All right. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Please be seated. Miss Montgomery, would you please resume the witness stand.

Your Honor, we had two additional films that should be included in the--

Hold on just a second.

Sorry.

Good morning again, Miss Montgomery. You are reminded you are still under oath. And Mr. Harmon I'm sorry, I thought you had completed your direct examination.

We noticed there were two additional films so we should go up to t then, 275-T.

All right. 275-T. Mrs. Robertson do you have that?

Good morning, Mr. Blasier.

Good morning, your Honor.

You may commence your cross-examination.

CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. BLASIER

Miss Montgomery, good morning.

Good morning, Mr. Blasier.

Good morning.

THE JURY: Good morning.

Miss Montgomery, when Mr. Harmon was asking you questions about various stains, he was describing the locations where those stains were purportedly obtained from. Do you remember that?

Yes.

Now, you have no personal knowledge if those descriptions were accurate, do you?

No. As I stated, I--Mr. Sims looked at the samples that came into the lab and then I did the analysis for D1S80.

Of course he doesn't have any personal knowledge either, does he? He was not out at the scene collecting evidence?

No, he was not.

And nobody from the Department of Justice to your knowledge was out there actually collecting and preserving evidence, correct?

Correct.

And so you have no way of personally verifying that the evidence was collected properly or processed properly before it came to your lab; is that correct?

I was not at the crime scene, no.

Correct.

Okay. I want to ask you a couple of questions about your notes. Your notes were provided to us in discovery, were they not?

Yes, they were.

Now, you write your notes in ink?

Yes, I do.

And all of your pages are numbered sequentially, are they not?

Yes, they are.

You number those as you go along, correct?

Yes, I do.

And when you are done with a block of pages, you go back and actually put page 2 of 70, page 3 of 70, page 4 of 70, do you not?

Well, when I go back, since I number them at the time I'm making the notes, what I do is I go back and I count how many total pages. You know, in this case there was over a hundred pages just for my analysis, and so I will just write "Of" or "Slash" with the total on the bottom.

And that is so that you can ensure in your own mind that you are accounting for all of your work papers, correct?

Correct.

And anybody else that is looking at your work papers can tell how many pages there are supposed to be, how many pages there are?

Right.

And your handwriting is pretty easy to read, is it not?

I find it easy to read.

When you make a correction, you don't erase anything, you line it out, you put your initials on it, correct?

Right.

And that is all standard laboratory procedures at the Department of Justice, is it not?

Yes, it is.

Those are just good techniques that you have learned as a criminalist, correct?

Well, actually I learned them prior to being a criminalist, yes.

And in fact you don't even leave any space at the bottom of a page, you draw a box or an "X" if you finished something and there is still room on the page, correct?

I like to try to do that. There are occasions when I don't. It is just to let me know that nothing else has been written on that page at that time.

And is it accurate to say that one of the reasons for all of these safeguards that you use is so nobody can come in and change your notes or add something without you knowing about it?

Well, no. I think it is more for--first of all, the numbering is so I know how many pages there are and the order of my notes and also then when I get into court, so I can easily refer to a certain page and see the sequence of events, and as far as crossing out, it is just so I am aware that nothing else was written on that page that day and just ending the page.

Is it accurate that one of the ideas of doing your notes as thoroughly as you do is that at some point in the future when you may get called to court you want to be able to sit down and reconstruct everything important that you did on a particular case?

Yes.

And furthermore, another important reason for doing it that way is that if for some reason you had changed employment or changed professions or something like that, another analyst could sit down with your notes and basically reconstruct everything you did on a particular test?

Correct.

Would you agree that it is not good procedure for you, if you get called into court, to have to say you don't remember something because you didn't write it down?

Well, it depends on what that is.

Any important steps that you do in a particular test, if you say I don't remember because I didn't write it down, that is not very effective on your part, isn't it?

Objection, it is irrelevant.

Sustained.

Miss Montgomery, I want to ask you just a few questions about your background. Mr. Harmon asked you about undergraduate courses that related to DNA and I didn't think you said any. Was I accurate in that?

Yes. I think I jumped right into post-graduation courses. I didn't discuss the courses that I took as an undergraduate, but some of those courses were biochemistry in which DNA was discussed. Also in my environmental toxicology courses DNA was discussed in several of those courses.

In what context?

In the context of, umm, like mode of action, how chemicals reacted on humans or animals, and so it was discussed on how the DNA was affected by certain chemicals in the environment or that were produced by chemical companies.

Did anything in your undergraduate background cover forensic applications of DNA technology?

No.

Now, you indicated in--now, did any of your graduate courses involve forensic applications of DNA technology?

Well, as far as graduate courses, there was only--well, actually two of the courses I took post graduation I received graduate units for. The others were under--upper division courses but not graduate courses. And the ones that I obtained graduate units were the FBI academy class, through the University of Virginia, and that was six units of graduate course and that was the forensic application of DNA technology and also the laboratory course. And then also one unit of graduate--one unit of graduate level units was given in the DNA sequencing course through the University of Northern Colorado.

Now, your genetics course in 1992 at Cal State Hayward, that didn't deal with forensic applications of DNA technology, did it?

No.

Umm, how about your two semesters in molecular biology at Berkeley, `92 and `93, did that deal with forensic applications of DNA technology at all?

I'm not quite sure if it went over--the instructor of the course had an interest in forensics and application of DNA technology to forensics, but I don't recall if he actually had a lecture on it or not.

Now, that particular course, I think you indicated that there was no hands-on work in that course?

That's correct.

Your training at Quantico, did that involve any study or applications or case work dealing with D1S80?

I believe they talked about AMP-FLPS, the amplified fragment length polymorphisms, in the PCR section, but the course was not devoted to D1S80 analysis, but they did talk about the PCR technique.

But specifically it related to D1S80. That wasn't really a focus of that course, was it?

It was not the focus of the course.

Did you have any hands-on work at all at the Quantico course?

Yes, I had hands-on.

Any involving D1S80?

No.

Any involving DQ-Alpha?

Yes.

And how much hands-on work did you have there?

Half of the course was devoted to the laboratory aspect of DNA analysis and the other half was devoted to lectures, so, oh, approximately two weeks, maybe a little less than two weeks in total of that four weeks was devoted to the laboratory aspect of DNA analysis.

And approximately how many individual tests did you do at that time, just approximately?

Oh, I don't recall.

More than three?

No, I can't imagine it was more than three.

Now, your statistics course in the fall of `93 at Berkeley, did that have anything to do with the forensic applications of DNA technology?

No, but that instructor was also interested in the application of forensics and how statistics was applied to forensic issues and so he would discuss in passing just some of the forensic applications and how statistics related to that.

And how about your course in DNA sequencing in the summer of `94 at the University of Colorado, was this dealing with forensic applications of DNA technology?

Well, the instructor of that course was Dr. Steve Lee and he is a researcher at our laboratory and so he did discuss forensic applications, but the focus of the class was DNA sequencing, just in general.

My classroom--my formal classroom training?

And these courses that we have talked about in Colorado, Berkeley?

Yes. As far as the formal classroom training, the credited or I guess I should say credited, not formal, those involve just the theory, but then the courses that I took that weren't credited, such as the course through the California Criminalistic Institute on PCR, that was devoted to DNA analysis and its forensic aspects.

Now, you listed some of the courses that you took under general criminalistics, and I wrote those down as basic microscopy, zone electrophoresis, sexual assault, low explosives, clandestine labs, arson investigations and basic serology. Was that--that is a pretty complete list?

Yes. I--I believe that is the extent.

Would you agree that all of those, with the exception of perhaps zone electrophoresis, deal with things other than forensic applications of DNA technology?

Correct.

And your 1989 course in crime scene investigations that you took in eureka, did that have anything to do with DNA technology?

No, it was a crime scene investigation course, so reconstruction and collection of evidence.

I'm sorry?

I'm done.

And your firearms safety course in `89, that didn't have anything to do with DNA, did it?

No.

Do you have any publications that deal with DNA technology?

No, I don't.

Now, when you went to work at Modesto in 1988, that was an--that was an arm of the Department of Justice?

Yes. Modesto is a satellite laboratory, it is a full service criminalistic laboratory.

And you were there for three years?

Right.

Did you do anything relating to forensic applications of DNA technology during that three years?

But you had no practical experience at all?

No.

Now, when you went to Stockton in 1991, again you were doing things other than DNA--forensic applications of DNA technology, correct?

Correct.

So that didn't provide you with any relevant experience to what you are doing now?

Relative--

Well, as far as DNA analysis, that's correct.

Okay. Now, finally, in 1992 you moved to the DNA lab in Berkeley?

Right.

When you moved there, did you go there with the intention of working in forensic DNA technology areas?

Yes, I did. The field was changing from conventional serology to DNA analysis, and since I was very interested in DNA analysis from early on, I decided the best place to gain more experience and to actually work with the technology was at the Berkeley laboratory.

And at what point did you get assigned--you were put in charge of setting up the D1S80 program?

Two individuals; myself and Richard Showalter were--worked together in the development of a system, the D1S80 system.

And had--when was that about, approximately?

That was--I believe Richard started it in June--the summer of `94, so I think he began around June with the technique and then when I got back from the FBI academy I worked with him and we worked together in the development of that system.

When you were assigned that responsibility, had you ever done a D1S80 test?

Done a--

D1S80 test?

No, I had not.

Your Honor, perhaps this might be a good time.

All right. Ladies and gentlemen, we are going to take our break for the lunch recess. Please remember all my admonitions to you. Don't discuss the case among yourselves, don't form any opinions about the case, don't conduct any deliberations until the matter has been submitted to you, do not allow anybody to communicate with you with regard to the case. We will stand in recess until 1:00 P.M. all right. Miss Montgomery, you may step down. You are ordered to return at 1:00 P.M.