Mr. Martz, why would it not be relevant to use more blood to determine whether or not you had EDTA from preserved blood?
As I mentioned earlier, it was--it was actually a very easy analysis. It may seem complicated, but it was actually very easy. The stains were taken from approximately the same amount. I always made sure that I took more stain from the questioned sample than I did the known, and as you saw from my charts, it is very easy to differentiate between blood that is preserved with EDTA and blood that is not preserved.
And by taking more stain from the evidence, you would encourage higher readings from the evidence than you would ordinarily if you just took even amounts from the evidence and the reference sample?
And in that way you overcompensate for any variation in size by making sure that the evidence reading is going to be over-represented?
So if anything, the readings that you got in the evidence graphs and chart results that you have overrepresent the amount of EDTA?
Sir, you talked about detection limit. Let me ask you this: Whatever size of bloodstain you take, be it five microliters, ten microliters, whatever, assume it is five microliters, that is very small isn't it?
When you test five microliters of blood, if it is five microliters of blood that comes from a tube containing EDTA-preserved blood, will you detect EDTA?
Yes. It is veer easy to detect. In a stain with a positive ion mode it would even be one/tenth the size of a one-millimeter square, so it would be extremely small size.
And if you run that same sample size, as small as it can be and it is unpreserved blood, will you detect EDTA?
Then what does that tell you about the detectable limit? If your signal is so weak, sir, that it is below the detectable limit in your bloodstain, does that tell you that EDTA has not been identified?
In that respect, sir, is it irrelevant whether or not you use more blood or less blood?
Because even if you use very little blood, EDTA will produce a strong signal if it is present?
Now, Mr. Blasier asked you whether or not you ever called Defense attorneys to advise them of what you tell a Prosecutor about when you work on cases for prosecutorial agencies. Do you recall that?
You indicated, sir, that you were confused by the fact that he wanted to call you as a witness?
Now, sir, as to all of the evidence testing now, with that in mind, I mean the evidence of the blood on the gate, the blood on the sock, did you write reports containing your conclusions and your results and the testing procedures you followed to be provided to the Prosecution and the Defense?
It was probably the end of February, the beginning of March. I don't have the exact date.
Okay. And those reports indicated your conclusion that no EDTA from preserved blood was present in the evidence?
And having provided them by the end of March, sir, if you wanted to prove that EDTA blood--preserved blood was present on the evidence stains, what tests would you conduct?
If you wanted to prove that EDTA-preserved blood, when you have EDTA-preserved blood that the EDTA will break down or degrade when subjected to sunlight, high intensity light, rust, fertilizer or metal or environmental conditions, would you conduct experiments under those conditions to prove that hypothesis?
In your opinion, sir, between the beginning of March, when you turned over your results and now, would there have been ample time to conduct those experiments?
The questions that are being asked are an attempt to shift the burden of proof to show that we have some kind of burden of doing testing, of going forward with testing, when we don't. And these are in the form of argument and comments on our--whether we are doing tests or not, and they are improper.
I'm going to direct the Prosecution to rephrase regarding opportunity and time to do testing. That is what you can ask, whether or not somebody wanted to do this, there was ample opportunity.
And time, not that the Defense had any obligation to do it, so stay away from the Defense. Having the opportunity, just any scientist interested in this.
In view of that, shouldn't we strike what they have already asked? They asked a series of questions along this line to straighten the record out because we don't have an obligation, Judge.
The People's position is that the Defense has proffered this evidence, not the People, and we did not proffer this witness. He is subpoenaed by the Defense and was Dr. Rieders. All privilege has been waived now with respect to any testing they may or may not have done by having called a witness, and actually two witnesses on this issue, so I think it is fair comment.
You are right, it is fair comment in argument that they had the opportunity to do this, they had the resources, they had the people to do it; they didn't do it. That is argument. And I'm going to direct you to rephrase your question in a neutral fashion that any scientist with the appropriate equipment, you know, since the time you completed your test, had the opportunity to do these other tests.
In time, equipment, skill, whatever, they could have done this, anybody could have done this, correct?
Your Honor, while we are here, I would like to be heard on this. Agent Martz told me right after lunch there is ten microliters in each one of these drops. I think he is becoming deceptive by denying that, and I want to state as an officer of the court that is what he told me. Ordinarily the proper way to impeach him would be to call myself as a witness to say that that is what he said. Obviously that presents additional problems. I'm not sure how to deal with that, but I--
Let's not take it up now, because I have a feeling we are not going to finish with Martz this morning--this afternoon because we are--although you are about to finish in about two or three minutes--
I wasn't present for the conversation, but the witness doesn't remember how much he actually used and Blasier asked off-the-cuff informally in Court--
What we will do, the point I was making about the fact that we are probably not going to finish with this guy today is when we take the recess, let the jurors go, because their family visitation is this afternoon, which is why we have to quit at 5:00, we can chat with Agent Martz, so let's not take up the time and talk about it now. All right.
Sir, had a scientist with the equipment of the liquid chromatograph tandem mass spectrometer, if such a person had that equipment, could they, between the beginning of March when you provided your results to the Defense and now, have conducted tests on the socks and on the gate to determine the presence of EDTA-preserved blood?
And in that space of time, sir, could they also have conducted tests involving the use of an internal standard like the one pointed out to you by counsel from Cambridge to quantify the amount of blood being tested in the evidence as well as the reference sample?
They could have quantitated the amount of EDTA. To quantitate the blood they would have had to use a different procedure.
And they could have then quantitated the EDTA present in the evidence and in the reference blood?
Well, when I made the five microliters blood sample I was able to cut it in pieces and determine my minimum detectable amount of bloodstain.
Well, I needed a certain amount of blood in order to determine the minimum--the minimum detectable amount, so I placed a known amount of blood and took a portion of that and tested it.
You were shown People's 544-E--and your Honor, I have informally these. I'm going to ask leave of the Court to label them with handwriting or typing that is better than mine. Okay. These show the photographs of the evidence bloodstain on the gate?
And in this chart you indicated that the 160 was not shown in the full daughter spectrum?
Although you had indicated you detected it you thought in the scan where you were only looking at the daughter 160 on the gate evidence, correct?
What does this signify to you that when you ran the full daughter spectrum to try and achieve 293, 160 and 132 at the same time, you could not do so?
It indicated to me that I could not identify EDTA because I needed those ions to identify EDTA.
And you hypothesized with Mr. Blasier that the 160 was below your detectable limit?
Well, if it is below your detectable limit, sir, then can it be EDTA from preserved blood?
Is that because the signal given--no matter how small the amount of blood, the signal given for EDTA blood is so strong that you should get the full daughter spectrum whenever you run it?
Does that chart have anything to do with the work that you have done and actually obtained the results in in this case?
Is that an accurate depiction of your testimony as it relates to the comparison between the amount of EDTA found in preserved blood versus the amount of whatever substance that is in the evidence stains?
Does this chart, sir, reflect your--accurately reflect your testimony concerning the discrepancy, the dramatic difference between the EDTA signal you got from the reference samples, that means blood from preserved EDTA tubes, and the evidence stains in this case?
Does it accurately reflect any of your testimony, in your opinion, concerning the dramatic difference between the signals you got in the reference sample and the evidence stains?
Now, you recall being shown a square from the sock--there was a chart done by the Defense--
It indicates that 207 was taken from the lower right-hand corner as you face this diagram?
You do not know then whether 207 actually came--came from the area right next to 206?
No. To my understanding it just came from somewhere in that blue area or blue/green area.
Now, when you did the combined testing of 206 and 207, was that in the negative ion mode?
No EDTA was identified in that particular stain and that stain did not come from preserved blood.
Now, sir, you indicated--I'm going to show you the two charts that have been previously marked as People's 543 and 544-F respectively. These are labeled--this is the gate with EDTA blood applied. This is where you put known EDTA blood on the gate swatch.
If the blood recovered from the gate, the evidence blood in this case, were actually blood from the tube with preservative EDTA in it, is this the signal you would expect to get?
And when you tested the actual blood recovered from the gate, the evidence blood, is that the signal you got?
And if you had--and if the blood on the sock had in fact been blood from an EDTA preserved tube, would you have expected to get the signal shown in People's 543-F?
Showing you People's 543-E. This is the--your graph of the evidence blood tested for EDTA on the sock. This is the actual evidence. Is that the result that you got?
And in each case, with respect to the blood recovered from the sock and the blood recovered from the gate, did your test results consistently show from May 19th through May 22nd or 23rd--
--28th, that there was no EDTA preserved blood in the stain on the gate and the stain on the sock?
In all the tests that I performed no EDTA was identified in the stain from the gate or the stain from the sock. Those stains did not come from EDTA-preserved blood.
KEY QUOTEIn all the tests that I performed no EDTA was identified in the stain from the gate or the stain from the sock. Those stains did not come from EDTA-preserved blood.
I have no doubt whatsoever.
This chart does not reflect any of the testing that I did whatsoever.
Agent Martz told me right after lunch there is ten microliters in each one of these drops. I think he is becoming deceptive by denying that, and I want to state as an officer of the court that is what he said.
Could you repeat that, please? / I didn't think you could.