Good afternoon, Mr. Deedrick. Mr. Deedrick, do you prefer to be called agent Deedrick or Mr. Deedrick?
Okay. That is what we will use then. You have testified, I believe, that you have handled about 4000 cases, as you sit here, since becoming a hair and fiber examiner at the FBI laboratory?
Can you tell me when it was that you first went over the thousand mark? At what point in your career?
Well, do you do any kind of annual reports that indicate what your activity has been during a calendar year?
Well, can you tell me approximately how many cases you have done per year since you became an examiner?
Well, probably the average was around thirty cases plus probably per month, so over 300 cases per year probably on an average.
Now, your duties have changed twice, I believe, since you became an examiner. First you became in charge of training sometime in the eighties?
Well, I had--that actually was just an added duty. It didn't detract from my case load. I still got plenty of cases to work.
All right. So your handling of cases remained consistent despite that additional chore?
Excuse me, gentlemen. You are both going to have to finish to allow the other to finish speaking.
After I was officially assigned as unit chief in hairs and fibers, yes, my case load dropped, so I don't handle many cases any more.
Well, they are distributed on the basis of expertise, length of service, how quickly they can turn a case around, type of examiner they are. It depends upon the individual. Cases are assigned based on those reasons.
Well, they are--they come into the unit chief or acting unit chief and that person then will assign the cases to a specific examiner to look at.
Does that mean if you are present you will do the assignment, and if you are not, you have a deputy who carries out that function?
Well, Robert Framm is the next one in line as far as time in the unit. He has got about six or seven years, and I normally have him do it, but it could be any other individual in the unit who is an examiner, qualified examiner.
Well, the section chief, James Kearney, asked me to work it when it came into the laboratory.
Okay. Let me ask you a few questions about your background, Mr. Deedrick. Have you written any papers for journals connected to the profession of forensic science?
I've written a couple articles regarding feather identification, but nothing regarding hair and fiber.
You were trained in feathers by a lady from North Carolina who specializes in that?
And that is the comparison of feathers, known and unknowns, as you have described it here, relating to hairs?
Well, I like to teach all the new people a little bit about it just so I can expose them to it as a potential type of evidence they may encounter.
Have you written a paper in a fine publication having to do with determining sex from the examination of fibers?
I have. I guess I was a co-author on that, regarding sex determination of forcibly removed human hairs, yes.
Are there any associations or professional societies devoted strictly to hair and fiber experts?
Well, there are a couple organizations that have been established over the past few years that deal specifically with fiber identifications and fiber examinations. There is a European fibers group and there is also the technical working group for fiber examiners in the United States, but for the most part, most scientific associations deal with all the various phases of forensics, none specifically dedicated to hair and fiber that I know of.
What would you say is the leading association of forensic scientists in this country?
Have you ever written any publications for the journal of the academy of forensic science known as the journal of forensic science?
Okay. What publications do you regularly read that track the developments in this area of the profession?
Well, we have a forensic science information resource center in the laboratory that sort of tracks all the different documents and articles and journals that--that are published on a monthly basis, either in the American academy or forensic science, which is the journal of forensic science, used to be the journal of forensic science society, and there are a number of other forensic journals that come through. The microscope by the Macrone Institute and there are also forensic publications, books that come out, forensic science handbook and others that we refer to periodically.
All right. Which of these, if any, do you review on a regular basis when the articles pertain to your specialty?
Well, all of the journal of forensic science articles that come out are circulated, as well as again--I don't recall what the new name for the forensic science society is in England, but all of those come through on a routine basis.
Okay. Is this a matter of routine? When these articles come out and they arrive at the laboratory, you will review them?
And have you reviewed any number of studies that have been published, for instance, in the journal of forensic science?
Okay. Can you tell me what would be the average number of pieces of materials that would be involved in a case, as such, this being a case?
Do you recall testifying earlier that it may be hundreds, a hundred or more pieces in a case?
Right, it could. I mean, I have had cases with thousands of items, but if you took all the--all of the cases across the board and did an average on--an all of the cases, we get a lot of cases that are pretty small, so it is probably ten to twenty. Twenty might be--is probably correct.
Okay. What is the work routine in your laboratory? How many days a week are you there, when you are not traveling?
Yeah. The normal workday is five days a week, Monday through Friday, and it is a ten-hour day for all the examiners, so it is supposed to be 9:00 to 5:30. We get in about 6:40 in the morning and close up shop around 5:30.
What percentage of a ten-hour day would you say you spend at the comparison microscope on an average day?
Well, each examiner has a little different method, depending on how they work. Some people are morning people and some people are afternoon people. I've always been a morning person in terms of looking through the microscope, so I will spend perhaps from seven o'clock to noon steady doing microscope work, and after that point I find that my eyes get tired because it is a strain, and I do mostly administrative work, reading and try to do some miscellaneous work, but heavy scope work is morning.
So I guess what you are telling us is that when you are in the laboratory you probably average five hours a day at the comparison microscope looking at various materials, known and unknown?
All right. Is it fair to say that you probably work, taking out weekends, holidays and so forth, about 250 days a year?
I have never really thought about that, but there are a number of days this we get off, yes, work holidays and weekends.
Okay. When you testify in a case you necessarily spend some time in preparation with the lawyers and others who have called you and asked you to appear, correct?
Has anybody ever put you on the witness stand without talking to you about what you were going to say?
You just get called in the door, introduced to the lawyer and pile on the stand, is that it?
You spent quite a bit of time in the preparation for your testimony in this case, have you not?
Would you give us, including travel time, an estimate of the number of hours that you have spent getting ready to testify here in this case?
Okay. First give me the number of hours that you have spent preparing, and if that includes some of the time you were on the airplane, please include that, too, assuming that you are flying back and forth?
I probably spent a good ten days or maybe a little less than ten days in direct contact with the Prosecutor, with the D.A.'s office, in preparation for the case. As far as office time preparation, it took a while to prepare some photographs and also to have the charts made by the special projects section. It is difficult to say, but there has been quite a bit of time in preparation for this case.
Okay. Can you tell me the average length of time involved away from your facility when you testify in a case?
Yeah. Well, an average testimony you will probably go out the day before, testify, and I try to get back that same day of the testimony, so one day out overnight, so two days.
All right. But if the case is some distance away, such as this coast or Alaska, it may be considerably longer than that?
Would you say that the average that you spend when you have to testify in a case, including your preparation, your appearance in court and whatever waiting around you have to do for whatever reason while the trial is in progress, would average two days perhaps?
All right. So with the 400 cases in which you've testified prior to coming here, it would be 800 days that you were not present in the laboratory?
Well, I don't--well, I don't know if that is the average or not, but I mean, when you consider a lot of testimony are non-travel testimony. A lot of them are in the District of Columbia, so it is just walk down the street and testify. I have testified in Fairfax County a few times, a lot of--I consider testimonies, depositions. We get a lot of depositions. People travel to Washington and take a deposition, so I included those, not just travel testimonies.
These were not trials then, as you said before? Some were merely the giving of a deposition?
Can you give us any help there as between the time you give a deposition and the times you appeared in a Judge in a courtroom with or without a jury?
Okay. Now, a few moments ago you thought it quite reasonable to estimate that the average testimony was a two-day affair. Do you wish to change that?
Well, I have--you know, the testimony--I have testified on Saturday. I have testified on holidays.
Okay. You alluded to the exhibits that were obviously prepared for the case of People against O.J. Simpson. Is it fair to say that this is a rather larger number of exhibits than you normally use in a criminal case?
Is it fair to say that it is probably the largest number of exhibits that you ever prepared for your testimony in a criminal case?
Normally you don't bring anything this elaborate to the courtroom with you, do you?
Well, that is not--normally I don't think that is correct. Anytime that I make a fiber association any more, even hairs, I will be photographing. It is not something we used to do years ago, but I felt this could be quite beneficial as far as being able to show what--what I look at and what I associate. So I--it is very common for me and for the unit to go out on a trial and take charts of any associations, but not often do we have this many associations.
Are those charts in other cases generally made up for that case or are they generic and illustrative, such as you use for teaching?
No. Well, both. Some--some make up charts for training purposes, education, and a lot of the others are prepared from fiber associations or hair associations.
And how many of your cases have you made up boards of random hairs, known hairs, et cetera, similar to those which you have used here?
Well, I've done this before in a couple major homicide investigations in the State of Virginia and in Alaska, I used boards in those two cases, and there may have been a couple others.
Okay. Is it a fair statement, based on your extensive experience within the FBI, that the bureau takes a good deal of pride in the quality of its work.
We--we try to hire the best people and try to train them as best we can and hope that they put out a good work product.
And you like to show, particularly since you have become section chief, a good level of performance among those working under you, do you not?
I understood you to explain on direct examination that your examiners are subjected about twice a year to blind internal testing.
No, no. The proficiency tests are routinely prepared by the unit chief or designee. I have not been involved in preparing proficiency tests except for the past couple years.
Okay. Now, did I understand you to say that all the examiners pass all of the tests all of the time?
Well, in 1986 it started and in going back through all the records there hasn't been a problem since 1986, so--
Mr. Deedrick, if you test a class and everybody gets a hundred, what does that tell you?
KEY QUOTEIn a properly difficult test would you not expect that there would be some misses?
Well, I think they are properly difficult enough. The tests are designed in such a way to simulate actual case work type experience. That is, questioned hairs are recovered at a crime scene, known hair standards are submitted. The question is could any of these questioned hairs could have originated from any of the known standards? And many of the tests are designed that way and it is up to the examiner to make a decision as to whether they exhibit the same characteristics or not based on their experience.
Do you follow reports of other kind of tests that are taken or given to other groups of experts in your specialty?
Well, I have--I have helped the collaborative testing services prepare tests for other crime laboratories where I have provided the test samples for them and prepared the tests. But as far as hairs, there aren't a whole lot of hair tests that are submitted annually around the country.
All right. What other crime laboratories have you visited that have specialty sections such as your own for doing hair and fiber examination and comparison?
I have been to San Diego, some of the major cities. I don't recall all of the different labs that I have been to. Some do several things. Some crime laboratories have a unit that may do other things and not just hairs and fibers. There are major crime labs in North Carolina, Florida, and also in New York that they may specialize in some hairs as well, hair and fiber and not do other things.
No, I have not gotten to that point yet where I've evaluated their testing standards.
Are you familiar with the methodologies that are used in laboratories other than your own?
I have worked or at least spoken with Barry Gaudette with the Royal Mounted Police crime laboratory and we don't have routine contact as to what they are doing or what we are doing. We may meet--the groups may meet at either symposia or academy--American academy meetings, but--
Well, the English, again that would--the European group, European fibers group is a good way for different laboratories to discuss their techniques, their methodologies and the studies that they are currently involved with. With regards to hairs--well, I am not really sure how far they go in Europe with hair examinations. For instance, the English didn't do hair examinations and after the mid-eighties I believe they started working with hairs more.
Have you been in their laboratories or talked with any of their examiners as to how they go about their duties?
You are familiar, of course, with a book written by John Hicks and published by the FBI had 1977 entitled "Microscopy of hair"?
Has the technology changed in any meaningful way since this book was published, to your knowledge?
Well, I think there have been some major advances in the examination of hairs beyond simple microscopy. We are doing--we have done sex typing of forcibly removed human hairs. I don't believe there is anything in there on that. We have--we have involved the analysis of tissue surrounding the root of forcibly removed hairs to do DNA testing. We are engaged in a research project right now and probably will implement this year, the analysis of DNA sequencing of human hair shaft, so yes, we have moved forward a little bit; we just haven't gotten around to revising that manual.
Okay. There have not been efforts in the past to make more precise the comparison of human hairs?
Well, that could have been sixties or seventies. I'm not really sure when--when the technique was first applied, but it is a technique where the hair is exposed to radiation and then by measuring the half lives of the elements present in the hair shaft it is possible then to determine what kind of elements are present. And it was a way that scientists thought that they could show that one person's hairs have these elements and another person's hairs have these elements so that they can differ and you can see differences. And the idea was if you associated a hair to an individual, they should have the same elements and this was their purpose.
No, it kind of fell flat and they haven't really pushed neutron activation analysis in years.
Well, the Japanese have had more success with ABO blood group of hairs than we have in the United States. On occasions there have been some problems with certain blood groups being very inconsistent. That is, by tapping the hair you could determine what the blood group was of the individual, but there have been some problems and inconsistent results with I believe the a group, if I'm not mistaken, but the Japanese have had some success.
What about the medullary index defined by Houseman some years ago? Are you familiar with that?
Leon Agustus Houseman, yes. Houseman and others attempted to take measurements of hairs such as how wide the medulla was in relationship to the thickness of the hair and they were trying to determine if that was significant, that is, if you associated a hair--if the index was--was a certain number, then that was significant. Over the years they have done a lot of things. They have tried a lot of different things to try to get away from having somebody tell you that I looked at these hairs and they looked the same microscopically. They all wanted some measurement. They want something that they can hold on to without ever having to look at the hair and see these numbers are the same, so they must have come from the same person, but medullary index being one of those, hasn't--
No, I didn't. I've read crime investigations of his and some of his other publications, but I never met him.
Do you remember the studies he conducted trying to see if the count of the number of scales in a hair shaft could be of significance in the identification?
Right, right. He did scale count as well as refractive index testing where he indicated that--that females have a certain refractive index in their hair and males have another one, and it was another way of distinguishing males and females based upon refractive index. And when I say "Refractive index," it is just if--how the hair interacts with the light, and it is like fibers do the same thing, how they interact with light in a particular medium, how they bend the light or change the directionality of the light. But scale counts, medullary index, refractive index, none of those are used.
Well, believe it or not, all of those techniques, besides the neutron activation analysis, all of those are considered when the hairs are compared, that is, how--how much contrast the hair has in a mounted state, how--how big the scales are, how thick the medulla is. All of these--these things are looked at and evaluated, but we don't assign a number to them and that is what they tried to do.
Now, I think you said that sex determination from hairs was something that had arisen since the publication of this book?
Well, I can't even recall exactly what they said about sex typing. Perhaps if you could read to it me.
No, we don't, and there is a reason for that, because--because of the other information that can be derived through DNA.
Well, cross-sections are done--optical cross-sectioning is common for hair examinations. That is, by focusing up and down on the hair one can get an idea about the shape of the hair. You can also see in--from a stereo binocular examination you can see the shaft configuration or the shape, but it is not common for us to take a hair off a slide and make a section of it, actual section.
Now, in your direct testimony you indicated the use of scanning electron microscopy with respect to fibers?
Okay. All right. As compared to fingerprint identification or foot impression identification, or the identification of projectiles fired by weapons, this is a much more subjective science, is it not?
The courts have never recognized hair examinations as a positive means of identification and we don't either.
KEY QUOTEAnd with regards to bullet comparisons, shoeprint comparisons or fracture--fracture comparisons, with fingerprints, yes, all those you can make positive associations.
That's right. Is it also fair to say, Mr. Deedrick, based on your experience within the profession, that each of the failed efforts that we just finished discussing was an effort to reach higher on the scale of certainty to improve on the old technique of comparison by microscope?
Yes. Now, do you find that examiners in other facilities, which have laboratories similar to yours, at least in some respects, have the same amount of success in periodic testing that your examiners do? That is, a common result, that everybody passes every test?
No, I don't know. I don't know what failure rate or success rate these other laboratories have with regards to hairs.
Have you read any studies where it was attempted to be shown that examiners could consistently independently come up with similar results?
All right. Let me rephrase it. Everything that is truly a science involves some kind of repeatable phenomena, correct?
So that if you compare two hairs and say they could have come from the same source, you would expect other persons to look at the same two hairs, without being privy to your opinion, and come up with the same result, if they were competent, correct?
All right. Now, my question is, do you know of any studies conducted by responsible laboratories and professionals where that idea has been tested?
Well, the only one I can think of would be the Gaudette studies and there was some independent comparisons done there. I can't recall any others specifically.
Did you read in 1989 in the journal of forensic science that you review each month, when it relates to your profession, the Wickenheiser and Hepworth study?
Objection, your Honor. This is going to hearsay now. The witness is not familiar with it.
Is it fair to say that in 1989 you were reading the articles about hair and fiber in the journal of forensic sciences?
The courts have never recognized hair examinations as a positive means of identification and we don't either.
We are still relying on the old eyeball, that's right.
Mr. Deedrick, if you test a class and everybody gets a hundred, what does that tell you?
That's correct. All of those techniques... are considered when the hairs are compared... but we don't assign a number to them and that is what they tried to do.