When you said it was one in a thousand, for
example, I'll give you an example --
A. Okay.
Q. -- and there was a 5 percent margin of error,
it could be anywhere from 950 to 1,050, couldn't it?
A. That -- yeah, that's what you're trying to
look for. We don't have anything like
that set up on our frequency calculation.
We just give you that estimate, and it's going to be somewhere around
that.
Q. You would agree there is a margin of error in
those calculations?
A. Well, there's going to be variance in those
calculations according to what database you use. It may -- more than likely, it's going to be fairly minor.
Q. Okay.
But there is one there based on your database? There is a margin for error?
A. I still don't quite understand what you're
getting at.
Q. Okay.
You're giving an opinion that one in ten billion --
A. That's correct.
Q. Okay.
There's some margin of error there.
Is it, you know, 5 percent or what?
A. Well, are you saying if we went to another
database or somebody else looked at it, and instead of saying one in ten
billion, they said one in eight billion or one in twelve billion; is that what
you're getting at, it could range in that area?
Q. Well, your margin of error depends on your
sampling technique, doesn't it, to a large extent?
A. I'm not really sure about that.
Q. Okay.
If your sample is not truly a random sample and does not truly reflect
whatever it is you're trying to predict, then your numbers are going to have a
much wider margin of error, aren't they?
A. That sounds reasonable, but I'm not real
familiar with that.
Q. For example, if you went out -- in marketing
research, they use random sampling techniques, and you sent a letter out to
everybody asking them to fill it out and send back, the questionnaire, and only
5 percent of them filled it out and sent it back, then your database from what
you're going to project is very poor at that point because 95 percent of the
people didn't send them back; is that correct?
A. That sounds true.
Q. And if you did a more thorough method where
you went out and you went house to house and knocked on doors and asked people
to talk to you and you got 90 percent of the people to agree to participate,
then the results that you were going to project would be much more likely to be
reliable within a smaller margin of error?
A. That sounds like that would be true.
Q. Are you familiar with those kind of sampling
techniques?
A. I know what you're talking about in general. You know, specifically, I couldn't get into
it.
Q. Mr. Goff, when we came down to the crime lab
and viewed the evidence we talked about earlier --
A. Yes, sir.
Q. -- isn't it true that you took the crime lab
report and you laid the evidence out in the order it was listed on there, that
you went down the list of the crime lab report?
A. I believe that's correct.
Q. Okay.
And is Ms. Thompson's clothing listed on there before the raincoat,
State's Exhibit 129?
A. Yes, sir, it is.
Q. And so based on that, would you believe that
you did lay out Ms. Thompson's clothing prior to laying out the raincoat?
A. Yes, sir, I think that's correct.
MR.
MOORE: That's all the questions I have
right now, Your Honor.
THE
COURT: Would you approach the bench,
please?
[Counsel
approached the bench and the following conference ensued outside hearing of the
jury.]
THE
COURT: How long do you think you're
going to be on redirect and recross?
MR.
SMEAL: Probably not too long on
redirect.
THE
COURT: We've been here a while. I think we'll take five minutes and then
we'll finish up the examination of this witness and then we'll recess for
lunch. Okay.
[Bench
conference concluded.]
THE
COURT: We're going to be a little while
longer with this witness, so I think -- the best I recall, I think we're sort
of due for a recess. We'll take a short
recess, five minutes, and then we'll finish up with this witness and then we'll
recess for lunch. We'll take five
minutes. If you'll go with the bailiff,
please.
[The
jury was excused from the courtroom for the recess.]
THE
COURT: Anything else before we recess,
take a short recess, Mr. Smeal?
MR.
SMEAL: No, Your Honor.
THE
COURT: Mr. Moore?
MR.
MOORE: No, Your Honor.
THE
COURT: We'll take five minutes.
[Break
taken]
THE
COURT: Is the state ready?
MR.
SMEAL: Yes, Your Honor.
THE
COURT: Is the defendant ready?
MR.
MOORE: We're ready, Your Honor.
THE
COURT: Bring the jury back, please.
[The
jury returned to the courtroom and proceedings resumed, as follows.]
THE
COURT: Go ahead when you're ready, Mr.
Smeal.
MR.
SMEAL: Thank you, Your Honor. The state has just a couple of questions for
Mr. Goff.
REDIRECT EXAMINATION
BY
MR. SMEAL:
Q. Mr. Goff, you've testified to displaying some
evidence at the crime lab to the defense; is that correct?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. I'm not sure I caught the date of that. What was the date of that display?
A. I can't give you an exact date. I didn't write it down. It's been in the past, I'd say, in the past
six months to eight months.
Q. From today?
A. From today.
Q. Sometime in 1995?
A. Yes, sir, I believe it was this year.
Q. At that display, did you actually observe the
transfer of any blood from any item to any other item?
A. No, sir.
Q. Did you regard the probes in which there was
no partial digestion and the probes in which there was partial digestion as
providing equally valuable information in terms of your results in this case?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. The blood from Emogene Thompson that you used
in your DNA analysis, did that come from the tube which you obtained from
Jennifer Wilson?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did you use the blood in any other tube for
purposes of your DNA analysis?
A. On Emogene Thompson?
Q. Yes.
A. No, sir.
Q. Okay.
You did not use the blood that may have been in any other tubes?
A. No, sir.
Q. The mislabeling of the TBQ-7, was that
mislabeling identified prior to your reporting out any result in this case?
A. Yes, sir, it was.
Q. And did you detect that because of the K562?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And that's what K562 is designed to do; is
that correct?
A. That's correct.
Q. If the computer scans, for example, a smudge
on an autorad, would you delete that as a matter of course?
A. If it placed a mark on it and called it a
band, yes, sir, I would delete it.
Q. And have you ever seen that happen?
A. Yes, sir, many times.
Q. And Mr. Moore's asked you about your visual,
the use of visual criteria. Based upon
your experience in determining matches and then comparisons, have you received
training in that area?
A. Yes, sir, we do.
Q. Is that included in the FBI training that you
attended in Quantico?
A. Yes, sir, I think it was.
Q. Have you had to look at autorads as part of
your training?
A. I've looked at numerous autorads.
MR.
SMEAL: No further questions, Your
Honor.
THE
COURT: Recross?
MR.
MOORE: Your Honor, I have a few
questions.
RECROSS EXAMINATION
BY
MR. MOORE:
Q. I'm going to show you what's been marked as
Defendant's Number 96, and ask if you'd look at that and see if you can
identify that.
A. Yes, sir.
This is entitled DNA Technology in Forensic Science and it's by the
National Research Council.
Q. And are you familiar with that publication?
A. To an extent.
Q. And is that the publication that I was
referring to when I asked you questions about it?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Okay.
MR.
MOORE: Your Honor, for the record, I
would tender Defendant's Exhibit Number 96 which is a book that we've had
questions asked about here as part of the record.