All right. Let's have it quiet, please. Mr. Goldberg, I'm sustaining the objections because this is not the witness to testify to EDTA testing.
Well, I agree with that, your Honor, and I agree that it would have been appropriate to have sustained the objections to the questions that I asked. But I also believe that the objections to the questions that they asked exactly along this line, and the hypothetical they gave exactly along this line where they stated that there was no EDTA and if there was no EDTA would that indicate that it came from the blood vial and the witness answered yes, should have been sustained and they weren't. And under the doctrine that we have discussed before of curative admissibility and the open-the-door issue, and this isn't even open the door, I objected to them. My objections were overruled. The People should be allowed to go into this. The jury should not be left with the impression that there is a factual basis and a good faith basis for counsel's questions when they know that they are contrary to the testing that was performed by the FBI. And if the Court would like, we can go and try and find the exact questions, and there were a series of them, that were asked by the Defense in the record.
We strenuously object. Mr. Goldberg just acknowledged that he asked questions that he knew were improper, and every time even does he turned to face the jury, and you can tell from the first three words that they were improper and he knows they were improper and he is experienced enough to know that. We object to that. The hypotheticals we objected, you overruled the objections, and we were allowed to ask the hypothetical. You have sustained all these questions. We would ask that some appropriate sanction be imposed because he continues to ask these questions.
Mr. Goldberg, any response? I am concerned about your admission that you knew that those questions were improper.
Your Honor, wait a minute. I have always tried to be very candid with the Court, and in instances such as the staple issue, I told the Court exactly what I was thinking. It would be intellectually dishonest for me to say that giving a hypothetical to a witness of facts relating to testing that he doesn't know of would be a proper hypothetical question, but the Court also knows that I have disagreed about a lot of the hypothetical questions that have been given by the Defense and by both sides. And what I am saying is that the Court apparently has a different view than I do as to the propriety of certain hypothetical questions, and I am practicing law in this Court under your Honor's rules. And if the Court allowed, and you did allow them, to ask what now Mr. Blasier is by implication admitting he knew to be improper, because he asked the same series of questions that I did, with one distinction, and that is that he knew that there was no good faith basis for his questions, and he knew that they were contrary to the testimony that is eventually going to be introduced, then I believe under the rules as your Honor has set them forth--and your Honor does have discretion on this. I'm not saying the Court is wrong.
Wide discretion. If the Court has--has found in the proper exercise of its discretion that they can ask the question, then I can ask the question. That does not mean that I personally, as an advocate, think that either side should have been allowed to ask, but it means under the rules that have been imposed here by your Honor using the discretion that is inherent with this court, that I believe that that was a proper question with respect to the rules that have previously been made on that issue.
The problem I have with your hypothetical, Mr. Goldberg, is that they bring in as hearsay EDTA testing results. That is the problem.
But the only EDTA question that appears to be proper in this line of question is how much is the standard amount of EDTA in one of these vacutainers and how much would that add to the blood volume in this case, but apparently nobody wants to ask. That is the only obvious question that this jury is interested in hearing. And I don't know if you are watching the jury at all, but they are rolling their eyes every time we get to the fifth or sixth question that has been reasked and asked again, and this dueling hypothetical questions is really argument at this point, counsel.
KEY QUOTEI don't know if you are watching the jury at all, but they are rolling their eyes every time we get to the fifth or sixth question that has been reasked and asked again, and this dueling hypothetical questions is really argument at this point, counsel.
It would be intellectually dishonest for me to say that giving a hypothetical to a witness of facts relating to testing that he doesn't know of would be a proper hypothetical question.
The only EDTA question that appears to be proper in this line of question is how much is the standard amount of EDTA in one of these vacutainers and how much would that add to the blood volume in this case, but apparently nobody wants to ask.
He knew that they were contrary to the testimony that is eventually going to be introduced, then I believe under the rules as your Honor has set them forth — and your Honor does have discretion on this. I'm not saying the Court is wrong.