Yes, Your Honor. PHILLIP VANNATTER, called as a witness by and on behalf of the defendant, having been duly sworn, was examined and testified as follows:
And that's a document, a copy of which has been handed to me, which consists of the affidavit itself, consists of two and a half pages -- two and a quarter pages, actually.
In the affidavit, you indicated the following: "detectives observed what appeared to be human blood, later confirmed by scientific investigation personnel to be human blood, on the driver's door handle of the vehicle." Did you write that, sir?
When did scientific investigation personnel tell you that it was human blood on the door handle?
objection; irrelevant. Your Honor, counsel is trying to back-door a motion to traverse and quash, and as we've indicated earlier, nothing pursuant to the WARRANT is being offered. In order to get into issues concerning the validity of the warrants, something has to be offered by the people that was seized pursuant thereto, and it's not. The state of mind of this officer at the time he wrote the warrant is irrelevant to the state of mind that he had that bore upon his decision to go over the wall. And none of these questions concerning the veracity or the accuracy of the statements contained in this affidavit are relevant.
Yes. Your Honor, we are only offering this for impeachment as it goes to credibility of this witness. Your Honor is going to have to make a decision on credibility regarding whether or not the testimony that has been proffered here to Your Honor is in fact credible testimony as one of the criteria for making you're evaluations as to whether or not evidence should be suppressed. In evaluating the credibility of a witness, we are certainly entitled to use previous testimony under oath for purposes of impeachment on a relevant issue, not on a collateral issue. This is a relevant issue. This is testimony given under oath by this detective. It is relevant and material to his credibility, and that is the only purpose for which it is used. We are not seeking to quash or traverse this search warrant or do anything in regard to the search warrant, and in fact, quite the contrary. We offered to use this without any testimony.
I was under the impression, Mr. Shapiro, that your offer of proof before indicated that there were some prior inconsistent statements -- four, I think you mentioned --
-- in this affidavit that would be inconsistent with the witness's testimony here in court. Is that correct?
Your Honor, some are inconsistent with his statements in court. I believe in court that he did testify that it was human blood, and I believe the affidavit -- I don't believe -- the affidavit says S.I.D. personnel found it to be human blood. And we will offer testimony from their own chemist that he did not come to that conclusion. So that, we would say, is a major question of credibility with this witness and an out and out misstatement under penalty of perjury to the court.
No, it's not. It's actually not that. This witness has testified consistently. He believed it to be human blood when he was at the scene, and in the affidavit it contains his belief that it was human blood. If he's wrong, if he was wrong then, and he was wrong when he presented this affidavit as to what he believed the scientific investigations person concluded with respect to his testing, then he's consistent. Maybe wrong, but consistent. There is no impeachment contained in this affidavit with respect to that point, and I once again do reiterate that the point -- the state of mind that this officer had at the time he was seeking to obtain the warrant has no bearing on the determination of whether or not exigent circumstances applied to permit the entry without a warrant at the time that it was made. All of the inquiry that I know Mr. Shapiro intends to go into concerning this affidavit is irrelevant to the circumstances that are confronting this court and the issues that are being presented here concerning the exigent circumstances, but at least with respect to that one showing, it certainly is not even an inconsistent prior statement.
The way I see it, Mr. Shapiro, is that if in fact there is an inconsistent statement with regard to something that the detective testified to during the course of the proceeding, then that would be admissible. But we're not going to create strawmen to shoot down later that were not part of the testimony. So the objection to this point is sustained.
Your Honor, the real question -- and Mr. Uelmen has phrased it in these terms -- the real issue for Your Honor to determine is whether Detective Vannatter would lie in order to sustain a search. And if we have evidence that he lied on the search warrant in order to obtain that, that goes to his credibility here as to whether or not he would lie to sustain a search.
Mr. Shapiro, I'm not going to go into the -- what I agree with the prosecution would amount to a traversal of the search warrant since the prosecution has indicated that they are in fact not going to offer any of the evidence that was recovered after its execution.
Thank you, Your Honor. There is one other issue, and perhaps I will just do it as offer of proof. We would offer to ask this officer the following: whether in the affidavit he submitted he told --
Well, objection, Your Honor. I don't see offer of proof is necessary. Either counsel may ask the question of the witness and it's a proper question or not, or not ask the question, but I don't see what is the purpose of making a record of offer of proof as to questions that will not be posed.
Detective Vannatter, did you, in your statement to the magistrate judge, under penalty of perjury, indicate the following: "it was determined by interview of Simpson's daughter and a friend, Brian Kaelin, Simpson had left on an unexpected flight to Chicago during the early morning hours of June 13th, 1994, and was last seen at the residence at approximately 2300 hours June 12th, 1994?"
And there would be an objection to the question and ask that the answer be stricken as being irrelevant.
You executed this affidavit under penalty of perjury, did you not?
And we will offer testimony from their own chemist that he did not come to that conclusion. So that, we would say, is a major question of credibility with this witness and an out and out misstatement under penalty of perjury to the court.
Maybe wrong, but consistent.
The real issue for Your Honor to determine is whether Detective Vannatter would lie in order to sustain a search.
it was determined by interview of Simpson's daughter and a friend, Brian Kaelin, Simpson had left on an unexpected flight to Chicago during the early morning hours of June 13th, 1994, and was last seen at the residence at approximately 2300 hours June 12th, 1994?