Mr. Yamauchi, could you read off the polymarker types from the exhibits 1191-A and B from both Mr. Fung and Miss Mazzola. Mr. Scheck has got the exhibit there.
And Mr.--would you just go across with Mr. Fung and recite for the jury what their--what his respective types were for those markers?
Okay. So if there are any stains that were typed by Cellmark using a polymarker system that produce any types different than Miss Fung and Miss Mazzola, would that mean that neither of those people could be the source of those stains?
Sure. If any of the stains that were typed by Cellmark using the polymarker system produced results different than the results you have just described for Mr. Fung and Miss Mazzola, Mr. Fung and Miss Mazzola would be excluded as the source of those stains; is that true?
Okay. Could we put up 1191-A, that is the D1S80 results. Mr. Fung had an 18, 28 and Miss Mazzola had a 31, 39; is that true?
Therefore, neither Mr. Fung nor Miss Mazzola could be the source of any stains that have--the sole source of any stains that have a 24 or 25 allele?
Okay. Let's go back to the Henry Lee board. Do you mean to criticize Dr. Lee for what he did in your presence during his examination of those socks?
Are you critical of anything that Dr. Lee did in your presence while he examined the socks, item 39?
Did you have a point in describing your observations that you would down in your notes about Dr. Lee's examination of those socks?
Well, basically he has a good reputation, and he handles evidence in the same fashion that we do.
And in your notes did you hesitate at all in describing the fact that Dr. Lee did not change his gloves during the examination?
What did you--would it help to refresh your--do you remember the exact words that you used to describe your observation about Dr. Lee and changing gloves?
And do you recall what you wrote down at the time you observed Dr. Lee examine those socks?
What did you write down when you saw Dr. Lee examine those socks with regard to the gloves?
Objection to the form of that question, your Honor, particularly in light of the notes. I don't think there are--
My objection in that regard has to do with the point of alleged fabrication, prior consistent--
Mr. Yamauchi, are you part of some conspiracy to unjustly convict Mr. Simpson in this case?
KEY QUOTEMr. Yamauchi, are you trying to cover up the fact that Detective Lange walked around the LAPD SID lab with a pair of smelly Reeboks on June 14th?
Let's cover some specific points very briefly, if you will. When did you do the fitzco card, you know, pipetting the blood out of the reference vial and putting it on the card, with respect to your examination and sampling of the glove?
Okay. Now, do you have a practice with--you've already described how you work on one microcentrifuge tube at a time and then put it in a rack. Do you have a practice at some point with regard to numbering those tubes in the rack?
And is there any reason you would change the order of the tubes that you had previously put in the rack when you did the sampling of the evidence?
When you did your examination of the glove from Rockingham, item no. 9, did you use a stereomicroscope?
Did you change your gloves after you sampled the glove when you touched it with your right hand, when you touched the glove with your right hand, no. 9?
If I touch an item, I will change my gloves before I touch another item or go on and work.
With regard to changing gloves, do you change gloves frequently to avoid sample to sample contamination?
Okay. Do you also change them whenever they might have been contaminated with DNA?
Well, that sounds familiar and it makes logical sense that it would be in there to some extent.
Why did you wear gloves yesterday during the sock examination and display for the jury?
Well, basically there are two reasons, and I think I went over this already why you would wear gloves, and one of them is obviously to protect yourself from contracting any pathogens from any potential evidence, and the other reason is to minimize the risk of contaminating.
Let's talk about the LAPD PCR protocol just for a few moments. Mr. Scheck asked you if there is a section in there--section 15 about the yield gel. Do you recall that?
And he asked you if there is a section in there, this section 16, about doing a slot-blot; is that right?
What is the purpose of having those sections discussing those topics in the protocol?
Well, they are there to explain how step-by-step you would go through that process.
Does the--does the LAPD SID PCR protocol also describe more than one extraction procedure?
And can a forensic scientist get the correct answer, the true answer, without doing either a yield gel or a slot-blot?
Do you recall yesterday Mr. Scheck asked you some questions about section 4, the evidence handling section?
Do you remember that and specifically the topic of receiving evidence for analysis? You recall yesterday the subject category is walk-ins and he asked you to read the section that says: "The only evidence items that will be processed on a walk-in basis will be those items that are received from a detective/officer that has completed a proper transfer of the items into the evidence control unit" and then in parenthesis, "ECU." Do you remember that yesterday?
A walk-in refers to--like I was explaining before, usually we get our evidence from the evidence control unit, but occasionally the detective will have the evidence in his hand and will want it analyzed so he will walk it in. And generally speaking, we will make them go around and book that first. That is, quote-unquote, what a "Walk-in" means.
Not--it is not the same because we have a criminalist that was assigned the case, so in that respect that person could be the--umm, the conduit of the evidence.
Now, in that regard, Mr. Scheck asked you questions about detectives in serology. Are detectives routinely allowed into lab spaces without anybody accompanying them or supervising them?
That would be unauthorized if they are by themselves. They would have to be in--accompanied by an authorized person, which would be one of the criminalists in the lab.
Mr. Scheck asked you a series of questions the other day with respect to Defense exhibit 1181, had to do with some mock vaginal swab sample. Do you recall that?
Okay. And you've described that as a sexual assault case and the reported answer that you provided was a 1.2, 4. Do you recall that testimony?
Yeah. In the "Result" column of the hybridization sheet that is what was written down.
Okay. Do you recall--just to try to demonstrate why you felt that was not an incorrect answer, do you recall what the source of the sperm was, the known source of the sperm was in that case, a 1.2, 1.3?
Could you--well, let's assume hypothetically and then I will put the exhibit up on the board. If you would step up to that board--this is the only drawing I will ask you to do and let's assume that we have a sexual assault case where you have a vaginal swab and the victim's type, the victim's known type, which comes from the epithelial cells is a 1.2, 4. And the source of the sperm for the assailant, the alleged assailant, is a 1.2, 1.3. Okay. And let's assume furthermore that you typed--and I will ask you real briefly to describe the typing process that you engage in--that you typed both of the samples that you produced and the result or the typeable result was a 1.2, 4. Okay? Could you explain the process and why you feel that is not an incorrect answer?
Sure. When you deal with sexual assault cases, I believe I went over this in a little bit of detail, but I will try to clarify it now, what happens is you are presented with a mixture, and that mixture is not always an equal mixture. In fact, there are various degrees of it being a mixture. There can be more semen than vaginal secretions or vice versa. Because for PCR we would be dealing with samples that the conventional serologist who initially looked at the swabs would consider low in sperm count, because we deal with these type of samples that have small amounts of semen on them, we wanted to provide ourselves with some challenging replicas of what these type of sexual cases assault swabs would be. The way we did that was we diluted down semen solutions, and with the epithelial cells, which are the cells that line your mouth, we have those in lieu of actual vaginal secretions, which are very similar cell lines. What happens here is what we have is a differential extraction and that is the process by which we try to separate out these two sets of cells, the epithelial cells from the sperm cells. The problem with this, though, is that this separation is not always complete. In other words, in the fraction that is designated SC, this fraction may contain some representation from the epithelial cells, and vice versa. The SC fraction could contain some cells--I mean the EC fraction could contain some cells from the SC fraction in the representation. So because of this, if I present myself with a swab that is quite challenging and there is not enough of the spermatozoa or the sperm in that sample to get a typing result--
Your Honor, at this point I would move to strike this answer as a narrative and I would move to strike this point as being without foundation as to what the sample did or did not have.
Exactly. If--I was talking about limits of detection. Our test, although very sensitive, does not always have strong enough detection capabilities to detect everything, so if we were presented with a sample, in this case this is the scenario, where I could not detect this particular typing group, which would be the spermatozoa fraction, then what I would be left with would just be the epithelial cell fraction. And that is why, if you look at the strips, you can see the reputation for the strip for the epithelial cell fraction, it was clear and very dark dots. In the sperm cell fraction I had the same representation, and the reason why was because of that phenomena I described earlier dealing with this differential extraction, some of this spills over into this fraction. And so what I was left with was 1.2, 4 in the epithelial cell fraction, dark and clear, and in the sperm cell fraction I had lighter dots, 1.2, 4, and that was an indication to me that this was consistent with the epithelial cell fraction. And if I was reporting that out I would not make a statement on that because it indicates to me that this type is consistent with that, and if it is not foreign to that epithelial cell fraction, no statement can be made. That is not a wrong result, it is something that is expected when given and presented a swab that is challenging. And that very much represents the type of case work that we are presented with.
It sounds like you encounter this phenomena frequently in sexual cases assault cases; is that true?
I just want you to look at it. And is what you have just described that is drawn up on 286 for identification, that is what is represented in 1-V, but the EC, the epithelial cell sample and the SC, the sperm cell sample?
Okay. And it was previously known to the laboratory that in fact the sperm DNA type was 1--
Were these samples typed ahead of time before they would be combined into the mock vaginal swabs?
Now, this differential extraction and epithelial cells, does this have anything to do with the nature of the samples or the tests you performed in this case?
There are no differential extractions performed in this case by myself, and to my knowledge it wouldn't be necessary in any of the other analyses done by any of the other labs.
Mr. Scheck asked you some questions about the danger of cross-contamination, when you process degraded samples along with intact samples. Do you recall that?
And I believe you said you can't tell a sample is degraded until do you the processing; is that true?
And for example, if you were handling old samples, PCR can be done on mummies; is that true?
Okay. If you were handling old samples and new samples, what would your approach be with respect to not knowing whether something is degraded ahead of time?
I would go back to my--my same protocol and procedure where I would do everything separately one by one and not allow any two samples open at the same time.
Okay. Mr. Scheck asked you some questions about a reagent concern that Erin Riley and Greg Matheson dealt with. Do you recall that yesterday toward the end of the day?
Now, from your experience with that, is it true that the negative controls in these kits work the way they were designed to work?
And is it also true that once the problems were addressed that the negative controls showed no further problems?
And Mr. Scheck asked you some questions about validation samples and case work and you said something about occasional anomalous results. Do you recall that yesterday?
Is it true that the reason you knew there were occasional anomalous results was because the negative controls worked?
There has been a lot of discussions about whether or not you sampling items and only working on one tube at a time constitutes processing them separately. Do you remember some of the questions Mr. Scheck asked you about that?
Okay. I would like to ask you a question. Yesterday you said that the extraction process on June 14th took about a hour and a half. Is that your recollection?
Okay. Is it--do you recall the exact sequence that you extracted these samples on the June 14th run?
Yes. Would you please recite for the jury the exact order that you processed the sample that you've already described as having sampled and put in tubes.
Okay. The order is item no. 9, glove, A, B, C, D; item no. 112 which that is a photo item number.
Yes, that corresponds to the item no. 47, red stain and then control; and then item no. 13, photo number, which corresponds to 48, red stain control; item no. 114, which is the photo number which corresponds to 49, red stain and control; item no. 115, which is the photo number, corresponds to no. 50, red stain control; no. 117, no. 52, red stain control; item no. 106, photo number, which corresponds to I believe 41, is it? Let me--
No. 41, red stain control; and then item no. 107 which corresponds to 42, red stain control; item no. 18 which at the time was given to me as the item number, it is--it is item no. 17, O.J. Simpson blood exemplar, blood standard no. 1 and then cloth control, and that is it for that extraction.
So there is approximately an hour and a half between when you began the extraction of the glove and when you extracted Mr. Simpson's--DNA from Mr. Simpson's cutting from the Fitzco card; is that correct?
Okay. And none of these controls caused you any concern about the results that you've already presented to this jury; is that true?
Let's talk about June 15th, if you will. Would you tell the jury the order in which you processed the samples for extraction on June 15th.
Okay. Let's see here. Item number 23, red stain and then control; item no. 25, red stain and then control; item no. 31, red stain and then control; item no. 33, red stain; item no. 34, red stain; item no. 34 control; item no. 12, red stain and then control; item no. 14, red stain and then control; blood exemplar Coroner's, Brown, Simpson Nicole; blood exemplar Coroners, Goldman, Ronald; standard no. 1 and then cloth control.
Okay. Now, is it true that on both the June 14th set of tests and the June 15th set of tests you always alternated between the red stain and the substrate control?
Did you always alternate between the red stain and the substrate control in both the June 14th and 15th runs?
Was there anything about the controls, either the substrate controls, the negative or the positive controls on the June 15th run, which undermine your confidence in the results you've presented to the jury?
Before we move on to the socks, Mr. Yamauchi, has there been anything in Mr. Scheck's questioning of you where you were--
Has there been anything in Mr. Scheck's questioning of you, which included hypotheticals and possibilities, which in any way undermines the confidence that you had when you presented your DQ-Alpha results to this jury?
Okay. Why don't you provide the jury with the explanation you would like to give them on that mixture.
Okay. Once again, it displays a mixture. There is--this is a result that is over that c dot that we talked about, that confidence level, and because of that, that in and of itself would be called, but then there were some other dots that were below the level of that c dot in intensity. They were still distinguishable, but we don't have that confidence level that we use as our standard to call something. Because one of the parts of the whole was not up to the standard that we like to make the call, that is why it had to be labeled inconclusive.
Okay. Let's talk about the socks. Have you had prior experience with processing dark surfaces to try to detect bloodstains?
Dark surfaces tend to hide bloodstains or they make it difficult to visually see them right offhand.
I think we have been through this topic about three times now with various witnesses.
And so when the words "None obvious" were used to describe what was apparent or not apparent on June 29--
On June 29th, when you are in Michele's office looking at the socks, was a stereomicroscope used?
Okay. Was there anything else, other than the naked eye, used to scan those socks?
Is it true that you saw no apparent stained or discolored areas on the socks on that day?
Okay. And if subsequent tests revealed the presence of Mr. Simpson's blood on those socks, you didn't see them either?
You didn't even see stains that were later identified as Mr. Simpson's blood on those socks?
Did you see any stains that have since been identified as coming from Mr. Simpson on either of those socks?
After yesterday's display for the jury did you see any red dust on the paper that was laid out underneath the socks?
This morning did you assist Mr. Matheson in looking at the socks under a stereomicroscope over in the laboratory?
--to look for a latent bloodstain. What I mean by that would be a bloodstain that you can't see with the naked eye. Well, he proceeded and found an area where--
What did you see after Mr. Matheson manipulated the socks under the stereomicroscope?
There appeared to be some--well, more than discoloration, something that looked like it was sticking and adhering to the fibers.
KEY QUOTEMr. Yamauchi, are you part of some conspiracy to unjustly convict Mr. Simpson in this case?
Point: Did not change gloves throughout entire process.
There appeared to be some--well, more than discoloration, something that looked like it was sticking and adhering to the fibers.
I don't strike things that I've overruled.