Here's the problem, Your Honor.
After Dr. Lee's deposition was taken in September, we filed a motion in limine, number 11, that was precipitated specifically by Dr. Lee's deposition.
His deposition is replete with testimony about how, in effect, he could have done a better job.
Your Honor ruled that to render our motion, and indicated the parameters of your ruling in transcripts which we have cited at various times throughout the trial.
Immediately after that ruling on September 23, I wrote to Mr. Baker's office and I said: "Dear Bob: "If you intend to make any
reference to Dr. Henry Lee in defense's
opening statement, we would request that
you immediately designate those portions
of Dr. Lee's testimony you intend to
offer into evidence."
Going on to explain, this is in light of your -- The Court's ruling September 23.
No response to that letter was received.
On December 1, 1996, I wrote a letter to Mr. Baker, indicating that we had still not received the designation of the portions of the videotaped deposition of Dr. Henry Lee, and we anticipate having to make a number of objections, and would like to receive them.
Okay. No response.
On Monday, in the afternoon, we get the designation. We immediately go to work on it.
We discover that they did not redact or eliminate a single sentence of Dr. Lee's testimony on direct.
They designated the entire direct, except for our objections, which they deleted.
So in their designation, Your Honor, for Dr. Lee's deposition, all of these references are simply to all of the testimony without our objections, the entire direct, as though this Court never entered its ruling.
In other words, they completely disregarded this Court's ruling and paid no attention to it at all, thereby shifting the burden on us to go through this thing line by line, which we did. And at Your Honor's request, we worked late at night to get it done. And we indicated all of our objections to the testimony that they have designated.
And I believe that the Court, unfortunately, because of the way that this was handled, now has to go line by line on the deal.
I'm prepared to meet and confer with Mr. Baker about this, but he has told me he will not meet and confer with me.
I don't know what else to do, Your Honor.
I'm not going to surrender the rights that we have obtained. This was an important motion.
And if you go through the testimony, the first 58 pages of Dr. Lee's deposition are directed to his qualifications, concluding with a statement that he's the world's greatest criminalist. I mean, 58 pages of deposition testimony, that's more than we read in this entire case so far.
And then there is page after page, Your Honor, about how he offered to help the LAPD solve these murders and they declined.
Who cares? It's totally irrelevant.
Then he gives a big lecture.
Mr. Petrocelli, if you can't agree, I said I would go line by line, and I'm ready to do it.
You're not -- you know, I'm just hearing argument on something that's not going to be helpful. If you gentlemen are going to meet and confer, meet and confer.
If you don't want to meet and confer, the only thing I can do is go through and -- and rule line for line and --
Let me offer a suggestion.
In going through this the last hour -- I've gone through about 40 percent of it. I'm prepared to eliminate some of my objections, maybe about 20, 30 percent of them so far.
I'm also prepared to annotate this in a way to make it easier for the Court, so you can see the subject matter of each of these objections.
If we dispense with playing this deposition tomorrow, then you're not under this artificial time pressure, and I can, you know, redo the objections, make it easier for the Court to deal with this, and we can play this video sometime next week.
That would be my proposal.
Your Honor, they've made at least -- before we got a court order going back to take the depositions, two or three motions to preclude the deposition of Henry Lee.
In the objections that were filed by the plaintiffs in this case, the only thing that we could possibly play to the jury, if we adhere to their objections, are the objections by Mr. Medvene.
So they'd hear Dr. Henry Lee, then they'd hear about 45 minutes of objections. Then that would be the end of the tape.
Not terribly probative.
I think that this document is in bad faith. I'm not going to sit down and start with this as a negotiating tool.
Mr. Baker, I don't think it's necessarily in bad faith, because I read the objections; and clearly, there are matters that ought not to be in here, like Dr. Lee's pre-American history, et cetera. Those are matters which I'm going to exclude.
So there are going to be some rulings. And it seems to me that if you're not able to meet and confer on this, we've got to get the show on the road.
Would it be helpful if we dispense with this for tomorrow and I submit my objections? I'm prepared to submit --
It's going to take the rest of the day for me to rule on this, anyway, so -- it's going to be the defense's problem to do the redactions on the videotape, so if they want to work on it all night, that's their business.
We're going to have to prepare a videotape in response. And I guess Your Honor --
First one, Your Honor, just to make clear, the column on the left is Mr. Baker's designation, and the specific line and page reference to which we object are under the heading "Objection."
Okay. Page 11, lines 11 through 14. Okay. Objection sustained.
11, 19 through 11, 22 --
Objection sustained. Irrelevant. Does not go to his professional competence.
All of these objections with regard to background, the Court is sustaining on the basis of the fact that it does not go to the witness's professional competence.
Page 12, 13 -- let's see.
The objection is page 13, lines 10 through 16?
Objection sustained. Background not relevant to the issue.
We seem to be losing our audience.
There's a typo on the next one. It should be 13, 22 instead of 12, 22, Your Honor.
Your Honor, there's no reason to chop up the video because of information -- the background information like that.
That's stricken. Irrelevant background.
14, 24 to 15, line 7, that's stricken. Same reason.
15 -- page 15, lines 15 through 17 --
Judge, what you've stricken -- they'll think he's unemployed for a couple of years because you've taken out where he was employed.
No. Just your question. The answer may remain. Lines 18 through 19 may remain.
20 through -- 15, lines 20 through 16, 18, that may remain.
Peter DeForest was, and is, a criminalist that they designated as an expert, got the Court to allow him to sit in on the deposition, and whose deposition was taken in this case as an expert witness for the plaintiffs, and he sat through the whole two days of it.
Incidentally, Your Honor, would you like a larger text to make it easier to work with?
Background information about what Gerdes is saying about a laboratory and how you have flows.
24, line 7 through 9, 12 through 18, 21, 21, 22 -- I'm sorry, that's 24, line 21 through line 25 may remain.
110 through -- I'm sorry. Page 26, line 10 through page 27, line 21 may remain. Page 27, line 24, page 28, line 1 may remain.
Page 28, line 6 through page 29, line 1 --
That goes directly to his qualifications. The fact that he is so qualified, his representation is so outstanding that he's asked by a governor in another state to get involved in a case.
Also you've excluded on line -- on page 31, unless I misheard you, that he's got 30 to 40 cases pending in other states. That also goes to his qualifications.
On what basis, Your Honor?
Every expert that has been up there has been asked about how many cases they have pending, how many cases they're involved in.
Okay. And then from 31, strike that. Yeah, from 31, line 12 -- line 13 to page 33, line 19, the Court will allow.
I'm sorry. Make that through line 19. 33 line 19. To line 19, the Court will allow.
They're dropping like flies.
MR. P. BAKER: You can't clear the courtroom right now, Judge; it's already clear.
Judge, we're not going to finish tonight. I know that we're not going to be able to play this tonight. He got his way. I understand it.
It's 383 pages. We already got 10 percent of it done. We're not going to finish it tonight. So I surrender.
We'll go through it and we'll take his deals and we'll work over the weekend and we'll get it done.
I mean, I admit defeat. I wanted to play it tomorrow. I admit defeat.
Withdraw your objections and we'll get along with you perfectly.
MR. P. BAKER: We won't be able to play it until after we get back from Christmas break.
You take a day off?
MR. P. BAKER: We have four, five depositions to read tomorrow.
All I have to say for the record, please, at both sides -- all sides have progressed and I don't think anybody's really been dilatory -- hard fought, not dilatory. I appreciate it.
Thank you very much, Your Honor.
MR. P. BAKER: Judge, we're thinking of proposing that if it's possible -- I don't know if we can contact the jurors about going dark tomorrow and depositions are only going to take about 30 minutes, 45 minutes. I can shove it up next week or the week when we return.
They completely disregarded this Court's ruling and paid no attention to it at all, thereby shifting the burden on us to go through this thing line by line.
I admit defeat. I wanted to play it tomorrow. I admit defeat.
Why can't we all get along?
We seem to be losing our audience.
The first 58 pages of Dr. Lee's deposition are directed to his qualifications, concluding with a statement that he's the world's greatest criminalist. I mean, 58 pages of deposition testimony, that's more than we read in this entire case so far.