Back on the record. All parties are again present. Mr. Goldberg, you've reviewed some of the items that Mr. Blasier has presented?
Yes, your Honor. Your Honor, I did want to apologize on the record for the spirited nature of my comments this morning.
Thank you. I did find the transcript references to the Defense hypotheticals. I don't know whether the Court wanted to take a look at those or entertain the possibility of the People asking any questions at all on the subject of EDTA.
Okay. As to the items that counsel now wants to show the Defense, many of these are beyond the scope of this witness' direct testimony and redirect testimony and are also perhaps beyond the scope of his expertise. Evidently, in the a-1 portion of the chart, if the Court has a copy in front of it, and 2-B, what's being depicted there are DQ-alpha results, in other words, DNA results, and showing patterns of inheritance with DNA results. We haven't gone into that at all. In fact, I never mentioned patterns of inheritance at all. The only time that that was gone into is on cross-examination from Mr. Blasier, and I did not even mention it directly, indirectly, in any other way during recross. So it's beyond the scope of his expertise and--
3-C appears to be a statement of the cathodal to anodal pattern of degradation that's suggested by Mr. Saferstein and Sensabaugh. I didn't show this to Mr. Matheson. So I'm not positive whether this is correct because I didn't know whether I was allowed to. But it's possible that I might not have an objection to that because it could be a correct statement or a correct block diagram depicting--
4-D appears to be containing an issue that should be gone into with the DNA witnesses. What is trying to be depicted here is that EAP would be found in red blood cells whereas the cells containing the DNA do not contain EAP. This is something that can be explored elsewhere. I did not mention it in any way during my redirect examination. It's beyond the scope. It's beyond the scope of the witness' expertise.
Okay. This is dealing with DNA results and the like. So again, same objections. Code of ethics, I don't know what the suggestion is here that Mr. Matheson has violated the code of ethics. I don't see anything inconsistent of course with his testimony, and it appears to be argumentative and also, it's hearsay under 721. So I would object to the usage of those provisions. And that it might also necessitate bringing out other provisions of the code of ethics dealing with the reporting of inconclusive results and showing that his reporting of the inconclusive results is in fact consistent with the code of ethics. So it opens up a whole new area that we haven't gone into. As I understand it, your Honor, the remaining items here are simply larger versions of what we've already gone over.
Your Honor, as to a and b, Mr. Goldberg asked on redirect--and I asked the court reporter to provide me with a copy of this. They don't have the full transcript yet. So this is probably not the page number that's going to be on the full transcript. But the question was asked: "Now, when you were testifying on cross-examination, at one point, you said that biological contamination, in other words, contamination of one type of blood with another type of blood would not change the type of the blood that was contaminated? What did you mean? "Answer: Well, you're not going to--the type of blood isn't going to change. It will still be what it always was. That's the nature of the genetic markers that we deal with as a rule. So by introducing another one, it will not change it. It may overpower it or it may degrade it or something else like that, but it will not change it." these two charts are demon--are--I want to ask him questions about that answer and to demonstrate that half of the answer is inaccurate, that you can have it overpowered or degraded like he testified and have a different type show up. Chart number c--
Well, he's already testified about, you get one allele from mom, one allele from dad. We talked about it in the context of EAP and DQ-alpha as well. So you know what the type of the child is by what type of the parent is. And I'm going to ask him some questions about if you mix some blood from person a and person B together, you're going to get a type that's a combination of both of those, which is different from the type of either one of him.
So you're suggesting in these charts that these mixtures are actually mixtures of bodily fluids?
And chart no. 3-C is--that's simply the degradation chart with--that's exactly what he testified to that Saferstein says, is there's one other route of degradation that would give you just the higher B band. The red blood cell chart, that's just straight science. I'm sure Mr. Matheson knows that EAP is found in red blood cells that don't have any DNA. Chart no. 5--
Well, because--the relevance is, you can't--you can do all sorts of other tests other than EAP and you're never going to be able to rule out that the EAP came from someone who was a B. The other tests won't allow you to do that. You have to--the only way to do that is to retest the EAP. And chart no. 5 is simply to show that if you have fingernail scrapings, they are going to contain material obviously from the person whose fingernails they are, including skin cells--the fingers are made up of cells, the fingernails are made up of cells, and they contain DNA. And you can--
All right. As to the hypothetical questions, you want to direct my attention, Mr. Goldberg, to the location in the transcript?
Your Honor, while you're waiting, it doesn't appear that you're going to get to the next two witnesses this morning. May I release them? One? Two? Anybody.
And, Mr. Goldberg, you want to direct my attention to which one we're talking about?
"Mr. Blasier: Hypothetically, Mr. Matheson, if blood from this case from an evidence item such as from the back gate showed the presence of a chemical EDTA, would you agree that it is consistent with it possibly coming from a reference vial?" then there's an objection: "That's an improper hypothetical. It's inconsistent with the known facts. "Overruled. "Witness: As you stated it, if it was present and if it was able to be identified in it, it is possible that it could have come from some type of reference sample that previously contained EDTA."
So you want to ask the hypothetical assuming the same facts except no EDTA is found?
Yes. And then there was actually a second hypothetical which I also objected to in a similar vein.
And I would object to that hypothetical for lack of foundation, the foundation being that testing can only determine whether something--can only detect something that's there. If they get no results on a test, that doesn't mean it's not there. If he modifies it to that extent, then I have no problem with it.
All right. But Mr.--what's the good faith basis of your offer, Mr. Goldberg, that there's no EDTA in--
The good faith basis of my offer is that in reading the FBI report, that's what it says. That is what the verbal description of their testing says.
KEY QUOTEOkay. I'll phrase it almost identically to what the Defense did except "not," having the words "not."
And for the record, I'm prepared to state what my good faith basis for asking that question was. And that is that our experts have looked at the FBI results and have said it is present.
No. I assumed, given the nature of our discussions and the other things that have gone on, that you had a good faith basis for asking that.
That appears to be so too. But let's take that up after we finish with the jury this morning.
Sort of peeked my interest as well. All right. Deputy Magnera, let's have the jurors, please.
KEY QUOTEI did want to apologize on the record for the spirited nature of my comments this morning.
I want to ask him questions about that answer and to demonstrate that half of the answer is inaccurate, that you can have it overpowered or degraded like he testified and have a different type show up.
The good faith basis of my offer is that in reading the FBI report, that's what it says. That is what the written description of the testing says.
Our experts have looked at the FBI results and have said it is present.
Sort of peeked my interest as well.