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Some facts about the evidence corruption in this case.
Reprinted from: PATHFINDER Crime Forum
Author: Ivan X
Date: Aug 19 1997 9:10PM

The integrity of the evidence is the issue in the Simpson case. You cannot convict a human being when the core of the Prosecution's case is built on perjurious testimony of police officers, unreliable forensic evidence and manufactured evidence. It is the major problem at the heart of this case and that is what this evidence shows. In order to understand this evidence you must go through it patiently, and go through it carefully, when you go through it scientifically, logically, that is what the evidence shows, and you cannot convict on the evidence shown in the Simpson case. There are many,many reasonable doubts in the heart of the scientific evidence in this case, and Mr. Simpson's attorneys demonstrated that. And even though Mr. Simpson's attorneys do not have to have to prove these facts of reasonable doubt, there is evidence that shows the prosecution's evidence does have problems. So in the words of Dr. Lee, something is wrong. Something is terribly wrong with the evidence in this case. You cannot trust it, it lacks integrity, it cannot be a basis for a verdict of beyond a reasonable doubt.

There was a logo that Barry Scheck showed you in his closing statements that he had reproduced on a board, and you guys may recall this, Barry Scheck compared the L.A.P.D. crime lab to a black hole. As you recall, the board showed the evidence from Bundy, the evidence from Rockingham and the Bronco, the evidence from Mr. Simpson as it all passes through the Los Angeles Police Department, the messengers that Mr. Cochran was talking about, the lab, criminalists, Coroner's office, and then it is tested by the FBI, the Department of Justice and Cellmark. And if you recall, all throughout the trial they said the evidence was contaminated, compromised and corrupted, There is no integrity to evidence.

Now, to begin with is point no. 1, and you heard Dr. Cotton, Gary Sims, Dr. Gerdes, all the forensic experts told you with respect certainly to DNA testing, all the testing, if it is contaminated, compromised or corrupted here, it doesn't matter what the results are by any other testing agencies, because if it happens within that black hole of LAPD, it doesn't matter how many times you test it.

The prosecution argued throughout the trial and said, well, why didn't we hear from Dr. Blake. That if they didn't have Dr. Blake in this case to be sitting there as the testing was going on--while the trial was going on was being tested were being tested. He was up there looking at what he was doing. We wouldn't have even known what was going on in this case. But the point is, by the time it reached the California Department of Justice and Gary Sims, if that evidence--and we have demonstrated, contaminated, compromised and corrupted. You could do a hundred tests. Dr. Blake could test it, Dr. Lee's lab could test it, everybody could test it and you would get the same result, so that has not been the issue in this case and don't be distracted by that.

If you guys remember the testimony of Dr. Terry speed, he gave testimony in this case about error, laboratory error, and he used the term, common mode error. If it happens here and that is where the evidence is compromised, contaminated and corrupted, these results are not adding anything. So if you guys ask the question how did the Los Angeles Police Department, how does any laboratory impair the integrity of the evidence?

Any laboratory has to have three things: You have to have rules and training, you have to have what is known as quality assurance and you have to have chain of custody, security of the evidence. Well, what have we heard about rules and training at the Los Angeles Police Department laboratory? Well, this laboratory is run without a set of rules. That everyone knows. They don't even have a manual. Think about that. That is extraordinary. And then they have this draft manual and it is ignored by the criminalists, Fung and Mazzola. They don't know what is in the draft manual, what procedures there are. And then the laboratory director, Michele Kestler, well, she was the acting laboratory director. Actually one of the real problems here is at the time of this case the head of the laboratory was a police officer, not a scientist, but Michele Kestler, she had that draft manual on her desk for four years going through it. And she says, well, some of this is no good and they didn't get around to it, so that is how you become a corrupt lab. The testimony is clear in this case they did not give their criminalists training in state of the art techniques, in particular of great relevance here, there was no DNA training for the evidence collectors. Now, that has got to be a significant point. The Prosecution argued that throughout the trial that collecting, preserving bloodstain evidence for purposes of DNA testing was a simple as going into your kitchen and cleaning up spillage. Now, we all know, we all know that is not true based on what we've heard in this case.

Quality assurance. That is a term that is used inbureaucracies and hospitals and laboratories, any places where you are trying to deliver service with integrity. What is going on here? There is a failure to document how you collect the evidence, a fundamental duty as Dr. Lee showed you, remember, a fundamental duty of the criminalists to document the evidence. In other words, where it was picked up, how it was picked up, when it was picked up. And we have seen the problems in this case when you can't do that and to try to reconstruct it later when your memories are gone and you can't do it. Well, that is not done. And failure to document testing is tolerated.

If you compare the testimonies of Gary Sims and Renee Montgomery and read the parts of the testimony dealing with how the Department of Justice, Gary Sims and Renee Montgomery wrote and organized their notes, with what was seen in the trial from saw Collin Yamauchi and Dennis Fung. Barry Scheck had to rearrange the notes for Collin Yamauchi, his own notes, when he was on the witness stand, and he goes that's right, first he took out O.J. Simpson's reference sample and made the fitzco card, then the next thing he did was the glove and then the next thing he did, all within that one hour twenty minutes, were the Bundy blood drops. Barry Scheck had to reconstruct his notes for him and he goes, that's right, that is the way it happened. I guess that is right. I mean, it had to be when you reconstructed it all, but the notes are not there and that is fundamental for having any integrity whatsoever.

There was no serious supervision of these people. That is just clear. You saw it in the trial. The LAPD lab was not inspected. The lab was not accredited. The lab was not subjected, certainly the DNA, to external blind proficiency testing which you know, which was pointed out , is what you need. Dr. Gerdes testified about that. Every expert talked about that.

This national research counsel report, DNA technology inforensic science. Now, this is critical. Chain of custody and security. There is absolutely nothing more fundamental to preserving integrity of forensic evidence than a chain of custody, than having security. You have to know what you are picking up. You have to be able to document it, otherwise bad things can happen and nobody can trace it.

In this case:

• they did not count the swatches when they collected them.
• They did not count the swatches when they got back to the laboratory and put them in the tubes for drying.
• They did not count the swatches when they took them out of the tubes and put them in the bindles.
• Nobody knows how many swatches they started with.
• They didn't book the evidence in this case for three days. They kept it in the least secure facility, the evidence processing room, for three days, without being able to track the items collected.

The lead homicide detective in this case, and I have talked about this a little on these posts and I will talk about this some more, is walking around with an unsealed blood vial for at least three hours (As far as we know). It is unheard of.

The other lead detective in this case is taking shoes home right out of--this could be critical evidence. The shoes that they suspect he was wearing that night, taking it home.

Now, you know, it was amazing, when Mr. Fung testified, the extent to which, you know, they have lost all track of the rules. At one point, he was asked, well, would it have been all right if they took the blood home and he said sure you could put it in the refrigerator overnight. Do you guys remember that during the trial that answer? I mean, there is no sense of what has to be done in order to give you reliable evidence. None.

Think about the Bronco. They finished doing the collection in the Bronco and then it is abandoned literally for two months.

• There is a box they are supposed to check off, give special care if you are going to check it for biological evidence, it was not checked off.
• It is sent to Viertel's. It is abandoned for two months. There are no records of who went in and out of that car.
• There was a theft. Everybody was around in there. And then on August 26th they are collecting evidence from it.

And then finally -- and this is a critical point that I think demonstrates all you need to know about security and chain of custody in this laboratory -- the missing lens. Now, this is very important evidence.

This is (evidence within) the envelope that is found at the crime scene with the prescription glasses. If you are investigating a case, you are very concerned about this.

As Dr. Lee pointed out, on this lens there are smears of blood, trace evidence. There could have been fingerprints from the perpetrator who was going into that envelope.

On June 22nd Dr. Baden and Dr. Wolf got an opportunity just to look, just to look at the evidence, not touch or examine or test, just to look, and they saw two lens there, made a note of them. February 16th, think about it, that is the first time the defense got a chance to inspect and just even handle the evidence. The Jury was already sitting in the court on February 16th. There is something wrong. When we look at it, that lens is gone. There is no report, no record, no investigation of its disappearance. Nobody comes in and tells you what happened. Now, that tells us all a lot. Did somebody take this from the laboratory as a souvenir? Did somebody walk off with this? How can that be? This is critical evidence in a case?

Now if you had listened to the prosecution throughout the trial you would think the LAPD crime lab is Fort Knox. Nobody could get to the evidence in this case with our evidence tracking system. I should just tell you in passing, I'm sure you caught it, that even when it is booked into the evidence control unit and it is supposedly being tracked, they didn't say their computer tracking system is a chain of custody system. It isn't. They have all the evidence items in boxes, like the sock and the blood drops, and they will put them in the serology freezer and they are in a box there and then somebody will hit the computer and they can go in and then they can take any item they want out of that box. It is not tracked by specific items. There is no good security in this system. There is plenty of access if you want to tamper with evidence if you are authorized personnel, if you are a lead detective, if you are somebody there. It can happen. And the missing lens is you all you need to know. What is going on here? And if they come back and say, well, maybe Dr. Baden and Wolf are wrong, there was no lens to begin with, well, that is even weirder, isn't it? What kind of killer takes a souvenir like this? How does this fit in with the Prosecution's theory? The missing lens is a serious problem in this case.

Now, the black hole symbolizes something else. You know, science is not better than the methods employed and the people who employ it. DNA is a sophisticated technology. It is a wonderful technology. But there is a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it. The issue in this case is not is DNA good or a bad DNA science. The issue is right or wrong. So the Prosecution gets up during the trial and tells you, well, Dr. Lee said DNA is okay, therefore the DNA evidence in this case is okay. That is ridiculous. Dr. Lee said right way, wrong way. Dr. Lee is one of the authors of this report. Right way, wrong way. And something else.

During the cross-examination of Dennis Fung and Andrea Mazzola and Mr. Matheson, the defense brought out a pamphlet entitled "Collection of DNA evidence," how you should do it. It was a pamphlet that was put together by Dr. Henry Lee in association with others. Mr. Fung had only heard of it, if you recall, after he was prepared to testify in this case, not before they all went out and collected the evidence. And in that report, as it was established, and Mr.--Agent Bodziak, I don't know if he really knows a lot about Dr. Lee. As he said he had limited knowledge. I mean, he is questioning whether he goes to crime scenes. The FBI is saying how do you collect evidence at a crime scene?

• Dr. Lee writes the manual and in that manual they say you don't put these swatches in plastic bags because you put wet blood swatches in plastic bags, you are going to degrade all the DNA in them.

And the prosecution argued during the trial whether you could do that for three months, the Prosectuion was trying to turn that argument around, but it is just plain the Prosecution did not know what they were doing on this topic.

And you can have the most sophisticated technology in the world and if you don't apply it correctly, you can't trust the results. There is no compliance with the NRC report. There is no compliance with the kind of standards that you would require in a life and death situation, and this is a life and death situation. And that is what you have to demand of a laboratory. And Dr. Gerdes is a man that deals with life and death situations, bone marrow transplants, organ transplants, disease diagnosis. He came in and told you about the standards that we demand, that we require, that ought to be the minimum. The prosecution did not even come close. They can't brush this off, as the prosecution did their arguments, by saying sloppy criminalists, sloppy Coroner and that is what Marsha Clark said in her closing statements. You can't just say sloppy criminalist, sloppy Coroner, big deal. She said DNA--insult to the jury's intelligence, frankly--DNA is used to identify the war dead therefore accept all the evidence in this case. That doesn't answer the question, does it? As a matter of fact, the DNA tests they were talking about are something that are all mitochrondrial dealing DNA tests and it has nothing to do with the DNA tests in this case and the war dead has nothing to do with what was going on in this case. Zero. It is not an answer, it is not this case, it is not the techniques.

The prosecution argued throughout the case that the Defense has to prove exactly how, exactly where, exactly when tampering occurred with any of this evidence. That is not their burden. That is not the defenses's burden. They have to prove that this wasn't tampered with beyond a reasonable doubt. When people tamper with evidence they try to do is with some stealth, they try to cover their tracks, and as defense pointed out, it wouldn't take more than two bad police officers to do this and a lot of people would look the other way.

Now, the way that I would like to organize the rest of my remarks for you is a systematic study of the essential facts and the circumstantial evidence charged in this case talks about key points. "Each fact which is essential to complete a set of circumstances necessary to establish the Defendant's guilt must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt." Each essential fact. That is what is special about a circumstantial evidence case. For each essential fact they have to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. If they fail, if there is a reasonable doubt about an essential fact, you must acquit. Those are the rules. And when you are looking at a piece of circumstantial evidence, if it is susceptible of two reasonable interpretations, one points to guilt, one points to innocence, you must adopt the one that points to innocence. And this is what I propose to do on this post today and I go through what I believe are essential facts. There are many reasonable doubts. But if they fail in one of their essential facts, then the jury would have to acquit.

Let's start with the sock.

• We know that on June 13th when Mr. Fung went to collect the sock--not yet--he saw it on the throw rug--not yet--and he did not see blood. He did not see soil on the carpet. He did not see any trace evidence around, not on the stairwell, not on the carpet leading into the bedroom, not anywhere. There is supposedly a stain, an ankle stain, on these socks, this was cut out, about an inch and a half.
• More DNA in that than anything in this case. Wouldn't that, if it were there, have left a transfer, some speck, something, if they are in a struggle? You have children; I have children. Did you ever see them go out to play in dirt like that closed-in area at Bundy, get into some kind of ruckus. Socks come back, they are filthy. It would have to be here if there is anything on them at all. Nothing. Nothing there.
• Now Mr. Fung is looking for blood. These socks are the only clothing they take. It is logical as a criminalist, as he admitted on cross-examination, that he would be looking at the ankle area, the one they would look to first, because that would be the most likely exposed. He sees nothing. He is running around trying to do testing of anything that looks like blood. No test of the socks.
• Then on June 22nd Dr. Baden and Dr. Wolf were permitted to go to the crime lab and Michele Kestler shows them the socks. They see nothing.
• Now, we get to June 29th. This is very interesting. On June 29th the Defense wanted access to sample, split them, and the criminalists, Matheson, Kestler, the head of the laboratory and Yamauchi, are going through all the evidence in about a five or six-hour period, right there they are going through all the evidence to make an assessment of what kind of testing could be performed, of what kind of biological material or blood would be on any of these pieces evidence to see from testing, RFLP testing, how they could be divided. They also--Mr. Yamauchi said they were literally measuring the size of the swatches and making assessments and making examinations. What piece of evidence at that point is more important to these people than the socks found in Mr. Simpson's bedroom? Wouldn't you look at that?
• And they testified that they took white paper and they put the socks on the white paper and if there is blood, inch and a half on that ankle, you know you saw it every time that we put something down, little specks would come off. Even when Miss Clark during the trial put those gloves on the very first day, the defense actually had it on white paper, you know, the plastic gloves and little pieces of trace fell off and we actually pulled those together, put them in a separate exhibit, because these kind of things fall off. If there were that stain on the sock, that big stain on the sock, they would have seen it. Gary Sims told you he was disturbed by it, that a trained criminalist should have seen it. You use light that is sufficient to look at what you are doing. They are now telling that they didn't have light. We didn't look at what we were doing. Please.
• Now, what is the summary? The socks, on the report they do on June 29th, dress socks, blood search. None observed. None observed. It is either none observed or none obvious. They have two different phrases, one on the handwritten report and one on the typewritten report. Okay. Then suddenly on August 4th Mr. Yamauchi can't remember it was some kind of general inventory, can't--Mr. Matheson might have asked him, he can't remember what the direction was. It wasn't specific to the sock. Somebody said look at--go look at this and then for the first time they find the stain on the ankle.

• Now we have evidence of the wet transfer going through surface 1, surface 3 through the little holes in the sock to surface 3. It is pretty simple. If there is a leg in those socks, you can't have the transfer. Professor MacDonell and Dr. Lee came in and they showed you the pictures of the little red balls and I don't think it is even being seriously contested that this is evidence of a wet transfer now. They are not contesting it really. Can't get it when the leg is in the sock. The testimony of the defense experts stood unrefuted during the criminal case. There was no bloodstain expertthat came in here and said that is not a wet transfer. Dr. Henry Lee, Professor MacDonell. Dr. De forest didn't show up here. Did not show up and Richard Fox conceded during the civil trial that wet transfer is cosistent with the defense' theory.

• Now, during the course of cross-examination of Dr. Lee and Professor MacDonell, the Prosecution sent up some hypothetical explanations for this that I'll view with you and each one of them was rejected by Dr. Lee, Professor MacDonell, but Dr. Lee in particular, as I recall from the testimony, I think they gave him all of them, as highly improbable. Lots of things are possible, but he said these explanations were highly improbable.
• No. 1, the idea that at the time of the killings there could have been a touch with the finger from the victim of Miss Nicole Brown Simpson on the leg and that it wasn't dry when Mr. Simpson somehow got into that Bronco, came back to Rockingham, avoided Allan Park, ran down the side, left no bloodstains, hit the air conditioner, hit the stucco fence leaving no trace, somehow came in all with the bloody clothes, went up the stairs, left no trace of blood, left no trace of soil, left no trace of berries. Got into the house, took off the socks, left them there and then it is still wet. So if it is still wet when he takes off the socks, you get the transfer to surface 3. Well, there is a big problem with that. Then you should have seen something on the carpet if that is what happened. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't fit.
• Then the next explanation is on August 4th when Mr. Yamauchi did the pheno test taking the swab and brushing the stain to see if it were blood, that that somehow created wetness that transferred into the third surface. Or--well, Dr. Lee and Dr. MacDonell said that that doesn't take sense when you look at the stains because if that brushing had occurred you would see a diffusion and you don't see that kind of diffusion and that is not the way you do the test anyhow. Just touching it couldn't cause that kind of transfer through to surface 3. Highly improbable said the leading forensic scientists in America. Sweat.
• Next explanation is going to be sweat. Well, there was a stain from the crime scene, but sweating in the sock and then the sock is taken off and then somehow by process of sweat it transfers to surface 3. Dr. Lee and Dr. MacDonell said ridiculous, highly improbable you would see that same diffusion as with the pheno test and we don't see it. The next explanation. When Mr. Simpson is taking off the socks he coincidentally has a finger that touches surface 3 opposite the ankle stain, so it is not Nicole Brown Simpson's blood that is on surface 3, it is Mr. Simpson's own blood that he accidentally touched exactly opposite. That is a ridiculous coincidence. That is the other explanation they floated. Then another explanation they tried.
• They showed Dr. Lee the new picture of the sock. Remember how they were folded up? They said, well, maybe blood of Mr. Simpson's, when you fold the sock over, landed on surface 3 coincidentally opposite the stain when they were bundled up and that is what created it. Again, rejected as a ridiculous highly probable coincidence. Now, none of these things make sense. The prosecution also said, you know, there is a tiny spatter of Mr. Simpson's--Mr. Simpson's--some blood at the top of the socks of Mr. Simpson. She says, well, there is spatter there. Well, you know, doctor--Professor MacDonell said this is no spatter. Gary Sims doesn't pretend to be a bloodstain expert. Professor MacDonell, Dr. Lee, leading experts in this area. They didn't bring in anybody. It is ridiculous to say there is spatter there, and if it is spatter of O.J. Simpson's blood, how does that happen? What? Did he bleed so much that created a puddle and spatter on the top of the sock? Nonsense. The point is every explanation that the prosecution desperately trying to come up with is a highly improbable inference. And you know why there is no doubt about it?

Because the prosecution got so upset in the opening statement about the socks, about the back gate, so upset that they sent it to the FBI. And Mr. Harmon wrote them a letter saying please refute the Defense theory that somebody tampered with this evidence. Please refute it. Those were the words. Not exactly an objective way of sending it out. Please test this for EDTA. Please refute what the Defense has to say. And Agent Martz never testified in the Prosecution's case. And you know why that is? And that is really all you need to know, because he couldn't refute it, because it is an inference consistent with innocence that they can't refute. There is EDTA. How does that happen? There is EDTA there. The sock. No blood on June 13th when it is collected. No blood on June 22nd when Dr. Lee--Dr. Baden and Dr. Wolf see it.

They looked for blood on June 29th on a lab paper with reasonable light, three people with 25 years of experience, and they don't see it. Most important piece of evidence. Examining it for purposes of court. The wet transfer to surface 3 unrefuted. And EDTA. Now, think about it. Is this coincidence? All these things with the sock, or is it corroboration? I say it is corroboration that something is wrong, something is terribly wrong with the most important pieces of evidence in this case. It is a cancer that is infecting the heart of this case. You cannot render a verdict beyond a reasonable doubt based on evidence like this. So if we apply 2.01, an essential fact, the socks, Miss Clark said an essential fact, whose interpretation is the most reasonable? And even if you give some of those cockamamie explanations some credence and you say, well, maybe the defenses's is certainly reasonable enough for the jury to--then the jury must adopt that, and if you must adopt it, really where does that leave us? Because, you know, there is another instruction that I submit has some relevance here.

© 1996, 1997  William Schreck   © 1996 Source Interactive Network, LLC. All rights reserved.