Cross-examination of unknown witness (part 2)

📄 Cross-examination of unknown witness (part 2) — Thursday, July 7, 1994

Address:

C:\DEPT103\PRELIMINARY\1994\JUL\7\CROSS-EXAMINATION-OF-UNKNOWN-W.DOC

TRIAL

▲ Day 5 of 6

◀ Re-redirect examination of unknown witness Direct examination of Philip Vannatter (part 1) ▶

Witness: Witness
Examiner: Marcia Clark
Called by: Defense • Date: Thursday, July 7, 1994 • Utterances: 12

A brief redirect examination in which the prosecution asked the witness to explain why using a single criminalist across all crime scenes in a case is preferable. The witness cited chain of custody, continuity of knowledge, and the importance of having one person familiar with all scenes. The defense offered no further questions and excused the witness.

# 1 THE COURT:

Ms. Clark, anything else?

# 2 MS. CLARK:

One question, your honor, I'm sorry. further REDIRECT EXAMINATION

# 3

BY MS. CLARK:

# 4 Q:

Sir, is it preferable to use one criminalist in a case to process all the scenes related to one case?

# 5 A:

Yes.

# 6 Q:

And why is that?

# 7 A:

To maintain a certain order and custody of evidence, to have one person with knowledge of more than one scene, someone who is up on everything that's going on with both scenes. It's important for chain of custody of evidence. It's important to be on the same page with the criminalist, and it would be very difficult to employ more than one criminalist unless it was absolutely necessary.

KEY QUOTE

# 8 Q:

And if you have one criminalist who processes all scenes, he's going to know what's important at each scene because he's seen them all and he may pick up things that you haven't?

KEY QUOTE

# 9 A:

Oh, yes.

# 10 MS. CLARK:

I have nothing further.

# 11 THE COURT:

Anything further?

# 12 MR. SHAPIRO:

This witness may be excused.

Temperature

procedural

Key Quotes (2)

Witness

To maintain a certain order and custody of evidence, to have one person with knowledge of more than one scene, someone who is up on everything that's going on with both scenes.

Directly supports the prosecution's framing of the evidence collection as methodologically sound, preemptively defending against chain-of-custody attacks.

Marcia Clark

And if you have one criminalist who processes all scenes, he's going to know what's important at each scene because he's seen them all and he may pick up things that you haven't?

Clark rehabilitates the single-criminalist approach, implicitly defending Dennis Fung's role processing both the Bundy and Rockingham scenes.

Notable Exchanges (1)

Robert Shapiro•Kathleen Kennedy-Powell

Shapiro declined further recross and simply excused the witness, suggesting the redirect caused no damage worth addressing.

strategic

Objections

None recorded

Proceeding 8976 • 12 utterances • Defense witness

Preliminary Trial

Department 103