Department no. 103 Hon. Lance A. Ito, Judge
APPEARANCES: (Appearances as heretofore noted.)
(Janet M. Moxham, CSR no. 4855, official reporter.)
(Christine M. Olson, CSR no. 2378, official reporter.)
(The following proceedings were held in open court, out of the presence of the jury:)
THE COURT: All right. Good morning, counsel.
MR. SHAPIRO: Good morning, your Honor.
THE COURT: Let's have it quiet in the courtroom, please. All right. Back on the record in the Simpson matter. The Defendant is again present before the Court with counsel, Mr. Shapiro, Mr. Cochran, Mr. Blasier, Mr. Scheck, Mr. Neufeld, People represented by Mr. Darden and Mr. Goldberg. The jury is not present. Counsel, anything we need to take up before we proceed with our next witness? Mr. Goldberg, my recollection is that you had some exhibits to mark.
MR. GOLDBERG: Yes. I wanted to mark the printout of the picture of the tube, I think it's 231, your Honor, and also the little disposable plastic pipette. Maybe we could mark this as part of the 163 series, the bag of items.
THE COURT: No. I think, because it will appear they're out of logical order, I would suggest that we give that a new and separate number.
MR. GOLDBERG: So you want this to be 232?
THE COURT: Yes. 232, Mrs. Robertson?
THE CLERK: Yes.
THE COURT: All right.
MR. GOLDBERG: Thank you.
(Peo's 231 for id = printout)
(Peo's 232 for id = disp. Pipette)
MR. DARDEN: Your Honor, the next witness is the tow truck driver. He's being transported here by D.A. Investigators. They have radioed us and said that they should be here 10 minutes after 9:00.
THE COURT: All right.
MR. DARDEN: I informed the clerk as soon as I found out. Apparently he was here this morning. He had left the document, the impound documents, and they had taken him back to Santa Monica to pick up the documents and he's on his way back now.
THE COURT: All right. And who is this next witness?
MR. DARDEN: That will be Mr. Douroux.
MR. COCHRAN: May we inquire who will be called after Mr. Douroux?
MR. DARDEN: Dr. Cotton.
THE COURT: Robin Cotton.
MR. SHAPIRO: Your Honor, may I address the Court on another matter?
THE COURT: Certainly.
MR. SHAPIRO: Your Honor, I have arranged with Mr. Hodgman to have Dr. Michael Baden and Dr. Barbara Wolf here today. They are presently--actually Dr. Baden is testifying next door for the Prosecution in another case. And the purpose of their visit for us is to get microscopic slides of tissue from the autopsy of both decedents. This has been agreed to by both sides. The only issue that has come up now is the cost of those slides. We are informed that the standard procedure is for the County Coroner to do those slides and they are provided at no cost to the Defense. In this case, the Coroner's office did not do any slides and they are now allowing us to do the slides but at a cost of $85 per slide. We understand that the true cost for such slides in laboratories is four to five dollars. I tried to reach Mr. Hodgman on Friday and he had a family emergency and was unable to return my call, although we did get word back from someone else in the District Attorney's office. We need the Court's guidance. Those slides are going to be done this morning, but we--as I understand, there are going to be numerous slides necessary. And I don't know the exact amount, but we would like to see if the Court can give us some assistance in providing these at a reasonable cost and not at an inflated cost that is artificially set by the Coroner.
THE COURT: Mr. Darden, do you know anything about this?
MR. DARDEN: No, I don't. And Mr. Hodgman is upstairs in his office. If he's listening, perhaps he can come down and speak to Mr. Shapiro while we wait for Mr. Douroux and they can settle the matter if at all possible.
MR. SHAPIRO: That will be acceptable.
THE COURT: All right. Anything else we can take up before we start with the tow truck driver?
MR. HARMON: Yes, your Honor. I filed a letter with the Court and counsel this morning. I followed up on your suggestion based on Mr. Blasier's hypothetical and good faith basis for his questions about EDTA on Prosecution evidence. As you recall, Mr. Blasier alleged that their experts have reviewed our reports, which is all they could have done because they never tested any of the samples from the gate or the sock for the presence of EDTA. And I requested Mr.--of Mr. Cochran orally and now I've done it in writing--there are no such witnesses on the Defense witness list who are qualified in the field of gc/ms/ms, which is the form of testing that would have to be done. So it appears that the Defense has violated the Court's discovery order by--at a minimum, based on Mr. Blasier's offer of proof, that their experts have reviewed our work and come to contrary conclusions. Our experts, the FBI, has determined that there is no EDTA on 117 or 13-A1. So Mr. Blasier's offer of proof was that their experts have reviewed that material--
THE COURT: Well, Mr. Harmon, forgive me for interrupting you, but your request was for a hearing on this matter on Wednesday.
MR. HARMON: Right. I just--
THE COURT: So--
MR. HARMON: We had time. I thought I'd bring it up, but things are getting interesting, your Honor.
THE COURT: How about if we do it Wednesday?
MR. HARMON: That'd be fine.
THE COURT: All right.
MR. GOLDBERG: Your Honor?
THE COURT: Any other housekeeping matters while we're waiting? Mr. Goldberg.
MR. GOLDBERG: Just briefly. On the magnetic strips that we used on the Defense blood vial chart, I believe those probably should be marked as another exhibit as well.
THE COURT: However, my recollection is that Mr. Fairtlough took some type of digital photograph of that.
MR. GOLDBERG: He apparently did to preserve the way the chart looked once it was completed. Is it possible for us to mark both the magnetic strips and the photograph that was taken of the chart after it was finished?
THE COURT: I would say the photograph itself is what we ought to use rather than the strips themselves.
MR. GOLDBERG: Well, unfortunately the resolution on the photograph doesn't appear to be high enough to read all of the markings on it clearly.
THE COURT: All right. Well, I would suggest then at a time that the Court is in recess, that that chart be put back together in that matter and that a still photograph by someone from the District Attorney's photo lab be substituted for the digital photograph rather than the mag--because the magnetic strips themselves without something to stick them on are useless as an exhibit.
MR. GOLDBERG: And we can then mark the photographs separately is what you're saying.
THE COURT: Yes.
MR. GOLDBERG: Thank you.
THE COURT: Seems to be a more reasonable way to do that.
MR. GOLDBERG: Maybe we can mark this one now as 1--
THE COURT: 233.
MR. GOLDBERG: 233. Can we make it 233-A and then--
THE COURT: Well, let's make it 233, and then we'll--if hearing no objection from the Defense, we'll substitute a real--a photograph with conventional photography when that becomes available.
(Peo's 233 for id = photograph)
MR. GOLDBERG: Thank you.
THE COURT: All right.
MR. BLASIER: Your Honor, one quick item.
THE COURT: Yes.
MR. BLASIER: We have a letter that we prepared for the Court requesting sanctions against Mr. Goldberg for the series of improper questions that he asked on Thursday and Friday. We're asking for a curative instruction as well as sanctions and we would like to present that letter to the Court now for the Court's consideration. I believe you have it.
THE COURT: Yes, I do. I have not had the opportunity to read it since it was just handed to me. All right. We'll take it--since it deals with EDTA as well, we'll take that up Wednesday afternoon. Mr. Scheck.
MR. SCHECK: One more housekeeping matter. I've asked Mr. Harmon since Thursday to inform us of the status of the combination of samples from the Bronco that was being tested by DOJ, whether that RFLP analysis had started. As I indicated to the Court, I was told as of Monday of last week, it hadn't, and I think that creates an issue to be resolved.
THE COURT: Yes. We've discussed that informally previously.
MR. SCHECK: When shall we do this and what's the Court's pleasure?
THE COURT: Well, obviously, if that testing has not even begun yet, then there are no results to report. So there's nothing to be produced in Court. So I don't see any tremendous urgency to do it this week and we have a plethora of other issues to deal with Wednesday.
MR. SCHECK: I understand. My only concern is, before the witness from the Department of Justice testifies about results from the Bronco, which are going to be affected by the tests that they proposed to do seven weeks ago, that they did not begin after they obtained permission of the Court to do so, which I would submit on its face is deliberate, that we have to have some resolution as to--
THE COURT: Well, what do you suggest timing wise?
MR. SCHECK: Well, first of all, Mr. Harmon hasn't informed us as to what the status of the testing is. I want to be careful in my representations since my information is a bit old. But my suggestion is that we resolve that issue before Mr. Sims testifies from the Department of Justice, which could be at the end of this week or the beginning of next week.
THE COURT: Mr. Darden, do you have any information about that or do you want to defer to Mr. Harmon?
MR. DARDEN: I would like to defer to Mr. Harmon, your Honor.
MR. HARMON: I'm not sure what the question is, Judge.
THE COURT: The question is the status of the combination RFLP testing at DOJ.
MR. HARMON: It's ongoing. And Dr. Blake has open door--the invisible but ubiquitous Blake is there more than I am, so I'm not sure. He's never been denied access to any information. I can tell you, Mr. Sims is not doing that work because he's down here now. So nothing's going on right now. But I--you know, I'd rather--if there's a specific legal issue involved in it, I would be happy to respond to a legal issue. But in terms of where the testing is, Dr. Blake can call up there any time and be precise. But it hasn't been completed obviously.
THE COURT: All right. Well, Mr. Harmon, when do you antici--after Dr. Cotton testifies, who do you anticipate will be after Dr. Cotton?
MR. HARMON: Mr. Sims. So he's here until--so wherever things were left when he left work on Friday, that's where they are.
THE COURT: All right. Then Friday afternoon, 1:30, we'll take this up. Mrs. Robertson, would you note that, remind me to cancel my dentist appointment again. All right. Mr. Darden, any word on the whereabouts of your witness?
MR. DARDEN: No, your Honor.
THE COURT: Well, could we perhaps start with Dr. Cotton?
MR. DARDEN: Do you want to start with DNA and interrupt it with the tow truck driver?
THE COURT: No. I would rather just--I'd like to do something this morning.
MR. DARDEN: Why don't we check that. We've been on the record 12 minutes. We've been accused of misconduct twice. We're setting a record pace at this point, your Honor.
THE COURT: Once every six minutes.
MR. DARDEN: Yeah, one every six minutes. Besides, Miss Martinez' birthday was this--where did she go? There she is. Her birthday was this weekend.
THE COURT: She knew when to get out of dodge. Ah, the ubiquitous Mr. Hodgman.
MR. DARDEN: And his sidekick, Mr. Yochelson.
MR. HODGMAN: I thought that only applied to Defense experts. Anyway--
THE COURT: Good morning, sir. There was some dispute that Mr. Shapiro raised concerning cost of production of autopsy slides from the Coroner's office. Do you have any information about that?
MR. HODGMAN: Yes.
THE COURT: Not that I want to get involved in refereeing a dispute.
MR. HODGMAN: Yes. Very well. I'm not so sure that it can be characterized as a dispute. It's simply the policy and protocol of the Coroner's office of which I informed Mr. Shapiro by letter last week, and I received a phone message Friday indicating Mr. Shapiro wanted to try and work something out in that regard. But I don't control that department and that's between the Coroner's office and the Defense. I understand Drs. Baden and Wolf are over there today. I had spoken to Dr. Wolf Friday, Friday morning just to make sure she had the proper information with regard to the arrangements as well as the cost procedures, and she did not raise any objection at that time. Mr. Shapiro's call did come in after that. So it's something over which I really have no control, your Honor.
THE COURT: All right. Well, Mr. Shapiro has raised the issue. Mr. Shapiro, I think the burden is on your shoulders at this point to indicate that those costs are somehow out of the ordinary or unlike those that are assessed to other individuals seeking this information.
MR. SHAPIRO: Your Honor, I can just relate what has been related to me by our experts, and that is that in the normal course, these are provided for at no cost whatsoever and that the medical costs and laboratory costs that are involved are between four and five dollars a slide. In addition, since Mr. Hodgman is here, in his letter, they indicated that the approximate cost--and I don't have the figures in front of me--of Dr. Lakshsmanan and Dr. Golden to watch our experts do this is approximately $500 an hour for us, to have them watch us do what they should have done. And we just think this is a violation of due process. We have no choice but to go ahead with it because the doctors are here, but we would ask the Court to intervene and to conduct a hearing regarding the real fair cost of this and that we should not be gouged because it's being done by the Defense and not by the Prosecution.
THE COURT: All right. About the only thing I can suggest, Mr. Shapiro, is if you want to file a motion to that effect, you're welcome to do so. It would be my inclination to--since it would involve a Coroner's policy, which would apply not only to this case, but other cases, is then ask the supervising Judge, Judge Bascue to set the matter for a hearing since it would be a system-wide impact. So some other Judge should probably hear that issue and not take our time with that.
MR. SHAPIRO: Thank you.
MR. HODGMAN: Yes, your Honor. And it would indeed be a system-wide impact because I am informed that this policy applies across the board for all defendants, that there is nothing unusual that's being done in this case, that there is no denial of due process. This is simply the normal protocol and usual procedure of the Coroner's office. So nothing special is being done for the Defendant in this case.
THE COURT: Okay. All right.
MR. DARDEN: The witness will be here any minute.
THE COURT: Well, should I put the jury in the box and we can all wait?
MR. DARDEN: That's no fun. Wait until the Defense case, your Honor. He is on the "s" level. There's only one elevator operating from the "s" level.
THE COURT: All right.
MR. SHAPIRO: Your Honor, there is one additional thing I want to add for the record so the record is clear. In addition, they want a copy of our slides that we are doing and they want to charge us $85 per slide that we are doing to turn over to them because they didn't do it.
THE COURT: Sounds like a good business to me. All right. We'll--if you want to file a formal motion, we'll look into it.
MR. SHAPIRO: I will, your Honor.
THE COURT: All right.
MR. DARDEN: You could go into chambers and read, you know, some of the sanction motions.
THE COURT: Well, the problem is, if I leave, then the audience has to be cleared. Then we have to go through all of that rigmarole each and every time. So I'd just as soon stay here upon your representation that that person will be here in two or three minutes.
MR. DARDEN: Well, okay.
MS. CLARK: I just thought of an interesting sidebar we could have.
THE COURT: All right. Well, perhaps you could ask Mr. De La Vine for some advice. Never mind.
MS. CLARK: I thought maybe he was here.
THE COURT: He could be.
(Brief pause.)
MR. DARDEN: If I could have 60 minutes outside with Defense counsel so that I can speak to Mr. Douroux.
(Brief pause.)
THE COURT: Miss Clark, what's your time estimate for the next witness?
MS. CLARK: I'm sorry?
THE COURT: What's your time estimate for the next witness?
MS. CLARK: People's time estimate or estimate for cross?
THE COURT: Your time estimate.
MS. CLARK: About 15 minutes or that, very brief.
THE COURT: All right.
MS. CLARK: That means--you know, that's direct. So cross, figure, be about two hours.
THE COURT: Depends on what the issues are here. All right. Which of the tow truck drivers is this?
MS. CLARK: I'm sorry?
THE COURT: Which of the--
MS. CLARK: The first one who towed to Rheuban's, the print shed.
THE COURT: Okay.
(Brief pause.)
THE COURT: All right. Deputy Smith, would you ask the lawyers to step in with their witness, please.
(Brief pause.)
THE COURT: All right. Mr. Darden, are the People ready?
MR. DARDEN: Yes, your Honor. Thank you.
THE COURT: Deputy Magnera, let's have the jurors, please. Mr. Darden, who is going to be handling the next witness for the People?
MR. DARDEN: I believe Mr. Clarke is going to handle Dr. Cotton. Yes.
THE COURT: How about this witness now?
MR. DARDEN: I am.
THE COURT: All right.
(The following proceedings were held in open court, in the presence of the jury:)
THE COURT: All right. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Please be seated. Let the record reflect that we've now been rejoined by all the members of our jury panel. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
THE JURY: Good morning.
THE COURT: All right. Mr. Darden, you may call the People's next witness.
MR. DARDEN: Thank you, your Honor. Good morning.
THE JURY: Good morning.
MR. DARDEN: The People call Mr. Douroux, your Honor.
THE COURT: All right. Mr. Douroux, would you come over here to the witness stand, please. Raise your right hand and face the clerk, please,
Bernie Douroux, called as a witness by the People, was sworn and testified as follows:
THE CLERK: Raise your right hand, please. You do solemnly swear that the testimony you may give in the cause now pending before this Court, shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
MR. DOUROUX: I do.
THE CLERK: Please have a seat on the witness stand and state and spell your first and last names for the record.
MR. DOUROUX: Bernie Douroux.
THE CLERK: Can you spell your first and last names for the record?
MR. DOUROUX: B-E-R-N-I-E D-O-U-R-O-U-X.
THE COURT: All right. Mr. Darden.
MR. DARDEN: Thank you, your Honor.
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. DARDEN
MR. DARDEN: Mr. Douroux, who were you working for on June 13, 1994?
MR. DOUROUX: Rheuban motors.
MR. DARDEN: Rheuban motors?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes.
MR. DARDEN: Okay. Could you pull the microphone a little closer there and speak into it?
MR. DOUROUX: Rheuban motors.
MR. DARDEN: Sounded the same for some reason.
MR. DOUROUX: This better? Rheuban motors.
MR. DARDEN: Okay. And Rheuban motors is a towing--automobile towing company?
MR. DOUROUX: It's police impound. Yes.
MR. DARDEN: And what do you do for Rheuban motors?
MR. DOUROUX: Impound vehicles at LAPD, to request have impounded or private towing.
THE COURT: Mrs. Robertson, would you crank that up. Mr. Darden.
MR. DARDEN: Thank you.
MR. DARDEN: On the afternoon of June 13th at around 3:06 P.M., did you receive a radio call from your dispatcher?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, we did.
MR. DARDEN: And after receiving that radio call, did you go somewhere?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, I did.
MR. DARDEN: Where did you go?
MR. DOUROUX: 360 Rockingham.
MR. DARDEN: And why did you go to 360 Rockingham?
MR. DOUROUX: We were requested by LAPD to pick up a vehicle.
MR. DARDEN: Okay. And what time did you arrive at 360 north Rockingham?
MR. DOUROUX: Approximately 3:30.
MR. DARDEN: Okay. And did you speak to a police officer at that location?
MR. DOUROUX: I spoke to a couple of them, yes.
MR. DARDEN: Okay. And were you given any instructions?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, I did. Yes, I was.
MR. DARDEN: Okay. What instructions were you given by the officers?
MR. DOUROUX: Not to touch the vehicle, not to open it and to take it downtown.
MR. DARDEN: Okay. And were you directed toward a certain vehicle, to a certain vehicle?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, I was.
MR. DARDEN: And what vehicle was that?
MR. DOUROUX: Ford Bronco.
MR. DARDEN: Okay. The Ford Bronco that's been on--
MR. DOUROUX: Yes.
MR. DARDEN: Okay. Mr. Simpson's Ford Bronco?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, sir.
MR. DARDEN: And did you tow that Ford Bronco?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, I did.
MR. DARDEN: Did you touch it prior to hooking it up to your tow truck?
MR. DOUROUX: Not prior. But after I hooked it up, I did touch the front right tire just to make sure it was locked, the steering column was locked.
MR. DARDEN: Okay. Now, during the time that you were at 360 north Rockingham, did you ever see any civilian touch the Ford Bronco?
MR. DOUROUX: No, I didn't.
MR. DARDEN: And did you ever touch the doors or the--
MR. DOUROUX: No, sir.
MR. DARDEN: Did you look inside the Ford Bronco?
MR. DOUROUX: I glanced inside, but didn't check to see anything.
MR. DARDEN: Okay. You took a glance inside?
MR. DOUROUX: See, make sure it was in full-time four-wheel drive. There's a little button sometimes tells you it's four-wheel full-time, but there was nothing.
MR. DARDEN: Now, to take this glance inside the vehicle, did you open the door?
MR. DOUROUX: No, sir.
MR. DARDEN: Did you ever touch the door handle?
MR. DOUROUX: No, sir.
MR. DARDEN: Okay. What did you do to take this glance inside the Ford Bronco?
MR. DOUROUX: Just--just look like that and that was it, took a quick peek (Indicating).
MR. DARDEN: Could you tell whether or not the Ford Bronco was locked?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, it was locked because it had little--the buttons were down on the Bronco.
MR. DARDEN: Okay. It was locked when you first saw it?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, sir.
MR. DARDEN: Did you unlock that vehicle?
MR. DOUROUX: No, sir.
MR. DARDEN: And did you tow that vehicle?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, sir, I did.
MR. DARDEN: Where did you tow the Ford Bronco to?
MR. DOUROUX: To Parker Center to print shed over here.
MR. DARDEN: Okay. To Parker Center over here on Los Angeles Street?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, sir.
MR. DARDEN: To the print shed?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, sir.
THE COURT: Hold on. Mr. Douroux, would you allow Mr. Darden and the other lawyers to finish asking the question before you start to answer?
MR. DOUROUX: Okay. Yes, sir.
THE COURT: See, you just did it right now. The problem we have is that you speak very softly. The court reporter has to be able to write down everything that is said. If you start to speak when Mr. Darden is still speaking, she can't take down what's being said. All right?
MR. DOUROUX: Okay.
THE COURT: Thank you, sir. Just let everybody finish their questions. Mr. Darden.
MR. DARDEN: What time, sir, did you leave Rockingham with the Bronco?
MR. DOUROUX: Oh, approximately 3:40.
MR. DARDEN: Okay. And what time did you arrive downtown at Parker Center, if you know?
MR. DOUROUX: It took me about an hour to get there. So probably about 4:40, 4:30.
MR. DARDEN: Okay.
MR. DOUROUX: Something like that.
MR. DARDEN: And did you arrive at the print shed?
MR. DOUROUX: I was told to meet someone at the shed. There was nobody there. So I had to go out to the front of Parker Center and request for the detective.
MR. DARDEN: So you arrived at the print shed and there was no one there?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, sir.
MR. DARDEN: And you say that you went inside Parker Center?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, sir.
MR. DARDEN: Okay. And why did you do that?
MR. DOUROUX: To let the officer know, the desk person that was there that I had the Bronco and that I was supposed to meet a detective. And he called the detective, they came down and we went down to the print shed.
MR. DARDEN: Okay. And where was the Bronco during the time that you were speaking to the officers inside Parker Center?
MR. DOUROUX: In front of Parker Center.
MR. DARDEN: Okay. Was there media there?
MR. DOUROUX: A few feet away. Well, actually about 15 yards away.
MR. DARDEN: Okay. Did anyone pay or seem to pay any attention to the Ford Bronco?
MR. DOUROUX: No, sir.
MR. DARDEN: Did you see anybody approach the Ford Bronco at that time?
MR. DOUROUX: No, sir. I'm sorry.
MR. DARDEN: Okay. And after you spoke to the officers inside Parker Center, what did you do next?
MR. DOUROUX: Went back to the truck and stayed with the vehicle until the detective came out.
MR. DARDEN: Okay. And at that point, did you return to the print shed?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, sir, we did.
MR. DARDEN: Okay. Along with the detective?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, sir.
MR. DARDEN: Now, the print shed, is this a locked facility?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, it is.
MR. DARDEN: Okay. And how do you know that?
MR. DOUROUX: We had to open it with a key. It was steel doors and it's all locked from the inside.
MR. DARDEN: So you saw the detective open the locked doors?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, sir, I did.
MR. DARDEN: And what did you do after that?
MR. DOUROUX: I backed the Bronco in, unhooked it. He took information down off the impound sheet and that was it.
MR. DARDEN: Did you see the detective open the Ford Bronco?
MR. DOUROUX: No, I didn't.
MR. DARDEN: And when you left the Ford Bronco at the print shed, was it still locked?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, sir, it was.
MR. DARDEN: Now, at some point, you left the print shed, correct?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, sir.
MR. DARDEN: Okay. And as you left the print shed, did you notice whether or not the detective locked the doors to the shed?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, he did.
MR. DARDEN: And how do you know that?
MR. DOUROUX: I saw him shut the doors behind me as I was leaving.
MR. DARDEN: Your Honor, I have here a vehicle investigation impound report. May it be marked People's next in order?
THE COURT: 234.
(Peo's 234 for id = veh. Impound report)
MR. DARDEN: Okay. And with the Court's permission, after the witness completes his testimony, I would like to substitute this document with a Xerox copy.
THE COURT: All right. Hearing no objection.
MR. DARDEN: Mr. Douroux, showing you what has been marked as People's 234, is that a copy of the impound report?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, sir, it is.
MR. DARDEN: Now, is there a box on that report that indicates whether or not a vehicle is locked when it's recovered?
MR. DOUROUX: No, there isn't. Doesn't say. It just says "keys" and it says "no" for keys, but doesn't indicate that it was locked. There's no box that shows it.
MR. DARDEN: Now, let me direct your attention to the upper left-hand corner of the report, that portion entitled "stolen, lost, embezzled."
MR. DOUROUX: Yes.
MR. DARDEN: Is there a box here that indicates whether or not the doors are locked?
MR. DOUROUX: Yeah, right here (Indicating).
MR. DARDEN: Now, does that portion of the report apply only to stolen or stolen vehicles that are recovered or does that box apply to vehicles that are impounded like the Ford Bronco in this case?
MR. DOUROUX: Well, according to this, just lost, stolen, embezzled vehicles.
MR. DARDEN: Okay. And have you been interviewed by the LAPD and D.A. Investigators?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, I have.
MR. DARDEN: Have you also been interviewed by Defense investigators?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, I have.
MR. DARDEN: Thank you.
THE COURT: Mr. Cochran.
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. COCHRAN
MR. COCHRAN: Good morning, Mr. Douroux.
MR. DOUROUX: Good morning.
MR. COCHRAN: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
THE JURY: Good morning.
MR. COCHRAN: Mr. Douroux, you and I just met about five minutes ago in the hall for the first time; is that correct, sir?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, sir, it is.
MR. COCHRAN: And with regard to your towing of this vehicle, as I understand it, this took place on or about June 13th of 1994 in the afternoon; is that correct?
MR. DOUROUX: That's correct.
MR. COCHRAN: And can you tell the jury, ladies and gentlemen of the jury what time you received a call in response to this, sir?
MR. DOUROUX: We received a call from the mike room, LAPD's mike room at approximately 3:06.
MR. COCHRAN: And then you responded to that call and arrived at the location on Rockingham?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, sir. Around 3:31.
MR. COCHRAN: All right. Around 3:31 in the afternoon?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, sir.
MR. COCHRAN: And when you got to that location, was the media present at that time, sir?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, they were.
MR. COCHRAN: And did you see a lot of media there?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, there was.
MR. COCHRAN: While you were there at Rockingham, did you ever see a lady walk up or run up and touch this particular vehicle while you were there?
MR. DOUROUX: I--not myself, no.
MR. COCHRAN: You never saw that personally?
MR. DOUROUX: No.
MR. COCHRAN: Did you become aware of that at some point?
MR. DOUROUX: I was told that when I was doing the interviews with the Defense and with LAPD, they had mentioned it to me.
MR. COCHRAN: So you learned about it afterwards; is that correct?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes.
MR. COCHRAN: With regards to this particular vehicle, prior to the time that you started preparing it for towing, did you have occasion to look at that vehicle, exterior of the vehicle at all?
MR. DOUROUX: No, I didn't. Just after I hooked it up just to make sure it was nothing--there wasn't full-time four-wheel drive.
MR. COCHRAN: You described for us that you touched I guess the front wheel part of the vehicle; is that correct?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, sir. The front right tire.
MR. COCHRAN: Did you have occasion to look at any of the doors of that vehicle at all?
MR. DOUROUX: No, I didn't.
MR. COCHRAN: And you didn't notice anything on the exterior of that vehicle that you can recall presently; is that correct?
MR. DOUROUX: No, sir.
MR. COCHRAN: Did you have occasion to look at the driver's side door down by the sill, down at the bottom of that particular vehicle?
MR. DOUROUX: No, sir.
MR. COCHRAN: You never looked at that?
MR. DOUROUX: No, sir.
MR. COCHRAN: Did you see what appeared to be any coffee cup stains on the hood of that vehicle?
MR. DOUROUX: No, sir.
MR. COCHRAN: You didn't see that either?
MR. DOUROUX: No.
MR. COCHRAN: All right. So I understand this is a fairly routine tow for you at that time; is that correct?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, sir, it was.
MR. COCHRAN: The only different from this scene from other scenes you've been to was the fact there were a lot of media present; is that correct?
MR. DOUROUX: That was it, yes.
MR. COCHRAN: All right. You were working by yourself that day, sir?
MR. DOUROUX: There was--there was three other drivers that day, but I was the one who got dispatched to the call.
MR. COCHRAN: All right. When you say "three other drivers," three other drivers who responded to the call?
MR. DOUROUX: No. No. Just on the shift.
MR. COCHRAN: Working for Rheuban's that day?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes.
MR. COCHRAN: But you responded to the call, and when you got there to Rockingham at about 3:30 in the afternoon, you were the only driver there; is that correct?
MR. DOUROUX: That's correct.
MR. COCHRAN: All right. You talked to a police officer once you got to the Rockingham location, did you?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, I did.
MR. COCHRAN: And do you know the name of that police officer?
MR. DOUROUX: I can't remember his name, no.
MR. COCHRAN: Was this police officer in civilian clothes or was he in uniform?
MR. DOUROUX: He was in civilian. The one who instructed me where to take the Bronco was.
MR. COCHRAN: He was in what?
MR. DOUROUX: In civilian clothes.
MR. COCHRAN: All right. You don't know his name?
MR. DOUROUX: No, sir, I don't.
MR. COCHRAN: All right. So at any rate, you then proceeded, as I understand your testimony, to hook this vehicle up and then to transport it downtown; is that correct?
MR. DOUROUX: That's correct.
MR. COCHRAN: And it was your understanding that you were going to meet a detective somewhere in or about the print shed?
MR. DOUROUX: That's correct.
MR. COCHRAN: Is that correct?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, sir.
MR. COCHRAN: And then you described for us that it took you perhaps an hour or more to drive easterly downtown to Parker Center to the print shed; is that correct?
MR. DOUROUX: That's correct.
MR. COCHRAN: Where is the print shed located, sir, downtown here in L.A.?
MR. DOUROUX: Directly behind Parker Center on San Pedro Street.
MR. COCHRAN: All right. And you went to that location, and did you see any detective when you first went there?
MR. DOUROUX: No, I didn't.
MR. COCHRAN: All right. So how long did you wait at that location?
MR. DOUROUX: Approximately 10 minutes, 10, 15 minutes.
MR. COCHRAN: All right. And what time was that by now?
MR. DOUROUX: I would say about 3--3:30, 3:40, somewhere around that time.
MR. COCHRAN: Let's see.
MR. DOUROUX: No. No. About 4:30, 4:40, around that time. About an hour after I left Rockingham.
MR. COCHRAN: All right. So 4:30, 4:40?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, sir.
MR. COCHRAN: All right. Did you talk to anybody at the print shed when you first got there?
MR. DOUROUX: There was nobody there.
MR. COCHRAN: All right. Nobody. It was like locked?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes.
MR. COCHRAN: All right, sir. So then you had--you waited about 10 minutes and them thereafter, as I understand your testimony, you drove around to Parker Center; is that correct?
MR. DOUROUX: That's correct. To the front of Parker Center.
MR. COCHRAN: And you were by yourself at this point. And so when you went in to try to locate the detective, you left the vehicle on the street; is that correct?
MR. DOUROUX: That's correct.
MR. COCHRAN: And so how long were you away from that vehicle when you left it?
MR. DOUROUX: Approximately three minutes. Just to go inside.
MR. COCHRAN: All right. Now, what street did you park the vehicle on, sir?
MR. DOUROUX: Los Angeles.
MR. COCHRAN: On Los Angeles Street?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, sir, right--
MR. COCHRAN: And is that in front of Parker Center?
MR. DOUROUX: That's correct.
MR. COCHRAN: Out on the street. So you would be heading northbound on Los Angeles?
MR. DOUROUX: I thought it was eastbound.
MR. COCHRAN: Well, you're on Los Angeles Street, right?
MR. DOUROUX: Yeah. I was directly right in front of Parker Center in front of the doors. So thought it was eastbound. Maybe--
MR. COCHRAN: All right. You headed toward Union Station would you?
MR. DOUROUX: That's correct.
MR. COCHRAN: Toward Olvera Street?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes.
MR. COCHRAN: So let's call that north now.
MR. DOUROUX: Okay.
MR. COCHRAN: All right. And you parked the car--parked your vehicle there and your vehicle; is that correct?
MR. DOUROUX: That's correct.
MR. COCHRAN: And you left it and then you went inside Parker Center, in the front doors of Parker Center?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, sir.
MR. COCHRAN: When you left the vehicle to go inside, the media was outside also?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, they were.
MR. COCHRAN: Can you approximate for the Court and jury how many members of the media were there, sir?
MR. DOUROUX: It was a group. I couldn't--maybe 10, 15 more.
MR. COCHRAN: A group like a pack of media?
MR. DOUROUX: Yeah. They're all hanging out on the lawn.
MR. COCHRAN: A pack? How about a swarm, a swarm of media, your Honor? So how many would--how many would--
MR. DOUROUX: I would say probably about 10, maybe more.
MR. COCHRAN: All right. So 10--about 10 different cameras and that sort of thing?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes. Exactly.
MR. COCHRAN: And how far away were they from you at the time that you went inside, when you left the vehicle to go inside Parker Center?
MR. DOUROUX: It was about 15 yards.
MR. COCHRAN: 15 yards away?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes.
MR. COCHRAN: And then you then left the vehicle and went inside; is that correct?
MR. DOUROUX: That's correct.
MR. COCHRAN: And you went inside to try to find a detective; is that correct?
MR. DOUROUX: I went inside and I asked the desk sergeant there, the person in charge I had a Bronco with me from 360 Rockingham. He called upstairs and he told me the detective was on his way down.
MR. COCHRAN: All right. And then--and that's kind of at the front desk when you walk inside Parker Center, it's at the front desk there inside?
MR. DOUROUX: That's correct.
MR. COCHRAN: And during this time while you were inside, there was nobody outside with the Bronco at that point; is that correct?
MR. DOUROUX: That's correct.
MR. COCHRAN: All right. So your best recollection is, you stayed inside for how long--did you--strike that. Did you wait for the detective inside?
MR. DOUROUX: No, sir, I didn't.
MR. COCHRAN: All right. After you talked with this desk sergeant and you were told a sergeant--a detective would be coming down, did you go back outside then?
MR. DOUROUX: That's correct. I did.
MR. COCHRAN: All right. And then you walked back outside to the vehicle?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, sir.
MR. COCHRAN: All right. And I presume it was still parked at the same place; is that right?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, it was.
MR. COCHRAN: And did you wait outside with the vehicle at that point?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, I did.
MR. COCHRAN: When you went back outside to wait for the detective, how long did you wait before a detective came out?
MR. DOUROUX: About three minutes.
MR. COCHRAN: All right. And--
MR. DOUROUX: Less than five minutes.
MR. COCHRAN: Less than five minutes?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes.
MR. COCHRAN: During that period of time, Mr. Douroux, did you have occasion to look at the exterior of the Bronco at all at that point?
MR. DOUROUX: No, sir.
MR. COCHRAN: So up to the time that you left that particular vehicle on June 13th, 1994, you never had occasion to visually inspect the exterior of that vehicle. Is that a fair statement?
MR. DOUROUX: Umm, yeah. Just--I mean, took a quick glance, see that there was no damages, and that was it.
MR. COCHRAN: Did you have to log on any particular form whether or not there was damages at any place on that particular--
MR. DOUROUX: It's usually marked on this. When we look--we can look over the vehicle, make sure there's no damages on the vehicle. If there are, we mark them down on the impound sheet.
MR. COCHRAN: And that's called some sort of inventory, this sheet that you have before you?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes.
MR. COCHRAN: And in completing that particular inventory form, for instance, there are--the form is called "inventory" in the middle of the particular form; is that correct, "inventory"?
MR. DOUROUX: Well, right where it says "remarks," that's where we put all the damages down.
MR. COCHRAN: Okay. And you have a "y" column, I presume that's for yes, and a "n" column for no; is that correct?
MR. DOUROUX: That's correct.
MR. COCHRAN: And did you fill this form out?
MR. DOUROUX: No, sir. That was already filled out by LAPD.
MR. COCHRAN: It was filled out by LAPD?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, sir.
MR. COCHRAN: When you got the form?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, sir.
MR. COCHRAN: Where did you get that form?
MR. DOUROUX: From the LAPD on Rockingham.
MR. COCHRAN: When you first arrived there?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, sir.
MR. COCHRAN: All right. And so that we're clear--
MR. COCHRAN: May I approach, your Honor?
THE COURT: You may.
MR. COCHRAN: This form--for the record, your Honor, we are referring to People's 233 is it?
THE COURT: 234.
MR. COCHRAN: 234 for identification.
MR. COCHRAN: If we can look at 234, this particular form where there's an indication of tow information and inventory, these kind of "x" marks here under "y" and "n"--
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, sir.
MR. COCHRAN: These were filled out by someone else; is that correct?
MR. DOUROUX: That's correct.
MR. COCHRAN: Did you fill out any portion of this form at all?
MR. DOUROUX: Just the part here where my signature is and the tow fee and the storage fee.
MR. COCHRAN: All right. You filled out just the part where it indicates, "garage employee, complete this section" and where it says, "garage employee signature"?
MR. DOUROUX: That's correct.
MR. COCHRAN: That's your signature. And your name is Bernie Douroux?
MR. DOUROUX: Douroux, yes, sir.
MR. COCHRAN: All right. Anything else filled out by you on this particular form?
MR. DOUROUX: No. That's it.
MR. COCHRAN: All right. And so with regard to the inventory on the vehicle, you just quickly looked at it; is that correct?
MR. DOUROUX: That's correct. Just the exterior to make sure there was no damages, which there were none.
MR. COCHRAN: Now, you mentioned also, sir, that at some point, you had occasion to glance inside the vehicle; is that correct?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, sir. Just the front--the window, just to look, see if it was four-wheel--slide vehicles sometimes are full-time four-wheel drives. So we just have to make sure they're not engaged, which I didn't see anything when I glanced. So I didn't bother looking.
MR. COCHRAN: And where were you when you glanced inside the vehicle?
MR. DOUROUX: On the right-hand side, passenger side.
MR. COCHRAN: All right. And more specifically, what location were you at?
MR. DOUROUX: Oh, in the front.
MR. COCHRAN: No. What--where were you? At Rockingham or--
MR. DOUROUX: Oh, yes. Yes. I'm sorry. Yeah, Rockingham.
MR. COCHRAN: So as I understand it then, you looked inside the vehicle while you were still at 360 Rockingham?
MR. DOUROUX: Yeah. We just glanced in, looked.
MR. COCHRAN: And you did this from the passenger side of the vehicle; is that correct?
MR. DOUROUX: That's correct.
MR. COCHRAN: And you don't recall seeing anything that you noted inside that particular vehicle; is that correct?
MR. DOUROUX: That's correct.
MR. COCHRAN: All right. This would have been shortly after you arrived about 3:30 in the afternoon?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, sir.
MR. COCHRAN: That you looked inside? All right. Now, when you went back outside after talking to the desk sergeant, you waited for a period of time, perhaps less than five minutes and a detective came out; is that correct?
MR. DOUROUX: That's correct.
MR. COCHRAN: Do you know the name of that detective, sir?
MR. DOUROUX: No. I don't remember.
MR. COCHRAN: And you talked briefly with that detective. You had a conversation with that person?
MR. DOUROUX: Yeah, weather.
MR. COCHRAN: You talked about the weather?
MR. DOUROUX: Just weather and how--because it a was nice, warm day. Other than that, no, no conversation.
MR. COCHRAN: June 13th was a warm day?
MR. DOUROUX: It was.
MR. COCHRAN: All right. And so after you had this conversation with the detective, did you then take the vehicle back over to the print shed?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes. We took it over there. He got in the truck and we went to the print shed.
MR. COCHRAN: So the detective rode with you?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, sir.
MR. COCHRAN: All right. You went back to the print shed, and at that time, you gained entrance inside the print shed; is that correct?
MR. DOUROUX: That's correct.
MR. COCHRAN: And you I presume took the vehicle inside and parked it in some location; is that correct?
MR. DOUROUX: That's correct. I backed it in and dropped the vehicle.
MR. COCHRAN: And about what time was it at that time, sir?
MR. DOUROUX: God, maybe quarter to 5:00, maybe almost 5:00 by that time.
MR. COCHRAN: Somewhere around 5:00 o'clock in the afternoon?
MR. DOUROUX: I believe it was before 5:00.
MR. COCHRAN: All right. And you then left the vehicle; is that correct?
MR. DOUROUX: That's correct.
MR. COCHRAN: While you were there, did you ever see any--any person get inside that vehicle at all?
MR. DOUROUX: No, sir.
MR. COCHRAN: And did you ever get inside it?
MR. DOUROUX: No, sir.
MR. COCHRAN: By the way, do you carry--in the course of your work as a tow truck driver, do you have one of these things called a slim jim?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, I do.
MR. COCHRAN: And that is a kind of instrument that works to open vehicles; is that correct?
MR. DOUROUX: That's correct.
MR. COCHRAN: And with regard to that slim jim, you could open that vehicle real quickly, couldn't you?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, I could.
MR. COCHRAN: I mean, in other words, you're an experienced tow truck driver?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes.
MR. COCHRAN: How long would it take you to use your slim jim to open a vehicle like that Bronco?
MR. DARDEN: Objection. Irrelevant.
THE COURT: Overruled.
MR. COCHRAN: How long would it take?
MR. DOUROUX: Couple minutes, if I had to open it.
MR. COCHRAN: If you wanted to open it, couple minutes?
MR. DOUROUX: Yeah.
MR. COCHRAN: Did you see whether or not the detective who rode back over with you to Parker Center, did you see whether or not he had a slim jim with him?
MR. DOUROUX: I didn't notice one, no.
MR. COCHRAN: And did you ever see the detective open the vehicle while you were there?
MR. DOUROUX: No, sir.
MR. COCHRAN: You then left the vehicle, and that ended your involvement with this vehicle on that day; is that correct?
MR. DOUROUX: That's correct.
MR. COCHRAN: All right. Did you--strike that. With regard to the form that's before you again, People's 234 for identification, you were asked by Mr. Darden whether or not there was any indication on the form of whether or not this vehicle was locked, and you indicated there's no--there's no indication one way or the other; is that correct?
MR. DOUROUX: That's correct. I really didn't even notice the part up there.
MR. COCHRAN: All right. So look at it now for me, will you?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes. I'm looking at it.
MR. COCHRAN: In an area called "stolen, lost or embezzled," there's an indication the right part of that block that--of whether or not the ignition was locked, right?
MR. DOUROUX: That's correct.
MR. COCHRAN: There's nothing checked, right?
MR. DOUROUX: Nothing.
MR. COCHRAN: There's an indication whether the doors are locked. There's nothing indicated, right?
MR. DOUROUX: Nothing.
MR. COCHRAN: All right. And you had not noticed that before you brought the form with you today; is that right?
MR. DOUROUX: Naw. That's correct.
MR. COCHRAN: You then left the print shed and it was about 5:00 o'clock or so that afternoon?
MR. DOUROUX: About 5:00, yes, sir.
MR. COCHRAN: And what time did you check out that day from your--terminate your employment that day, if you recall?
MR. DOUROUX: 7:00 o'clock.
MR. COCHRAN: And did you pick up any other vehicles on that day that you recall?
MR. DOUROUX: Before or--
MR. DARDEN: Objection. Irrelevant.
THE COURT: Overruled.
MR. COCHRAN: I didn't hear your response.
MR. DOUROUX: Before--a few cars before.
MR. COCHRAN: No. Afterwards.
MR. DOUROUX: No.
MR. COCHRAN: May we approach just for a second?
THE COURT: Do we have to?
MR. COCHRAN: Yes. Just very brief.
(A conference was held at the bench, not reported.)
(The following proceedings were held in open court:)
MR. COCHRAN: Thank you very much.
THE COURT: All right. Mr. Cochran.
MR. COCHRAN: Did you write any other notes with regard to any of your observations on that--from that particular date other than your signature on People's 234 for identification?
MR. DOUROUX: No, sir. That's just--that's it.
MR. COCHRAN: Pretty much it?
MR. DOUROUX: Yes, sir.
MR. COCHRAN: And with regard to your observations or lack thereof of things either outside the Bronco or inside the Bronco that you saw, did you write those down anywhere at all?
MR. DOUROUX: No, sir.
MR. COCHRAN: And you never saw anything inside in the interior of that vehicle; is that correct?
MR. DOUROUX: No, sir.
MR. COCHRAN: Never said any blood inside that vehicle?
MR. DOUROUX: No, sir.
MR. COCHRAN: Never saw any blood on the outside of that vehicle?
MR. DOUROUX: No, sir.
MR. COCHRAN: Did you see anything in the rear of the vehicle at all that you recall?
MR. DOUROUX: No, sir.
MR. COCHRAN: All right. Thank you very kindly, Mr. Douroux.
MR. DOUROUX: Okay.
MR. COCHRAN: Thank you.
THE COURT: Mr. Darden, any redirect?
MR. DARDEN: Just a couple questions.
REDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. DARDEN
MR. DARDEN: Mr. Douroux, you didn't notice any unusual stains on the steering wheel of the Bronco?
MR. DOUROUX: No, sir.
MR. DARDEN: Did you see any unusual stains on the console of the Bronco?
MR. DOUROUX: No, sir.
MR. DARDEN: How about the interior driver's door panel? Did you see any unusual stains there?
MR. DOUROUX: No, sir.
MR. DARDEN: Okay. Thank you, sir.
THE COURT: Mr. Cochran.
MR. COCHRAN: Nothing further, your Honor. Thank you very much.
THE COURT: All right. Mr. Douroux, thank you very much. You are excused as a witness. Thank you for coming in. And if you'll give that document, please, to Mr. Darden. All right. Mr. Darden, do you have your People's next witness available?
MR. DARDEN: I think so. If we could just have one moment.
(Brief pause.)
MR. DARDEN: Yes, we do, your Honor. Your Honor, Mr. Clarke has prepared the next witness.
THE COURT: All right. Give me two seconds here. Change water glasses here. Mr. Fairtlough, can we do that someplace else? Great. Mr. Clarke, you may call the People's next witness.
MR. CLARKE: Yes. Thank you, your Honor. Dr. Robin Cotton, please.
THE COURT: Dr. Cotton.
Robin Cotton, called as a witness by the People, was sworn and testified as follows:
THE CLERK: Please raise your right hand. You do solemnly swear that the testimony you may give in the cause now pending before this Court, shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
DR. COTTON: I do.
THE CLERK: Please have a seat on the witness stand and state and spell your first and last names for the record.
DR. COTTON: My first name is spelled R-O-B-I-N and the last name is C-O-T-T-O-N.
THE COURT: All right. Dr. Cotton, why don't you just lean back and pull the microphone towards you, please.
MR. CLARKE: Your Honor, with the Court's permission, may I reintroduce myself to the jury?
THE COURT: You may.
MR. CLARKE: All right. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is George Clarke. Actually has an "e" on the end. So I'm no relation to Miss Clark. Thank you, your Honor, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
MS. CLARK: I think you need that disclaimer, your Honor. My brother.
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. CLARKE
MR. CLARKE: Dr. Cotton, who are you employed by?
DR. COTTON: I'm employed by Cellmark Diagnostics in Germantown, Maryland.
MR. CLARKE: What is Cellmark Diagnostics?
DR. COTTON: We are a private company and we do DNA testing for paternity and for criminal cases.
MR. CLARKE: As far as your formal education, do you have any higher level or upper level degrees?
DR. COTTON: Yes, I do.
MR. CLARKE: Could you describe that, please?
DR. COTTON: I have a masters degree with a major in biology and I have a Ph.D. with a major in biochemistry and molecular biology.
MR. CLARKE: When you say biochemistry, could you explain what that is?
DR. COTTON: It's just the methods and information that's gathered by those methods in an attempt to understand basically all cellular processes.
MR. CLARKE: When you say "cellular processes," can you tell us a little bit about that?
DR. COTTON: Well, except for viruses, all organisms are made up of cells. Bacteria is a cell, a yeast is a cell, and we are made up of many, many cells, and biochemistry and molecular biology are the tools that a biologist uses to try to understand how cells function and how they are able to do the things that they do.
MR. CLARKE: Could you also pull the microphone perhaps just a little bit closer to you?
DR. COTTON: How's that?
MR. CLARKE: That's fine. Thanks. You also described that your higher level of degree was also in molecular biology; is that right?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: Could you describe what that is, please?
DR. COTTON: Molecular biology is sort of a generic term and really refers to a set of tools that biologists may use to help them understand any number of things. Maybe a biologist would use the tools of molecular biology to find out where a particular gene or genetic characteristic was or they might use the tools to understand how a particular gene or genetic characteristic causes a cell to do a particular thing. And that can be applied to research in animals and research in humans, research in bacteria. It's really the set of tools that is used in understanding cellular processes.
MR. CLARKE: To what extent did your formal education deal with DNA itself?
DR. COTTON: Most of my graduate--well, actually the work that I did for my masters degree didn't have anything to do with DNA. The work that I did for my Ph.D. and research that I've done since then has all had something to do with understanding DNA.
MR. CLARKE: All right. I would like to return to your qualifications later. But first, what is DNA, Dr. Cotton?
DR. COTTON: DNA is that part of the chromosomes that carries the information that programs an organism from the point of conception; that is from the point when an egg and a sperm come together. The DNA in the egg and the DNA in the sperm now makes up the total DNA for that organism, and the information in that DNA programs the development of that organism all the way through childhood, if it was a human, adulthood and on through aging until that human being isn't alive anymore.
MR. CLARKE: What is DNA itself? How would you describe it?
DR. COTTON: DNA is a--is correctly described as a polymer. That is, it's a long series of components that are all attached together and it's basically our cellular alphabet.
MR. CLARKE: You use the term "polymer." could you spell that, please?
DR. COTTON: P-o-l-y-m-e-r.
MR. CLARKE: What role does DNA play in terms of inheritance from parents to children?
DR. COTTON: When the egg and the sperm come together to start a new animal or a new human being, the egg contains half of the DNA from that human being--for that new--we'll talk about people so I don't have to keep referring back and forth, people, animals. It's generic. But anyway, the egg contains half of that DNA for that new person, the sperm contains the other half. So we inherit one half of our DNA from our mother and we inherit the other half of our DNA from our father.
MR. CLARKE: As far as DNA's role in the body--and you've described the fact that it provides for the structure, for instance, of human beings; is that right?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: And when you say "structure" or I've used the word "structure," what role does DNA have in creating our bodies?
DR. COTTON: You could take an entire series of college courses that would answer that question. So let me see if I can make a simple answer for you. All of the information that predicts our structure, our height, our build, our skin color, our organs, you have a liver, that information on how that liver is going to be formed as the organism developed is contained in the DNA; and the DNA does that by containing the information that's eventually translated into proteins, and those proteins do the major part of the work in the cell. And so basically the DNA contains all information to make a specific organism.
MR. CLARKE: Sometimes the term "genetic blueprint" has been attached to DNA. Is that--
DR. COTTON: And it's a good description.
MR. CLARKE: In what way?
DR. COTTON: Well, if you think of a blueprint as all--I don't know much about how you build a building, but if I--if we make the assumption that a blueprint contains all the information for how to build your house, the DNA--the analogy is, the DNA contains all the information on how to build you.
MR. CLARKE: Where is DNA actually found in our bodies?
DR. COTTON: It's found in the nucleus of each cell.
MR. CLARKE: Okay. Do we have and in fact have you and I discussed the fact that we will be drawing some charts for this jury?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: And will we in fact be talking to your knowledge about some of these very same items that you've just described?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: Is there a term called "chromosomes"?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: What is that?
DR. COTTON: The chromosomes are really the DNA molecules packaged up in what's a more manageable form for the cell. There are 46 chromosomes and you get 23 of those from your mother, you get the other 23 from your father, and the chromosome is literally the DNA molecule packaged up by some proteins. So we'll sort of disregard those proteins. We don't really care about those for purposes of this discussion. But there would be if there--since there are 46 chromosomes, there are really 46 molecules of DNA in each nucleus of each cell of a human being.
MR. CLARKE: Would it help to illustrate that point about chromosomes and DNA for you to draw a chart for the jury?
DR. COTTON: Probably.
MR. CLARKE: All right. Your Honor, then with the Court's permission, may the witness utilize the tripod that Mr. Fairtlough has--
THE COURT: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: --and draw on a--
THE COURT: Could we possibly put this over on this side over here?
MR. CLARKE: My only concern is that some of the jurors will be at some distance.
THE COURT: Well, the problem is, I need--Defense counsel needs to be able to see it as well. So what we'll do is, after we complete the drawing, we'll exhibit it to the full jury panel.
MR. CLARKE: All right. Very well. Your Honor, perhaps this--what will be I believe a drawing by the witness be marked as People's next in order.
THE COURT: 235. All right. First drawing by Dr. Cotton will be 235.
(Peo's 235 for id = drawing)
THE COURT: Mr. Fairtlough, is that about as high as that goes?
MR. FAIRTLOUGH: Yes, your Honor.
THE COURT: All right. And let's see if we can move that back so we're not cutting off juror no. 1.
MR. CLARKE: I'm sorry, your Honor?
THE COURT: I'll just ask Mr. Fairtlough to move that back so we're not cutting off juror no. 1 here.
MR. CLARKE: I was going to suggest if we could use the other tripod for the drawings, that will get it higher I think.
THE COURT: I don't know that it's attachable to that tripod, is it?
MR. CLARKE: All right.
MR. FAIRTLOUGH: We could try.
THE COURT: Well, let's make due with what we have here and then we'll exhibit it to the jurors.
MR. CLARKE: All right. Dr. Cotton, then with the Court's permission, could you use this chart that's now been marked or will be shortly marked People's exhibit 235 to describe for the jury this concept of DNA and chromosomes?
MR. NEUFELD: I'm sorry, your Honor. Perhaps it could be turned a little bit so the Defense can see it.
THE COURT: Well, counsel, who is going to be handling this witness on cross-examination?
MR. NEUFELD: I will.
THE COURT: All right. Mr. Neufeld, why don't you sit over next to Mr. Goldberg there.
MR. NEUFELD: Also, the problem is that Mr. Simpson is not able to see it.
THE COURT: I understand that, counsel, but it's going to be exhibited for everybody. We have to make do with the angles we have.
MR. NEUFELD: Oh, I can see it.
MR. CLARKE: And is there a color, Dr. Cotton--do you have a pen in your hand? All right. Very good. Then if you could, please, for the jury describe again DNA and this concept of chromosomes and its packaging.
DR. COTTON: Let's go back just briefly to the fact that we have each in each cell 46 chromosomes. These come 23 from mother and 23 from father.
THE COURT: Mr. Goldberg, Mr.--I'm sorry. Can we just have you--Mr. Goldberg, could you give Mr. Neufeld that seat, please, and slide over a little? All right. Proceed.
DR. COTTON: To make a very simplistic drawing of a cell, you have the nucleus somewhere in the middle which contains the 46 chromosomes. The rest of the cell on the outside is referred to as cytoplasm. And just as fast as I write this down, you don't really need to know or remember this. We're just going to focus on the DNA that's in the nucleus. People who are expert at looking at chromosomes under a microscope can distinguish the 46 chromosomes as pairs because they stain slightly differently if you put a dye on them and they have somewhat different shapes. So we'll just make a crude drawing here of a chromosome pair. And someone who is expert at this could actually say, well, this is chromosome pair no. 1, and the pairs are numbered 1 through 23 and very well characterized. So to look at it under a microscope, if I could find each of the two chromosome no. 1, I couldn't tell which came from mother and which came from father by looking at them, but will just in my example here say that this first one came from the father and the second one came from the mother. Now, if you think of the chromosome as the packaging of the DNA, if you unwind the DNA from the chromosome for each one, you would have a very long thread. And the best analogy that I can give to you is that it's not very different from going and having a spool of thread, and the spool of thread has dimensions that are maybe an inch high and an inch in diameter or something. But if you unwind that thread, it's many yards long. And in the same way, if you unpackage the DNA from each individual chromosome, it would be very, very long. And my drawing isn't at all in proportion if I unpackaged--if I had chromosomes that were this size and I unpackaged the DNA, it might be several stories worth of length. So it's a very long thread. If we then look closer at the DNA, we see that each strand is actually what's referred to as being double stranded. And if we did this for an entire cell rather than having just two chromosomes as I've shown here, you would have 46. So you would have 46 long strands of DNA if you were able to unravel each chromosome and lay out each piece of DNA.
MR. CLARKE: First of all, is this entire molecule of DNA--first of all, is DNA a molecule?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: Is this entire molecule the same in every cell of our bodies?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: In terms of this concept of chromosomes, if DNA were a book, would a chromosome be something like a chapter to a book?
DR. COTTON: Yeah. That's good.
MR. CLARKE: Okay. Now, you've introduced this idea of two strands. What do you mean by two strands to DNA?
DR. COTTON: You mean these two that I've drawn close together?
MR. CLARKE: Yes.
DR. COTTON: Umm, you might want to go to an additional diagram to try to illustrate that better than I could draw here.
MR. CLARKE: All right. A diagram of a ladder of DNA?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: All right. Very good.
MR. CLARKE: Your Honor, this second chart, would the Court prefer to have it marked People's exhibit 236 since the witness went to a second page?
THE COURT: Yes. 236.
(Peo's 236 for id = diagram)
MR. CLARKE: All right. All right. I think we have a prepared diagram, your Honor, that I would ask be marked People's exhibit 237.
THE COURT: All right. Diagram, 237.
(Peo's 237 for id = diagram)
MR. CLARKE: I'm just wondering where we could put this chart, where would be appropriate.
THE COURT: How about right there for the time being?
MR. NEUFELD: Your Honor, while they're displaying the next one, can we show the ones that are already done to counsel or would you rather we wait?
THE COURT: Hold on. We have a break coming up in 10 minutes. So we'll do the other expedition at the break.
MR. CLARKE: Your Honor, for the record, this chart could be identified as labeled at the top with DNA and depicting what appears to be a ladder with various notations.
THE COURT: All right. Mr. Fairtlough, could you raise that up, please?
MR. FAIRTLOUGH: Sure.
THE COURT: All right. Thank you. Mr. Clarke.
MR. CLARKE: Thank you, your Honor.
MR. CLARKE: By Mr. Cotton: Dr. Cotton, with respect to this diagram that's been marked People's exhibit 237, can you describe for the jury, please, what it shows? And we have pointers right at your left hand there, if that would help.
DR. COTTON: Oh, this thing? No.
THE COURT: Left hand.
DR. COTTON: Left hand.
MR. CLARKE: Or shorter ones.
DR. COTTON: Okay. DNA is two strands wound together to--in a helical formation. And the reason I didn't try and draw it on my drawing here, I just drew two stands side by side is because I can't draw this shape very well. But the two strands are wrapped around as if you took two ribbons and twisted them one around the other. DNA has four basic component--components. They are referred to as bases spelled b-a-s-e-s. So there are four bases that make up all the DNA, and they have the names adenine, guanine, thymine and cytosine. And they are abbreviated--just by their first letter, A, T, G and C. These form bases are the DNA alphabet. They exist along the length of the DNA molecule in a specific order, and that order has meaning to the cell. And it's just like if you look at the English alphabet, it has 26 letters, and you can put those letters together in--to make words, which in turn make sentence which in turn make paragraphs. The order of these four bases or four components on the DNA has meaning to the cell and that order is translated into information that the cell can use.
The other important or another important feature is that these four components or bases come in pairs. Along one strand, you'll have some particular order. So this order is first a G, then an A, then another G, a T, a C and a T. Always across from a G, there is a C. So people talk about a base GC being one kind of base pair. Always across from a t is an A. So in the DNA, there are two kinds of base pairs, an at pair or a GC pair. They are paired together like that and the pairing is very specific because in the structure of the molecule, this distance from one strand to the other strand is constant, and if you add up the distance that a C takes or the space that a C takes up and you add up the space that a G takes up, it's always the same and it is the same as the space that an at pair takes up. So if you can think of it as if you had a zipper, but you had four different shaped teeth and the zipper would only come together when every a was paired with a t and very G was paired with a--every G was paired with a C.
MR. CLARKE: Would it then be correct that if a G was paired with an A, that it simply wouldn't match or stick together?
DR. COTTON: Well, if--if there was a single mismatch like that, then it would be very loose there. But you can't have a lot of mismatches or the two strands won't stay together.
MR. CLARKE: Incidentally, this structure of DNA as you've described it, when was it discovered?
DR. COTTON: The structure was discovered and published in 1953 by Watson and Crick.
MR. CLARKE: Is that Dr. Watson and Dr. Crick?
DR. COTTON: Dr. Watson and Dr. Quik--Cripp--Crick and I believe that the article was published in 1953.
MR. CLARKE: So a little over 40 years ago?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: As far as this diagram--and it shows these A's and T's that match at least in three instances and then it looks like three more instances where the g's and the C's match, is this simply a small portion of an entire segment or an entire molecule of DNA?
DR. COTTON: A very small portion. There are altogether six billion base pairs. And this is of course an approximate. But in human beings, you would have six billion base pairs of information. One of the important things to note from this diagram is that when people talk about DNA, you talk about DNA as being a particular length. It is possible to get a physical measurement of the length, but that's not the common way that it's discussed. People talk about--scientists talk about DNA in terms of how many base pairs long a particular piece of DNA is. So the particular piece of DNA that's on this diagram is one, two, three, four, five, six base pairs in length. And you can discuss DNA and it is discussed in terms of how many base pairs long is a particular piece.
MR. CLARKE: When you described the entire molecule being roughly six billion bases, is that in each cell of our bodies that has a nucleus?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: And in terms of the cells of our bodies that have a nucleus, is that all cells?
DR. COTTON: No. That is almost all cells. And the major exception or the only exception that I commonly would refer to--in fact, I'm not sure if there are others or not--is red blood cells. And red blood cells in the development and the formation of a red blood cell, the nucleus is lost and there is no nucleus in a red blood cell. So if one were to get DNA from blood, the DNA is not coming from the red blood cells. It's coming from the white blood cells.
MR. CLARKE: While we're on that topic, can you describe, please, what are the various sources of DNA; in other words, various parts of the body that DNA can be taken from?
DR. COTTON: Well, DNA can being taken from almost any source. You can get DNA from bone, from any tissue, liver spleen, pancreas, kidney, brain, skin if you have enough blood, semen, hair roots. Not the part of the hair that you're washing and combing. It's just protein. If you pull out a hair and you get the hair follicle with it, there are cells around that that are part of that hair follicle, and they contain DNA.
MR. CLARKE: When you use the term "follicle," is that the bulb like material--
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: --at the very bottom of a hair?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: All right. As far as this structure--and you've described on this chart the fact that DNA is shown here in a double stranded form?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: Does DNA also or can it exist in a single-stranded form?
DR. COTTON: It can be made to be single stranded. It occasionally in the process of making two cells out of a single cell will exist for short stretches in single-stranded form, but that's again something we really don't need to be worried about. But experimentally, you can take a piece of DNA and either treat it with heat, which would be the common method--and if you think of this as a zipper, the two strands will simply come apart, so that you would have one strand that had a G, A, G, T, C, then the other strand would have a C, T, C, A, G. So it's like unzipping the zipper. You can do that chemically. You can do it with heat and you--and because of the specific nature of the base pairing, you can also bring it back together. The two--two single strands will come back together as long as each G is paired with a C and each a is paired with a T. So, again, it's like having that zipper have four different shaped teeth and the only way you can zip it up is if all the teeth mesh together properly and a with a t and a G with a C.
MR. CLARKE: All right. Your Honor, I was going to have the witness start with a new drawing. Would the Court prefer that now or--
THE COURT: No. We need to take a break for a juror issue. All right. Ladies and gentlemen, please remember all of my admonitions to you; do not discuss the case amongst yourselves, don't form any opinions about the case, do not conduct any deliberations until the matter has been submitted to you, do not allow anybody to communicate with you. We'll stand in recess for 15 minutes. All right. Mr. Clarke, in the interim, would you show the exhibits, please. Mr. Clarke.
(Recess.)
(The following proceedings were held in open court, out of the presence of the jury:)
THE COURT: Back on the record in the Simpson matter. Mr. Neufeld, has your client had the opportunity to review the diagrams?
MR. NEUFELD: Sorry.
THE COURT: I said during the break I wanted you to do that. Why don't you do that real quick. Mr. Fairtlough, do you want to flip the page down, please.
(Brief pause.)
MR. FAIRTLOUGH: Move it in.
THE COURT: No, right there. Right there is fine.
(Brief pause.)
THE COURT: All right. Thank you, Mr. Fairtlough.
MR. NEUFELD: Thank you.
THE COURT: All right. Let's have the jury, please.
(Brief pause.)
(The following proceedings were held in open court, in the presence of the jury:)
THE COURT: Let the record reflect we have now been rejoined by all the members of the jury. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Please be seated. And Dr. Cotton, would you resume the witness stand, please. Good morning again, Dr. Cotton. You are reminded you are still under oath. Mr. Clarke, you may continue with your direct examination.
MR. CLARKE: Thank you, your Honor.
MR. CLARKE: Dr. Cotton, with regard to this diagram that is on the easel at the moment, People's exhibit 237, you described how that shows DNA in a double-stranded form, correct?
DR. COTTON: That's right.
MR. CLARKE: All right. Could you, with the help of a new diagram, or actually, would it assist in your describing DNA in a single-stranded condition to use and draw on what I believe would be People's exhibit 238, a new chart, new diagram, rather?
DR. COTTON: Yes, it would
(Peo's 238 for id = chart)
MR. CLARKE: All right. Then with the Court's permission would you go ahead and use the diagram again to illustrate this single-stranded versus double-stranded DNA.
DR. COTTON: All I'm basically going to do is straighten out the helix to make a second diagram that is a little bit easier for me to draw, so if we make two strands, now all I have done is really just straightened this out, so that when you look at the bases, if you have an a on one side, you will have a t on the other. If you have a G on one side, you will have a C on the other. And there is a bonding between the a and the t and the G and the C that we are not going to bother to draw, but there is a force that is keeping these together, so you can make up any sequence here. T, A, C, C, G, for example, and if I have made up this sequence on this side of the double-stranded, then I would automatically know I have the t on this side, I must have an a on the other. I have an a on this side, I must have a t on the other and so forth. I have a C on this side, so I will have a G on the other strand, and a G on this side, so I must have a C on the other. And again, you can think about the size of the piece of the DNA that I have drawn by counting the bases. Here I have 7, so this piece of DNA that I have illustrated is 7 base pairs long. Now, if we take it apart, we haven't really left a lot of room here, but we will just put up here this is double-stranded, so I think we better--
MR. CLARKE: Go to a new page then if we could make that 239.
THE COURT: 239.
MR. CLARKE: 239. Thank you.
(Peo's 239 for id = chart)
DR. COTTON: I'm not going to be able to remember the same series of letters that I wrote down on the previous one, but if I took that piece that was double-stranded and I heated it, strands would come apart, so I would have nothing attached to this side and I would have nothing attached to the other side. However--
MR. CLARKE: I'm sorry, when you say you heat it, what type of temperatures are you talking about?
DR. COTTON: You have to heat it to about 95 or a hundred degrees in order to get the two strands to come apart, and there is some--there are some temperature--some strands of DNA, if you had a lot of C's and g's, you have to heat those a little--you have to heat that a little bit more than you have a lot of A's and g's. But basically, if you think of it as heating to a hundred degrees, and when I say a hundred degrees, I'm not talking a hundred degrees centigrade.
MR. CLARKE: So a hundred degrees Fahrenheit?
DR. COTTON: No.
MR. CLARKE: You are talking about something very hot in Fahrenheit temperature?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: Not a body temperature and not something out in the desert, something much hotter?
DR. COTTON: Much hotter.
MR. CLARKE: Go ahead.
DR. COTTON: If you wanted to put these back together, you can see that if you just move them back together, you are able to do that, they would all be correctly paired and thus they could come back together and zip up. However, if I took this strand, say, and moved it down so that I had an a or--I was trying to put a t back together with this C and an a back together with this C and a G back together with this G, it would not come back together like that. It will only come back together when the A's and T's and g's and C's are properly paired up.
MR. CLARKE: So therefore DNA is at its happiest, would that be correct to say, when the pairs match up correctly?
DR. COTTON: Yes. It is happy and it is stable when they are paired up correctly. It is pretty happy when they are completely separate, but not as happy as when they are together.
MR. CLARKE: As far as this ability to separate DNA and to have it return to its double-stranded form, why is that important?
DR. COTTON: It becomes important in the process of doing DNA testing and for many other reasons, because it allows you--suppose I have this DNA sequence, single-stranded, and I have this one in my hand in a test-tube and I mix them together. They will come back together. If I have some kind of a tag on here, some kind of tag and the tag could be a radioactive tag or other types of tags, if I have this piece in a test-tube and I have this piece in some other forms and I mix them together and I let them come back together, they will zip up together correctly given some time, and now I can find out where this single-stranded piece has gone to by looking at whatever kind of tag I have stuck to it.
MR. CLARKE: And is the ability to do that or does that ability play a role in DNA typing itself?
DR. COTTON: It plays a role in every form of DNA typing that is currently in use.
MR. CLARKE: Okay. We'll talk about that a little bit later. Now, as far as this overall concept of what you have described, do we in fact, to your knowledge, have a diagram that describes where DNA is found?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: Okay. With the Court's permission then, I would like to have marked as People's exhibit 2--
THE COURT: 240.
MR. CLARKE: --40 a diagram entitled "where is DNA found?"
(Peo's 240 for id = chart)
(Brief pause.)
MR. CLARKE: All right. Dr. Cotton, we had marked as People's exhibit 240 a large diagram entitled "where is DNA found?" can you tell us what that diagram shows?
DR. COTTON: Yeah. I'm going to move over here so I can see it a little better.
MR. CLARKE: Why don't we move--would you be able to discuss this diagram with or without referring to this particular chart that you have just made?
DR. COTTON: We can move it.
MR. CLARKE: Move it? Okay.
(Brief pause.)
MR. CLARKE: All right. Dr. Cotton, if could you describe what People's exhibit 240 shows?
DR. COTTON: This exhibit is basically a summary of the things that I drew earlier on the chart, so you have an example or diagram of a cell that has a nucleus and a cytoplasm and in the nucleus there are chromosomes. Now, they don't have 46 of them drawn out here, but they have several and the real number would be 146. You take one of those chromosomes out and unwind the DNA, this is a depiction of the DNA that is packaged up into the chromosomes, and to make it larger and look at it still magnified yet further, you see again the double helix with the at and GC base pairs.
MR. CLARKE: So then does this chart "where is DNA found?" then basically take step-by-step by showing with greater magnification each portion or actually each way DNA is packaged down ultimately to the individual base pairs themselves?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: Okay. As far as this DNA molecule, and you have described it being the same basically in every cell that has a nucleus in our bodies, does that mean all of us are the same?
DR. COTTON: No.
MR. CLARKE: Can you describe that further?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: And if you would have a seat.
DR. COTTON: (Witness complies.) Well, it is pretty obvious that we are definitely not all the same. All you have to do is look around the room and you will pick that out right away, so within any given individual in all of my cells, the DNA will be exactly the same from one cell to the next, and that would be true for each one of us. But from one individual to the next the DNA will be different. Now, that isn't to mean that--we will use Mr. Clarke as an example--all the DNA in all of his cells is the same in each cell. That is, if you look at a liver cell and a blood cell, the DNA in the liver cell will be exactly the same as the DNA in the blood cell. His DNA will be different than anyone else's in the courtroom, but that is an overall difference. The great majority of the DNA, greater than 99 percent of the DNA, is going to be the same from person-to-person and that is because we are all human beings, our basic body structure is all the same. We all have a liver, we all have hairs, we all have a kidney and so forth. So all of that DNA information that creates those things that we have in common will be this base--basically the same from one person to the next. There is then a small portion of the DNA that is different from person-to-person and that is intuitively obvious because you can look around even in a very large room or a very--many, many people, and you will see that with the exception of identical twins, people are different. Even closely related people, brothers, two brothers are different. You can al tell them apart. And the exception is identical twins and identical twins are identical because they have identical DNA, and that is the only exception.
MR. CLARKE: With regard to then these portions of DNA where we differ--and I believe you said that is something less than one percent where we differ from one another?
DR. COTTON: That's right.
MR. CLARKE: Why is that of interest? Why do you as a scientist care about that region or those regions where we are different?
DR. COTTON: Many scientists would not care about those regions that are different, but if you are interested in being able to distinguish one human being from the next, then it doesn't help you to look at the parts that are the same. In order to distinguish people, especially at the DNA level, you want to be looking at those sections of the DNA that are different from one person to the next, so you have to single out those sections. And for purposes of identifying or telling apart individuals, then you want to look at those sections of the DNA that are not the same from one person to the next.
MR. CLARKE: You described brothers and sisters as being different and yet similar in some respects; is that right?
DR. COTTON: Well, they will be similar in some respects, because if you think about it, you have a mother and a father and they are going to--and they are going to have children. Each child will not get identically the same characteristic from the mother, so--but if you had three children, two children might get the mother's hair color and the third child might get the father's hair color and the first two children who both got the mother's hair color, one of them might get the father's stature and be big-boned and tall, and if the mother was short and small-boned, then the other child might get that characteristic. So that even though they had some characteristics in common, they both got mother's hair color, they don't have all their characteristics in common, and that is a very simplistic example, but it works.
MR. CLARKE: So then children would or would not have the same DNA as that child's parents?
DR. COTTON: The child will not, definitely not have the same DNA as either parent, because the child only gets half of the mother's DNA, so--and the other half comes from the father, so that child is a blend of the mother and father and the child will not be identical to either the mother or the father.
MR. CLARKE: As far as, and perhaps we can go back to the chart that is currently on the easel, "where is DNA found?" these chromosomes, do they package DNA molecules or simply a portion of the entire DNA molecule in a cell?
DR. COTTON: They package the DNA molecules in the cell. One chromosome can generally be considered to be a packaged up DNA molecule.
MR. CLARKE: Okay. Now, this Court has heard testimony about serology. Are you familiar with that term?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: Which, as the jury has heard, involves testing various genetic markers like PGM and EAP. Are you familiar with those terms?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: Is DNA different than the times of testing that go on that test proteins like PGM and EAP?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: In what way?
DR. COTTON: The protein markers that are mainly used in serology are coded up, that is in some--you can think of them as a product of the information that is in the DNA, so when you look at the DNA you are looking at the most basic level of information that you can look at. When you look at a protein, that is a product of the information that is in the DNA, so you are sort of looking at a secondary level of information.
MR. CLARKE: So if I understand correctly, by typing a protein you are really looking a little bit indirectly at the particular genetic marker; is that right?
DR. COTTON: You are, that's right.
MR. CLARKE: As opposed to DNA typing where you are looking directly at basically the blueprint itself?
DR. COTTON: That's right.
MR. CLARKE: All right. Dr. Cotton, I would like to take you back and shift topics a little bit and go back to Cellmark Diagnostics itself.
DR. COTTON: Okay.
MR. CLARKE: First of all, how long have you been with Cellmark?
DR. COTTON: I have been at Cellmark about 7 and a half years. I began to work there in January of 1988.
MR. CLARKE: When was the laboratory itself formed?
DR. COTTON: The laboratory opened up in October of 1987.
MR. CLARKE: What is Cellmark Diagnostics? What type of work do you do?
DR. COTTON: We do DNA testing and we really--we basically do DNA testing for two purposes: One is to answer questions in criminal cases, and I will just give you an example. Umm, if you had a bloodstain and you had a known individual, could be a suspect or a victim, it doesn't matter, you would attempt to say could the known individual have been the donor of the DNA that was taken from the bloodstain? It is exactly the same question that serology is used for in a crime lab. The other type of testing that Cellmark does is paternity testing and for that purpose we are usually receiving a blood sample from a mother, from a child and from an alleged father and the question is, is--could this alleged father be the father of this child or is it impossible for this man to be the father of this child? And that kind of testing can be done using DNA.
MR. CLARKE: Going back to your education, and you briefly mentioned the fact that you had a Master's as well as a Ph.D., could you describe a little bit in more detail when you received those degrees and at what schools.
DR. COTTON: I received both a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science degree from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, and for the both of those degrees I was biology major. Later on I moved to California and attended graduate school at UC Irvine and finished a Ph.D. in molecular biology and biochemistry.
MR. CLARKE: You touched a little bit on DNA played a role in your higher identification. Can you describe basically and briefly, from your undergraduate work through your graduate work, what contact, what work did you do in the area of DNA itself?
DR. COTTON: Along the whole way?
MR. CLARKE: Well, if there is a way of briefly summarizing it, perhaps you can package all three different degrees.
DR. COTTON: I did--for a bachelor of science degree you take a series of biology courses and you learn about DNA and you learn some biochemistry and you learn some cell biology and you do laboratory experiments. And I don't actually recall that any of my laboratory experiments specifically had anything to do with DNA, but actually it has been a while ago, so I'm not really positive. And for my master's degree I did do work in a laboratory, but that work involved electron microscopy which is a method of achieving extreme magnifications and that didn't have anything to do with DNA. And in graduate school at UC Irvine my research focused on DNA and how it is packaged into chromosomes and how the information in DNA is translated for the cell, and so for the four to five years that I was in graduate school, umm, all of my research work had to do with DNA, and then I took the required graduate classes and some of those had something to do with DNA and some of them did not.
MR. CLARKE: As far as your graduate work, did it include actual hands-on work with DNA testing itself?
DR. COTTON: Well, it included a lot of hands-on laboratory work, because the whole point of being in graduate school is to learn how to do research. You just asked me whether it had to do with DNA testing. The kind of--if you are talking about the kind of testing that Cellmark does, no, it didn't, because that wasn't being done at that time. It had to do with other aspects of DNA.
MR. CLARKE: All right. As far as your employment, and then once you obtained your degrees, did you then seek employment?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: And could you describe where you have been employed in the past?
DR. COTTON: I worked for about three and a half years in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Iowa and I did research there, which was also related to basically how DNA is packaged up into chromosomes. And then I went to work at the national institutes of health in Bethesda, Maryland, and I did research there for about five years, and that also involved DNA and that--at that point now did involve doing basically the same types of procedures that are currently used in DNA testing.
MR. CLARKE: What are the national institutes of health?
DR. COTTON: It is basically sort of looks like, if you were to go visit there, it looks like a big college campus and--but not--there isn't very much in the way of teaching done there or not certainly at the undergraduate level. There is some, but not a lot. And it is groups of researchers and it is divided into different institutes. I used to know all the various institutes. There is a heart, lung and blood disease institute. I happened to work this institute for alcoholism and alcohol abuse. There is the nci, National Cancer Institute. So there are--i don't remember how many institutes there are in all, probably more than 20, but these various institutes altogether comprise the national institute of health and the main campus for the national institute of health is in Bethesda, Maryland, and then there are other areas where researchers are located also besides that main campus.
MR. CLARKE: Once you left the national institute of health, is that when you joined Cellmark?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: In what role when you joined them?
DR. COTTON: When I joined Cellmark I was the director of research and development.
MR. CLARKE: Do you currently hold that position at Cellmark or a different position?
DR. COTTON: A different position.
MR. CLARKE: What is that?
DR. COTTON: I am now the laboratory director.
MR. CLARKE: In that position as laboratory director what are your duties?
DR. COTTON: My main duty is that I am ultimately responsible for the scientific work that is done at Cellmark, so that is my sort of umbrella overall responsibility. My duties include, along with two other Ph.D. staff, supervising the research that is done at Cellmark and reviewing cases that are done at Cellmark. When we receive samples in the lab and we analyze those samples and write a report, the person who has done the work at the bench, which is not me, signs the report and I--and myself or one of the other two Ph.D. staff would review the report and sign it also. And I testify in court when required.
MR. CLARKE: All right. We will return to both of those a little bit later. As far as your position as laboratory director, how long have you been in that role?
DR. COTTON: About two years.
MR. CLARKE: This jury has heard testimony previously about an organization known as the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. Are you a member of that group?
DR. COTTON: Yes, I am.
MR. CLARKE: Are you a member of any other organizations or societies?
DR. COTTON: I'm a member of the American Society of Cell Biology, the American Society of Human Genetics and the American Association of Blood Banks.
MR. CLARKE: The American Academy of Forensic Science, I assume the title describes it, involves forensic science; is that right?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: And when you use the term "forensic science," what are you referring to?
DR. COTTON: When I use the term "forensic science," I am generally referring to the work that we would do in the analysis of samples where a criminal case is involved.
MR. CLARKE: The other organizations you described then, I think one of them was, for instance, the American Society of Human Genetics that you are a member of?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: Is that a forensic organization?
DR. COTTON: No.
MR. CLARKE: What is it?
DR. COTTON: It is an organization or a group of scientists that are interested in all--that is the scientists that are members of that organization would be interested in some aspect of human genetics. They might be interested in disease diagnosis, they might be interested in gene mapping. They might be interested in forensic science, but it is sort of a generic group of scientists whose overall interest would encompass human genetics.
MR. CLARKE: I think you also mentioned was it the American Association of Blood Banks that you are a member of?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: What is that group briefly?
DR. COTTON: Mostly it is people who are knowledgeable about the storage of blood and blood typing and the use of blood in--for medical purposes.
MR. CLARKE: Such as transfusions?
DR. COTTON: Such as transfusions and certainly that is not my area of expertise. The reason that I am a member of that organization is that that organization has a program for accreditation of laboratories that do paternity testing and we are a participant in that program and they usually at their national meeting will get together scientists who are interested in paternity testing and have a specific forum for that small group, so that is a very small group within the American Association of Blood Banks.
MR. CLARKE: Do you attend meetings, as you are able to and as your case work permits, of these organizations?
DR. COTTON: Yes, I do.
MR. CLARKE: Do you present lectures at these meetings?
DR. COTTON: Not at every meeting, but I do present lectures at some meetings.
MR. CLARKE: On what types of topics?
DR. COTTON: Generally it is related to perhaps a new technique that could be used in criminal cases or a case study that was done in a very unusual case, something like that.
MR. CLARKE: All right. As far as publications--and there is scientific literature in the area of DNA; is that correct?
DR. COTTON: There is a huge amount of scientific literature generally in the area of DNA.
MR. CLARKE: As far as that literature is concerned, do you attempt to stay current or do you stay current on that portion of the literature that directly impacts your job at Cellmark Diagnostics?
DR. COTTON: I mainly am now able to stay current with the scientific literature on DNA as it impacts on human identification issues. I do stay current with some of the other literature, but it is in a relatively narrow area.
MR. CLARKE: You have used this term "human identification." what do you mean by that?
DR. COTTON: Basically I mean being able to distinguish one human being from another, and as the ability of science gets more and more sophisticated in this area, given enough information, you can distinguish one human being from basically all others.
MR. CLARKE: Incidentally, as far as the literature is concerned, do you act as a peer reviewer for that literature?
DR. COTTON: I am sometimes asked to review articles that have been submitted to journals and give my opinion on the quality of the work that is in that paper.
MR. CLARKE: All right. I believe you described that one of your duties as laboratory director includes testifying in courts across the United States?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: Have you previously testified in courts across this country?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: And I am referring now to the area of human identification as a result of DNA typing?
DR. COTTON: That's the only area in which I have given testimony.
MR. CLARKE: Could you describe for us approximately how many times that has occurred before today.
DR. COTTON: Umm, I don't keep a running total, but I've probably testified in about ninety or so cases.
MR. CLARKE: Do you have any idea approximately how many states of this country that involves?
DR. COTTON: Well, again, I don't keep a running total of that, but I'm sure it is at least twenty.
MR. CLARKE: Would this be your first time in the County of Los Angeles, or not, testifying as an expert in DNA typing?
DR. COTTON: It is definitely not my first time in the County of Los Angeles.
MR. CLARKE: Dr. Cotton, I would like to shift gears a little bit and talk with you about DNA typing itself. Is there more than one or just one approach to typing DNA for purposes of human identification?
DR. COTTON: There is more than one approach.
MR. CLARKE: All right. Are there two primary approaches that are used commonly in forensic science?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: What are those called, first of all?
DR. COTTON: The two primary approaches are generally referred to by their acronym or their initials. One is called RFLP analysis and that is the acronym standing for restriction fragment length polymorphism, and obviously you don't have an explanation of that. The word polymorphism just is referring to differences meaning it means many forms, so it is a technique that is allowing you to look at many forms of the DNA, and that is one major type of DNA testing that is done in this country today and actually many other countries as well. The other type is referred to as PCR. Now, there are many different kind of PCR tests, and PCR is the basic procedure that allows you to do the test and PCR--the initials stand--and again this won't make any sense yet--the initials stand for the polymerase chain reaction. It is a procedure and that procedure can be applied to different types of genetic markers and different types of tests, but any test that uses that procedure is generally referred to as a PCR type test.
MR. CLARKE: I would like to start with the RFLP process first, if we could. And first of all, could you describe for this jury, taking weeks, what the RFLP process is and how it actually is conducted?
DR. COTTON: You mean could I take several weeks to describe it?
MR. CLARKE: Yes.
DR. COTTON: Oh, I'm sure we could.
MR. CLARKE: To your knowledge--
DR. COTTON: I don't think we want to do that.
THE COURT: I don't think we are going to do that.
MR. CLARKE: To your knowledge are we going to in fact limit it to something substantially shorter than that?
DR. COTTON: We are going to--based on my discussions with you, we are going to try to make it much shorter than that and pick out just those sections that are really important to have an understanding of what the final result looks like and what it means.
MR. CLARKE: Okay. This RFLP process, when was it developed?
DR. COTTON: It wasn't developed on a special day. It is a series of procedures that all tied together are called RFLP. Some of those procedures were developed in the mid-seventies and some of the information that scientists needed to actually finally put all this together was not developed until the early eighties. So you can't give it a date, but you can give it a time frame from about 1975 to about 1985. The information that is used in RFLP testing for identification was discovered during that time frame.
MR. CLARKE: Was there a time when locations on the DNA molecule that you have already described were found to be different amongst people, as you earlier testified to?
DR. COTTON: That has been known for a long time. Early on of course it was just known sort of intuitively that there had to be sections that were different since people are very different. The information about heredity and how it relates to DNA was described back in the late 1800's and early 1900's, but the discovery of the specific types of differences that this test looks at was basically about 1983, `84, and `85.
MR. CLARKE: Was that as a result of in particular one or two scientists in this country and outside this country?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: Who were those individuals?
DR. COTTON: Umm, the two major contributors in this area, and again it is very hard to say this, because without previous information they wouldn't have been able to make their major contributions, so you have a whole series of scientists that are kind of contributing here, but the two contributors to the kind of information we are looking at in this testing would be Dr. Ray white from Utah and Dr. Alec Jeffries from the University of Lester in England.
MR. CLARKE: Incidentally, was Dr. Jeffries in England honored for any of his work in this area?
DR. COTTON: Yes, he has received several honors, including being knighted for his discoveries in this area.
MR. CLARKE: By "knighted," does that mean he is addressed as Sir Alec Jeffries?
DR. COTTON: I know it is Sir and then he is also a Professor and some other things, so there is sort of a series of Sir, Professor things that go in front of his name, but I don't know that I could get it right.
THE COURT: I think they are called titles.
MR. CLARKE: Did Dr. Jeffries play a role in any manner in the formation of Cellmark Diagnostics?
DR. COTTON: Basically he did. The University of Lester where Dr. Jeffries works owns the patents to his discoveries, so the series of events was he made these discoveries, certain of this information was patented, and the parent company that owns Cellmark Diagnostics purchased the rights to those patents, and they, along with Dr. Jeffries' help, did the developmental work to take it from--excuse me--umm, being a procedure that he did daily in his lab to having a protocol that could be followed in what's more like a production lab, where you are doing the same type of test on each sample that comes in the lab.
MR. CLARKE: Is there any relationship between your laboratory in this country, as well as Cellmark in the United Kingdom?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: What is that relationship?
DR. COTTON: We are both owned by a parent company. The name that have company is Zeneca.
MR. CLARKE: Was Cellmark in the United States formed before or after Cellmark in the United Kingdom?
DR. COTTON: I think it was just about a half a year after the formation of Cellmark in the United Kingdom.
MR. CLARKE: As far as the procedures that were used at Cellmark in this country at its formation, did you have anything to do with what had been used before or even at that time in England?
DR. COTTON: At the time that Cellmark began doing case work in the United States we were using the identical procedures to those that were used in England. Umm, now the procedures are probably not identical. They don't do very much testing for criminal cases in that lab any more and so our procedures would no longer be identical, but they would still be very similar.
MR. CLARKE: Incidentally, why don't they do as many criminal cases now in England?
DR. COTTON: Umm--
MR. NEUFELD: Objection, irrelevant as to what they do in England.
THE COURT: Overruled.
DR. COTTON: There is a very large lab in London and they do almost all of the forensic testing for the United Kingdom.
MR. CLARKE: Now, with regard to--and you have used this term RFLP typing process that we will get into a little more detail later. Is this RFLP testing approach used exclusively in human identification?
DR. COTTON: No.
MR. CLARKE: What else is it used for?
DR. COTTON: The--the--let me give you an answer in sort of two phases. A very similar procedure can be used to identify animals and in fact there is a lab in Oregon and another lab in Canada that uses the same types of procedures to look at poaching. Somebody has, you know, some meat in their freezer, and they say, well, this is just a deer, you know, and the--I don't know what the organization would be that would be checking on this, but whatever organization it is, they would say, well, no, this is some endangered prong-horn antelope--I am sort of making this up as you can see--then they can use these same kind of procedures to determine whether or not the meat in the person's freezer is in fact from a deer or from the endangered species, so that is a very analogous type of thing to what is being done in a criminal case. The general procedures that are used in this testing are used in genetic diagnosis and in gene mapping and in a lot of other research applications other than human identification.
MR. CLARKE: Let me stop you and ask you about when you use the term "genetic diagnosis" that this technique is used for, is that determining whether or not an individual suffers from a genetic disease?
DR. COTTON: Yes, or you might--a parent might want to know if they were the carrier of a specific genetic disease or you might, in the process of diagnosing a disease, want to know if this was a genetically--a specific genetically inherited disease, and there may be a test for that that uses these kind of procedures. Another use, for example, is in bone marrow transplantation. You have two--you have a donor and you have a recipient of the bone marrow from the donor, and after the transplant is done, you can use these procedures to follow whether or not the transplant has been effective by looking at the blood cells in the recipient and saying is the original genetic source of those cells those of the recipient, which you are hoping it won't be, or those of the blood marrow donor, and you are hoping that it will be that and you can track the progress of the transplant using the very same procedures that are used for paternity or identification testing.
MR. CLARKE: As far as disease diagnosis, if I can return to this, is this RFLP procedure then used to determine, for instance, whether an individual suffers from cystic fibrosis?
DR. COTTON: It can be. There are now easier tests than the RFLP procedure, but that was certainly early on the procedure in the research stages that that would have been used.
MR. CLARKE: You also brought up the use of this technique, for instance, in the poaching scenario. Is this RFLP technique also used to help save endangered animals?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: What about this technique, this RFLP technique, in for instance, plants? Does it have any role there?
DR. COTTON: There are--the main role that I am aware of, and I am not a plant biologist, so there may be many other aspects that it is useful for that I am not aware of, but in plant breeding where a company has a corn hybrid that has specific characteristics, those characteristics can be identified and attracted in that hybrid using RFLP analysis with exactly the same types of procedures that are used in testing for paternity.
MR. CLARKE: Does this RFLP testing technique play any role in, for instance, identifying the remains of American war dead?
DR. COTTON: It has, yes.
MR. CLARKE: And does that include, for instance, remains from soldiers killed in battle?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: Now, you have described a number of general areas, including human identification, that this RFLP technique is used. Would the human identification use of this technique be the majority or most or a small portion or what?
DR. COTTON: Overall it would be a small portion--if you look at anyone in science who might use this procedure or this set of procedures that makes up RFLP analysis, human identification would be a very, very small fraction of its total application.
MR. CLARKE: Is this a technique that was basically born out of forensic science or did forensic science borrow it from the greater scientific community?
DR. COTTON: It would be that forensic science borrowed it from the research community.
MR. CLARKE: What about in terms of how wide this technique is used and I'm talking about geographically? Is it used in the United States, in England alone, or is it used elsewhere?
MR. NEUFELD: Objection, your Honor. Ask for clarification when he says "this technique."
THE COURT: Sustained. Rephrase the question.
MR. CLARKE: As far as the RFLP typing approach, is it used strictly in English-speaking countries, for instance, or is it used in some wider area than that?
DR. COTTON: No, it is used in a much wider area than that.
MR. CLARKE: And would that include, for instance, in countries around the world?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: Now, if I can return to the RFLP method, first of all, would it assist, if I asked you to describe briefly this method, to use again the drawing pad for purposes of demonstrating what happens?
DR. COTTON: I probably can't do it without scribbling on a pad.
MR. CLARKE: Okay. Fair enough. Your Honor, perhaps this could be marked as People's 241.
THE COURT: 241.
(Peo's 241 for id = chart)
THE COURT: Call this RFLP drawing.
MR. CLARKE: Thank you.
MR. CLARKE: In fact, Dr. Cotton, if we could, before we do that, could we go back and perhaps if you could step down, I'm going to ask you to put just very brief titles on the previous exhibits, the previous drawings.
(Brief pause.)
MR. CLARKE: And perhaps we could start with the 46 chromosomes chart that I believe is People's exhibit 236. No, 235, excuse me. That is labeled "46 chromosomes." would that be an appropriate title for that chart?
DR. COTTON: It would be.
MR. CLARKE: Okay. Perhaps you could just underline it and then we will underline the titles on each one.
DR. COTTON: (Witness complies.)
THE COURT: All right. 235 will be labeled "chromosomes" underlined.
MR. CLARKE: All right. If you could go to the next drawing that you made, which is exhibit 236. Does that drawing depict on the left the single pair of chromosomes and then the two strands of DNA to the right?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: What would be a short title for that drawing?
DR. COTTON: Umm, why don't we just put "chromosome pair."
MR. CLARKE: Okay.
DR. COTTON: Does it matter where?
MR. CLARKE: If you have a different color, I think you could put it in the middle will be fine, as long as you underline it.
DR. COTTON: (Witness complies.)
MR. CLARKE: And then as far as the two strands of DNA to the right, would it be appropriate to give that a title?
DR. COTTON: That is just the two strands from these two chromosomes, so it is still a chromosome pair.
MR. CLARKE: Okay. Then if you would go to the next diagram, which I think has already been titled "double-stranded." would that be an appropriate title for what I believe to be People's 238?
DR. COTTON: Sure.
MR. CLARKE: Okay. That just leaves us then the next page.
DR. COTTON: Let's add "DNA" here.
MR. CLARKE: Okay. And then if you would go to 239, the last drawing.
DR. COTTON: (Witness complies.)
MR. CLARKE: And is that a demonstration of single-strand DNA?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: Does your "t" have a cross on it?
DR. COTTON: Oh.
MR. CLARKE: And again, your Honor, that would be People's exhibit 239. Now, Dr. Cotton, let's provide you with a new page, which will be People's 241, I believe. First of all, why don't we label it at the top "RFLP method."
DR. COTTON: (Witness complies.)
MR. CLARKE: And if you would now use that particular piece of paper to help describe this RFLP testing process.
DR. COTTON: Okay.
MR. CLARKE: Go ahead.
DR. COTTON: Do you want me to just--okay. What I want to do is go back to the idea that you have two chromosomes or you have a chromosome pair and that we are going to look at the DNA from that specific chromosome pair and I want to explain to you what the--we keep talking about looking at differences in the DNA. I want to show you an example of the kind of difference that we are looking at, because I think that is the only way it will really make any sense, and then once we have done that we can sort of walk through the procedure.
MR. CLARKE: All right.
DR. COTTON: So let's go back and say we have our two chromosome's worth of DNA here and they have, you know, the a and t and GC base pairs all along, and so if we are looking around on these chromosomes, you will come to a section that contains what is referred to as repeated sequences. I'm going to make a very short and simple--"short" meaning short in physical length--simple example of this, but this is not an unrealistic example. Suppose we come along and we are looking down the sequences of bases and we see that we have a C followed by an a followed by a t with another C followed by another a followed by another t and another C followed by another a followed by another T. Now, what I'm going to do is only draw one side, so if you will just assume with me that the other side has the appropriate matching base. So we have this sequence, C, A, T, repeated three times. Now, if we went and looked at another chromosome, this is now you know from one person and you are going down the chromosome and you are looking at the base pairs and you come to sort of a matching section and you find that it has a C followed by an a followed by a T. And you see that that sequence of three base pairs is repeated quite a number of times, but on this chromosome it is repeated more times. Here we have--on the one on the left we had three repeats and here, (Indicating), we have on the one on the right, we have five repeats. So we have this short section of something that is repeated over and over again. Now you have to sort of think about if we made this same drawing for yet another individual and another and another, what you would find is that another individual might have a section--they would have this--you would go along the chromosome and they would have this same repeat, C, A, T, but it might be repeated ten times on one of their chromosomes and 18 times on the other. So that everybody has the C, A, t sequence on their chromosome, but not everybody has the same number of repeats. That is the difference that RFLP testing looks at. So if you imagine in your head that we had a method to cut out this section and then you add to that that we had a method to measure how long this section was that we cut out, for this person we--if we could do that measurement, we would have a section that was nine base pairs long and for their other chromosome we would have a section that was 15 base pairs long, so this one becomes nine. And I'm going to use the abbreviation "BP" to stand for base pairs, base pairs being the GC or the at pairs, and over here, (Indicating), are five repeats is equal to 15 base pairs. So--and then if we had another person, we could make another diagram just like this. If they had a chromosome that had ten repeats, that would be a section that was 30 base pairs. So it is those lengths that are different from person-to-person. And in this abbreviation, the "p" standing for polymorphism, the "l" stands for length. This test looks at length differences in the DNA and the length differences are created by the number of repeats that happen to be end to end at a specific location on a chromosome pair.
MR. CLARKE: So is it then the case that this RFLP method is simply a tool to determine how we vary from one another as human beings at this particular region of DNA where these repeats vary?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: As far as the method itself, to your knowledge do we have a prepared chart that illustrates how this difference is actually determined using the RFLP test?
DR. COTTON: We have or you have, and I have looked at, a prepared chart that doesn't illustrate this, but illustrates the set of procedures that allows you to ultimately look at these length differences.
MR. CLARKE: And is it these length differences that are simply what you are looking for as a DNA scientist when you are using this RFLP method for identification?
DR. COTTON: That's right.
MR. CLARKE: All right. Your Honor, with the Court's permission I ask to be marked as People's exhibit I believe it is 242--
THE COURT: People's 242.
(Peo's 242 for id = chart)
MR. CLARKE: --a fairly large prepared diagram entitled, I believe, "the RFLP method."
(Brief pause.)
MR. CLARKE: Now, Dr. Cotton, first of all, as you have described on your drawing, People's exhibit 241, where you have described these differences among us as human beings and the number of times we repeat a particular sequence, how are these particular regions of DNA picked out or selected to use for identification purposes?
DR. COTTON: (No audible response.)
MR. CLARKE: Does that question make sense?
DR. COTTON: It makes perfect sense, but it takes that whole procedure to do that.
MR. CLARKE: Okay. All right. Then why don't we go ahead and then if you would describe this RFLP method in the basic steps that are delineated and perhaps I can ask you a question first. Have you had an opportunity to look at this large chart entitled "the RFLP method" that was previously prepared before coming to court today?
DR. COTTON: Yes, I have.
MR. CLARKE: And in that review does this diagram basically describe the individual steps that are part of this RFLP DNA typing method?
THE COURT: Excuse me, Mr. Clarke. Let me interrupt you for just a moment. Let me see counsel here without the court reporter.
(A conference was held at the bench, not reported.)
(The following proceedings were held in open court:)
THE COURT: All right. Thank you, counsel.
MR. CLARKE: All right. Dr. Cotton, with regard to this diagram then, could you describe--if you would utilize this diagram and the drawing you have previously made to describe how this RFLP typing method actually works?
DR. COTTON: The diagram on the board has everything numbered so I will try to relate what I'm saying to the number. So let's say you have a sample, some biological sample. The diagram illustrates either a tube of blood or a blood stain, but there could be, as I said before, a hair root, it could be a semen stain. We will just say we have some biological sample. And the first thing that happens is that the DNA is extracted from this sample. What that means is the DNA is purified from the other components of the sample that you don't care about. The DNA is in the cell and you have all these proteins. Proteins are nice, but for purposes of DNA testing we don't need them, so you are purifying the DNA away from the other cellular components which include proteins and cell membranes and things like that. That is step no. 1.
MR. CLARKE: All right.
DR. COTTON: Okay. Step no. 2 on the chart says the DNA is cut into fragments by a restriction enzyme. When I said a little while ago that if you had a method of cutting out these sections where the repeat exists, that you could look at how long it was, the method is to use a protein that is called a restriction enzyme and these enzymes have the characteristic that they can locate a specific short set of base pairs. Experimentally it is predetermined--there are many restriction enzymes. There are over a hundred different restriction enzymes. And let me just give you an example so it doesn't sound so--let's just say we have a double-stranded piece of DNA and you have this series of bases, C, C, G, G, and you go down the DNA and you find another set where it happens to have C, C, G, G. If you have a restriction enzyme that recognizes this site, it would make a cut wherever it happened to see a C, C, G, G. And I am just giving you one example. There are many others.
MR. CLARKE: Actually, while you are on that drawing, Dr. Cotton, perhaps you can label that "restriction enzyme."
DR. COTTON: Well--
MR. CLARKE: Would this be an appropriate description or not?
DR. COTTON: Let's call it the--this is just an example of a restriction enzyme cutting site.
MR. CLARKE: Your Honor, could that be marked People's 243?
THE COURT: 243.
MR. CLARKE: Thank you.
(Peo's 243 for id = chart)
MR. CLARKE: All right. Continue if you would, Dr. Cotton.
DR. COTTON: I'm going to go back to the previous diagram. The test is set up so that you are using a specific restriction enzyme that we know will cut outside the area of the repeats, so the enzyme that is used in the test is designed so it will cut at the beginning, just before the beginning of the repeat and just after the repeat or somewhere close to that. So you purify your DNA, you add your restriction enzyme and you make these cuts. Now, the enzyme cuts many other places, so basically if you think--if you go back to the spool of thread analogy and you have rolled out your spool of thread and it is very long, you now take a pair of scissors and cut it up into a whole bunch of small pieces and among those small pieces are these two that we are interested in.
MR. CLARKE: All right. What step do you take next to locate those interested fragments?
DR. COTTON: The next step--actually the next series of steps are the steps that allow you to locate those fragments, so the first thing you do, now that you've got all these little fragments, is that you use a procedure that is called electrophoresis. It is used--it has many uses. You can do electrophoresis with proteins, but in this case we are doing electrophoresis with DNA. And that electrophoresis will allow you to separate out the pieces according to how big they are, so if I had--if I had a test-tube full of pieces of DNA that were all different size, at the end of the electrophoresis it is as if I had been able to reach in and put the small pieces down here and the medium-sized pieces over here and the larger pieces down at that end.
MR. CLARKE: If this jury had heard previous testimony about the use of electrophoresis to type proteins such as PGM and EAP, would this be the same tool that you are talking about in the RFLP typing process?
DR. COTTON: It is very similar, but it is not exactly the same.
MR. CLARKE: All right. Go ahead.
DR. COTTON: The picture on the diagram that is numbered 3 is the illustration of separation of the DNA fragments on an agarose gel. That illustration is pretty opaque, but let me try on my own and see if I can make it a little more graphic. The gel is about the size of--a little smaller than an 8-by-10 piece of paper. Actually it is about the size of your notebook, a little bit wider and about that long. It is about a quarter of an inch thick and it is made of agarose. Agarose comes as a powder and you boil it up sort of like Jell-O, and it goes into solution and when you pour it into a tray it solidifies so it has some of the same characteristics of gelatin, although it is not gelatin.
So you are pouring this gel into a tray and if I look at that tray from the side after I've poured the gel, this is about one-fourth inch thick here. I also use a small mold to make an indentation at one end. If I take that same gel and I draw it as if it was sitting on the countertop where I could look down on it, I would have a series of these rectangular indentations across the top of the gel. Now, on the diagram they are sort of showing you where two samples have gone in that gel, so that the red lines, the red lanes, are sort of one that represents one indentation where you could put a sample. Anyway, you have your DNA sample and the sample is placed into this indentation in the gel which is called a sample well, and the DNA moves through the gel. The DNA has a charge, it carries a slight negative charge, so if there is a positive electrode at this end and a negative electrode at this end, DNA is forced to move through the gel and the gel acts like a sieve. Short segments of DNA can move through the gel rapidly. They can work their way through this sieve pushed around by the electric current and longer--so shorter pieces will move through the gel the farthest. The longer strands of DNA cannot move as rapidly through the gel and they do not go as far, so this is the way of taking these two pieces of DNA, these are now the pieces that we are interested in. Remember, they are part of the group that we are looking at. We have these two pieces in our mass of bits. We want to see where they are. This piece is shorter than this piece, (Indicating), so in the gel the shorter piece, let's say, moves this far and the other piece cannot move as far. So now these two pieces have separated. The piece that was only nine base pairs is in a different position than the piece that was 15 base pairs.
MR. CLARKE: All right. Could we, with this diagram that you have just drawn--would "electrophoresis" be an appropriate title?
DR. COTTON: Sure.
MR. CLARKE: I believe that would be People's 244, your Honor.
THE COURT: Yes.
(Peo's 244 for id = chart)
THE COURT: All right. Mr. Clarke, I need to allow the jurors to take a comfort break at this point. Ladies and gentlemen, I forgot to mention to you this morning, I don't know if the bailiffs mentioned to you, that we have a modified court session today. I have a funeral to attend this afternoon, so we are going to go through until one o'clock and then break at one o'clock. So we will take a ten-minute comfort break at this point and we will resume again at 12:00 sharp. All right. Please remember my admonitions to you.
(Recess.)
(The following proceedings were held in open court, out of the presence of the jury:)
THE COURT: All right. Back on the record in the Simpson matter. Let's have the jurors, please.
(The following proceedings were held in open court, in the presence of the jury:)
THE COURT: All right. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. All right. Dr. Cotton, would you resume the witness stand, please.
MR. CLARKE: Actually, perhaps the witness could stay there. That's where I was going to direct her next.
THE COURT: All right. Great. Good afternoon, Dr. Cotton. You're reminded you are still under oath. Mr. Clarke, you may proceed.
MR. CLARKE: Thank you, your Honor.
MR. CLARKE: Now, Dr. Cotton, this process of electrophoresis, and are we talking about what is in basically step no. 3 on the large--the RFLP method diagram?
DR. COTTON: Yes, we are.
MR. CLARKE: And you've described the fact that through the use of electrophoresis, these fragments that differ in size basically go to a different portion of the gel; is that right?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: Now, this electrophoresis process--
MR. CLARKE: And, your Honor, if I may, I'd like to utilize a previous chart which has been labeled People's exhibit 215.
THE COURT: All right.
MR. CLARKE: And in particular, Dr. Cotton, I'd like you to assume there's been previous testimony about the use of this chart in a description of the use of electrophoresis in typing of proteins.
DR. COTTON: Okay.
MR. CLARKE: First of all--and I'd like to direct you specifically to what's labeled no. 3, load gel in the photograph above that. Does that appear to be a gel?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: All right. Is that the same, different or similar from the gels that you're describing as part of the RFLP process?
DR. COTTON: Well, I'm sure it's different. I'm not exactly sure what kind of gel that is. If it was the RFLP process--and that looks to me like a glass plate although I can't tell that well. If it was the RFLP process, it would be a plastic tray that has sort of like boring something into a square or rectangular cake pan. But the edges of the tray are maybe about three-quarters of an inch high.
MR. CLARKE: Okay. Then taking you on to step 4 on this diagram, People's exhibit 215, that's labeled, "4, electrophoresis," is that the same or similar to the electrophoresis process you've described in the RFLP method?
DR. COTTON: The tank that's shown in photograph 4 doesn't look very different from the type of tank we use. It has space at either end where buffer or some kind of a wick goes. It has a plastic lid that comes down to protect the user. What's really different here is that if you look at photograph no. 3 where it says "load gel," first of all, the position where the samples are loaded on an RFLP gel is very close to the top, more like what I've drawn in this diagram where's there, it's maybe quarter of a way down the gel. And these are--in the RFLP procedure, these are liquid samples that are loaded using the pipetter with a disposal plastic tip.
MR. CLARKE: Okay. And then lastly on this exhibit 215 where it's labeled, "running the gel," do you in fact run gels during the RFLP method typing process?
DR. COTTON: Yes. You--it shows there a series of gels and two power supplies up on a shelf and we have a similar looking power supply that's connected to the gel tank such that you have a negative and a positive electrode which is creating the current, electric current which is pushing these DNA fragments along through the gel.
MR. CLARKE: All right.
MR. CLARKE: Your Honor, with the Court's permission, could 215 just be brought over to this side so the remaining jurors can have a look at it?
THE COURT: Yes. Mr. Fairtlough.
MR. FAIRTLOUGH: Yes, your Honor.
(Brief pause.)
THE COURT: Thank you, Mr. Fairtlough.
MR. CLARKE: Now, Dr. Cotton, at the time the electrophoresis or step 3 on People's exhibit 242 is completed, can you see these different fragments on the gel?
DR. COTTON: No, you can't see them.
MR. CLARKE: What's the next step in the process?
DR. COTTON: The next step in the process is to create a permanent record of the separation of the DNA fragments in the gel. If you try to pick up a agarose gel with your hands, it would be like trying to pick up a quarter inch slab of Jell-O. It would break apart in your hands. So whereas all the information you want is in this gel, you have to have a permanent way of storing this information. Can I backtrack for one second--
MR. CLARKE: Sure.
DR. COTTON: --and then start a new diagram?
MR. CLARKE: Yes.
DR. COTTON: Let's still consider this two chromosome or the two DNA pieces from the diagram a few places back. Let me make sure that I straighten one thing out and then go on. I talked about a fragment of DNA that was nine base pairs and another fragment that was 15. Let's put this more into reality for this test. The sizes we might look at, you could look at a size that was 900 base pairs and a size that was 1500 base pairs. This is more like the size range. And actually you can look considerably larger than this. But this is more like the size range of pieces that you would be looking at in this test. Still, do where the differences in size, we do to the different number of repeats in that section of DNA. So that if we go back, we have our 900 base pair piece has moved further down through the gel and the 1500 base pair piece has not moved as far.
When you have this separation in the gel, this is the information that you really want. And the entire rest of the procedure are the set of steps that allow you to visualize where these pieces of DNA went. So if you understand that where the DNA came to in the gel is rel--is a measure, an indirect measure of its size. That is, this distance traveled is an indirect measure of the size; the further the distance traveled, the smaller the piece of DNA. The shorter distance traveled, the larger the size is. This is the information you're after, and the entire rest of the procedure is how you see this visually.
MR. CLARKE: All right. And, your Honor, for the record, the witness has been referring and writing "further" on People's exhibit 244.
THE COURT: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: All right. Dr. Cotton, then would you be or are we proceeding to step 4 on the diagram, the RFLP method?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: And could you describe that, please?
DR. COTTON: Yes. And I won't actually--maybe I won't draw another one because this is pretty nice here on step 4. What you want to do now is keep this record or make a permanent record of where these DNA fragments are. And the way that's done is to transfer the DNA in the same relative positions from the gel onto a nylon membrane. And that step or that process is illustrated in step 4.
MR. CLARKE: All right. Would a laser light pointer help you with the diagram or not?
THE COURT: How about the good old fashion pointer.
MR. CLARKE: Or a pointer. If you can reach--I think we've got a pointer right at the entrance to the--in fact, Dr. Cotton, did we or did you bring one of these membranes to court today?
DR. COTTON: I gave it to you and presumably you brought it to court.
MR. CLARKE: At this point, I hope I did.
MR. CLARKE: All right, your Honor. I would ask to have marked as People's next in order, I believe 245?
THE COURT: 244 I believe. I think it is 244. Mrs. Robertson, 244?
THE CLERK: 245.
THE COURT: 245. I stand corrected.
(Peo's 245 for id = membrane)
MR. CLARKE: And I have provided the Defense one of these items as well.
THE COURT: All right. Proceed.
MR. CLARKE: Dr. Cotton, if I can show you what seems to be an object about the size of what, eight inches by eight inches or so?
DR. COTTON: Yes. It's actually 20 centimeters by 20 centimeters.
MR. CLARKE: Okay. That sounds like a more precise description. What is--and referring to what will be marked People's exhibit 245, what is that?
DR. COTTON: This is how the membrane comes to us. It's in these red pieces of--this is just a piece of paper and it has written on it MSI, and that's the manufacturer of the membrane that we use; and sandwiched in between the two pieces of paper is a nylon membrane. Now, if I were doing this in the lab, I wouldn't be touching it with my fingers. You would be handling it with gloves because fingerprints wouldn't be helpful. Any of the oil from your fingers is really the problem. And this hasn't been used in the lab, so it's clean. And this is the nylon membrane.
So in the example here, you have a sponge. And in our lab, we use something that's called a wick. But it's all going to do the same thing, so even though this is slightly different from my lab, I'm just simply going to stick with this. And then on top of the--and the sponge is soaked with some solution, and on top of the sponge, you place the gel. So you can see the gel here is green and you have a green layer here. That's the gel. The gel isn't really green. It's really just kind of white. And you can see that the membrane isn't really orange, but they made it orange. And--anyway, so you have that gel, and you simply--I had a gel here. I'll use the top of this thing. You would very carefully take this nylon membrane and lay it down--
MR. CLARKE: Actually--I'm sorry, Dr. Cotton. Perhaps you could demonstrate that on the actual bar in front of the jury so that more can see.
DR. COTTON: I had my gel sitting right here. I would carefully lay this nylon membrane down on top of the gel and let it fall down easily. And it--it would be wet beforehand and the gel is damp. And then you can--when I did this in research, I used my fingers, but in the lab, we now use a pipette. But you would smooth down the nylon membrane so that it was in easy close contact with the gel.
THE COURT: All right. Dr. Cotton, could you keep your voice up, please?
DR. COTTON: Yes, sir. Thank you. Now, what's the purpose of this is to have the DNA move out of the gel and come in contact with the nylon membrane. So if you go back to the diagram here, the salt solution that's in the sponge will move up through--oh, well, wait. Let me--let me finish the order here. We have the sponge, the gel, the membrane, a big stack of paper towels and a weight. So the idea is that the solution moves up that's soaking in the sponge, moves up through the gel and carries with it the DNA and it's sucked up--the solution is sucked up into the paper towels, but the DNA becomes trapped on the nylon membrane. So if you were to go back to this diagram, the membrane would be layered right on top of the gel and the DNA would move up through the gel and become attached to the nylon membrane. The paper towels and the weight serve the obvious purpose, the same as if you had a puddle on the counter and you put the paper towels on it. The solution would be soaked up onto the paper towel. It's not a very elegant contraption, but this is one of the most important procedures in all of molecular biology and it's used all over the world.
THE COURT: Mr. Clarke, the diagram that Dr. Cotton referred to again, the drawing, I believe that's the electrophoresis diagram?
MR. CLARKE: Correct. 244.
THE COURT: All right.
DR. COTTON: Now, I have omitted one important feature here, and I--somehow I always have trouble getting this in the right order. Just before you set this setup up, you treat your gel so the DNA fragments that are double stranded will come apart and become single stranded. And you do this by soaking the gel in a solution of sodium hydroxide. So basically--and the other method that we talked about was heating it, but if you heat it, the gel will just melt. So you can't do that. So you're going to separate this what was double stranded to now be single stranded in the gel and then you're going to do this transfer so that as the DNA is bound to that nylon, it's in a single stranded form. And that's the important thing that I left out.
MR. CLARKE: Actually two questions if I can. First of all, why doesn't the DNA travel through the membrane and up into the paper towels?
DR. COTTON: The DNA binds to the membrane and it becomes trapped there. The membrane doesn't have sufficiently large pores in it for the DNA to get through.
MR. CLARKE: Okay. And then you also referred to this process as not being particularly elegant; is that right?
DR. COTTON: Well, it's very elegant, but it's not very fancy. It doesn't require a lot of equipment. You don't need any electricity. You could set it up in your kitchen if you really wanted to.
MR. CLARKE: Is this particular step limited to forensic science or is it applicable or is it actually used in any technique involving use of the RFLP method?
DR. COTTON: It's used in any technique where RFLP is used and it has other uses as well. But if you go into any of the scientific journals, you probably can't go through a journal that talks about molecular biology or biochemistry without finding an article where this procedure is used. This procedure is called a southern blot. And it doesn't have that title--oh, yes, it does have the title here on the diagram where it says, "by a technique known as southern blotting." it's called a southern blot because the scientist who devised this procedure in 19--late 1970's, mid 1970's is--his name is Ed Southern and he's from England, and his last name became attached to the procedure because it's so widely used. So it's called southern blot. That's the name of the scientist who devised the procedure and it's been used since that time.
MR. CLARKE: All right. So now is it correct then that this membrane that will be marked 235 in this process now has single stranded DNA attached to it?
DR. COTTON: Yes. And the important thing is, however the strands were separated in the gel, they are now--that is, however the DNA fragments, that is the large one versus the small one, were separated in the gel, that same spacial separation is now on the nylon membrane. So the DNA is attached to the same nylon mem--attached to the nylon membrane and the pieces are in the same relative positions that they were in the gel when the gel was turned off.
MR. CLARKE: What's the next step in this RFLP typing process after you have the membrane with the DNA attached to it?
DR. COTTON: The next step--I have to read what's on the board for a second to see where I am on this.
MR. CLARKE: All right.
DR. COTTON: Okay. So over here (Indicating), after the blot, you have this statement on the board which is correct; "the DNA fragments are now on the nylon membrane, but are not yet visible." now, actually it shows you as if something was visible, but really, when you put the nylon down and you take the nylon off the blot, it looks just plain just like you saw it. It doesn't--except it's wet. And now you get to the point of the next few steps that allow visualization. And here--here's where it becomes important that you understand that you can take DNA fragments apart and put them back together, because now you're going to take what's called the DNA probe, which is simply a piece of DNA that you've made in the laboratory and has a radioactive tag on it. It's single stranded. And if your repeat was CAT, your probe would be GTA.
MR. CLARKE: Actually you used an earlier drawing that demonstrated a tag; did you not?
DR. COTTON: I did.
MR. CLARKE: Perhaps you can refer back to that.
MR. CLARKE: And, your Honor, that would be People's exhibit 239 labeled "single-stranded DNA."
DR. COTTON: So in my single-stranded DNA drawing, I didn't draw the repeat cat, but let's suppose this is our repeat. If this is our repeat, the DNA that's on the nylon is now single stranded. So you have this available to collect the second strand and you would have the other side available to collect a second strand. So you take the nylon membrane and put it in a plastic tub or you can put it in a tube-like thing. But I'm going to use the example for a tub because it's a little easier. We use in the lab a Tupperware container, a square one, in which it was just about the size of that nylon membrane. So the membrane would be flat in the bottom and it's--and then the membrane is covered with a salt solution. The radioactive DNA probe is added to that solution and that solution is let sit at a specific temperature overnight. So overnight being, you know, about 16 hours perhaps. And during this time, this radioactive probe DNA, which is simply--the probe is actually, for what we do in the lab, attached to C's and g's. During this time, this probe that you've added will zip up with any DNA on the membrane that it can appropriately zip up with. The radioactivity is something that you can follow. If you take your membrane, add your probe, let it go overnight, take your membrane out, rinse off the excess probe, if I held a Geiger counter up to it, I would get a few clicks, the Geiger counter being able to detect the radioactivity. But that's not accurate enough. So instead of a Geiger counter, you would then--if we can go back here, here's our membrane that now has some probe bound to it. To detect where that probe has bound, you lay an x-ray film over the membrane. You do this in the dark. You put it in a metal cassette that sort of looks like the two--like two book covers then close up together. And the radioactivity that's on the membrane will expose the silver grains on the x-ray film creating a dark spot or a line. It's really a line. And that is the image of where the probe bound to the DNA. So if we go way back--if we go back to this diagram, this was originally our gel. Now this pattern of DNA is on the membrane and now you've added a probe to it, and the probe has bound specifically--if we make the probe so it binds specifically to the cat repeat, that's what it's going to do. So the probe is bound specifically here and here (Indicating) and it's been washed off everywhere else because only in these two positions is there a piece of DNA that it can come back together with. And we laid a piece of x-ray film over this membrane and allowed it to expose. And on the x-ray film, a dark line will appear in these two relative positions. That dark line tells you where the DNA fragment went to in the gel when the gel separation of these pieces occurred.
MR. CLARKE: All right. Referring to People's exhibit 244, your Honor, the drawing.
THE COURT: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: Dr. Cotton, these probes then, are they specifically designed to look for that repeat sequence that you're searching for on the membrane itself?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: And when they recognize the sequence that they're looking for, the probe then actually mates up or zips together with the DNA that's already on the membrane from this blotting procedure?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: Is the probe then simply a means for you to be able to see where the fragment is on the gel that you're actually looking for?
DR. COTTON: Yes. The probe--this is your tracer. It's your eyes. It's your tag. It--it--it--and you sort--we talk about it like it was a thinking thing, but of course it's just a piece of DNA and this is just a chemical reaction where--that allows these two DNA strands that were single stranded to come together. So it's simply your--your way in the laboratory of identifying where these pieces of DNA went that had the repeat that matches to the probe.
MR. CLARKE: Then is the use of this radioactivity and x-ray film so that you can actually look and see where these fragments are?
DR. COTTON: Yes. That's exactly what you're doing.
MR. CLARKE: And is that done by your own eyes?
DR. COTTON: When you look at the x-ray film, yes. You're looking at it.
MR. CLARKE: Does the x-ray film have a particular name in the RFLP testing process?
DR. COTTON: It's properly called an autoradiograph. In the lab, we call it--we refer to it as an autorad. Just simpler to say, and that's what most people would refer--that's the term most people would use.
MR. CLARKE: All right. At this point, your Honor, I would like to have marked as People's next in order--
THE COURT: Is that 246? All right. People's 246. Mr. Clarke.
MR. CLARKE: Yes. A single what I believe to be an autoradiograph that's been--a copy of which has been previously provided to counsel.
THE COURT: All right. Single autorad.
(Peo's 246 for id = autorad)
MR. CLARKE: Dr. Cotton, just showing you what will be marked--
MR. CLARKE: I'm sorry. 246, your Honor?
THE COURT: 246.
MR. CLARKE: What is that?
DR. COTTON: This is a copy of one of the autoradiographs that was produced in this case.
MR. CLARKE: And is that typically what an x-ray or autoradiograph looks like following the use of this RFLP typing process?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: All right. Without getting into what the samples are on that particular test--
MR. CLARKE: And with the Court's permission, could Dr. Cotton simply hold that up so the jury can see it from a distance?
THE COURT: Yes.
DR. COTTON: This is one of the film--well, this is a copy, but it's a--the copies are very good. They don't--so that if I--
MR. NEUFELD: Objection, your Honor. This is not responsive to the question.
THE COURT: Sustained. Mr. Clarke.
MR. CLARKE: All right. Dr. Cotton, if you would just hold it up at the moment, and we will return to this particular autoradiograph later. But is this typical of what such an x-ray looks like at the end of this RFLP procedure?
DR. COTTON: Yes, it is.
MR. CLARKE: Okay. And in fact--
DR. COTTON: Without all the lettering.
MR. CLARKE: Okay.
DR. COTTON: You have to subtract out the lettering here and the lettering down here (Indicating).
MR. CLARKE: The lettering you're referring to at both the top and bottom of this particular exhibit, is that done to aid in knowing what sample is--which sample is which basically?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: Okay. All right. Fine. Would that autoradiograph then represent what is labeled on the RFLP method chart at step 7 and then step 8?
DR. COTTON: Would only represent what's labeled in the step 8.
MR. CLARKE: Okay. So step 7 is describing the creation of this x-ray film in its early stages by laying it on top of the membrane?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: All right. Very good. Perhaps I can take that back. And if you would, could you have a seat back on the witness stand?
THE COURT: And, Mr. Fairtlough, can you rescue the diagram easel there, please?
MR. CLARKE: Actually, with respect to the RFLP method, the large chart, could that also be brought down so that all of the jurors could have--can look at it?
THE COURT: Mr. Fairtlough and Mr. Clarke, perhaps you both should try to handle that.
MR. CLARKE: Without dropping it.
THE COURT: Yes.
(Brief pause.)
THE COURT: All right. Thank you, counsel.
MR. CLARKE: Dr. Cotton, is that then a capsule summary of this RFLP typing approach?
DR. COTTON: It is.
MR. CLARKE: You are familiar with the term "controls"?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: What is a control?
DR. COTTON: "control" is usually some kind of sample that helps you to determine whether all the procedures that you just finished using worked as they should, and it usually is a sample that you know what the results from the control should look like. And if they look appropriately, then it gives you some information that your test was done appropriately.
MR. CLARKE: Now, referring to this RFLP typing process, do you utilize controls as part of that testing?
DR. COTTON: Yes, we do.
MR. CLARKE: Are there a number of different types of controls?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: How do you know when a control isn't working properly?
DR. COTTON: Well, it depends on what kind of control you're using. But for this procedure, you are ultimately looking at that x-ray film and visualizing your result, and later on you might make some measurements. But if we just talk about looking at it for the time being, the controls have a very typical appearance, one that you are accustomed to seeing. So if they look as they should, then you would make a general first-impression assessment that the test and the procedures that you used had been done appropriately.
MR. CLARKE: What if the controls didn't work properly in a particular test?
DR. COTTON: Generally if they haven't worked properly, you would either go back and repeat it if you had--if there was a possibility to do that, or if you couldn't repeat it, you would probably just say that your results are inconclusive, because if your controls haven't worked, that--there's some implication there that how you worked on the actual samples may not have worked either.
MR. CLARKE: Now, this autorad in People's exhibit 246 represents an autorad from an RFLP test; is that right?
DR. COTTON: It does.
MR. CLARKE: This autoradiograph, is it in fact preservable? In other words, is it in a form that, for instance, can be looked at at a later time or by other people?
DR. COTTON: Yes. The autoradiograph is your permanent record of the results of the test.
MR. CLARKE: As far as the RFLP typing results--and first of all, did your laboratory obtain RFLP typing results in this case?
DR. COTTON: Yes, we did.
MR. CLARKE: Are those RFLP testing results reflected on autoradiographs as an example of which is People's exhibit 246?
DR. COTTON: Yes, they are.
MR. CLARKE: Now, I'd like to discuss a different area with you, and it relates in particular to when you are reading results from an autoradiograph. First of all, do you do that?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: And you look for certain things; is that right?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: If I use the term "match," what does that mean to you?
DR. COTTON: It means to me that on the autoradiograph, the position of two DNA bands or possibly the positions of all the bands from one sample to another are so close as to be visually--that I couldn't distinguish one from the other.
MR. CLARKE: What does that mean, that you can't distinguish one from the other?
DR. COTTON: They look alike.
MR. CLARKE: Does that have a particular meaning in this RFLP typing process?
DR. COTTON: Of course.
MR. CLARKE: What's that?
DR. COTTON: From person to person, there's so much variation in the length of the fragments that have a repeat, that if you look at several genetic locations, and for each genetic location, two samples are the same, and you look at another, and they're the same there, and you look at another, and they're the same there, and you keep doing that, the more genetic locations at which two samples are the same, the higher the likelihood that the two samples are in fact from the same person.
MR. CLARKE: All right. Your Honor, if I may return to People's exhibit 242, the large board, because I believe it has an item that I would like to ask the witness another question about. I put it away too quickly.
(Brief pause.)
MR. CLARKE: Thank you.
MR. CLARKE: Dr. Cotton, referring you to what would be step 8 on this board, People's exhibit 242, does that particular depiction--would that help you in describing what you mean by "match"?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: All right. Could you then go ahead and describe that? And if the pointer would help--
DR. COTTON: Okay.
MR. CLARKE: --please feel free.
DR. COTTON: This diagram and the things that I drew on the chart are illustrating the kinds of results you would get when you looked at one location on one chromosome. So since you get a copy of--you get two copies of the chromosome, you get one piece of information that you inherited from your mother and the other from your father. And so if we look at this sample that would be basically on your left, you have two dark lines on the autorad indicating the two DNA bands that are from this sample. And then if you go on to the middle sample, you have two bands on this autorad from this middle sample. And then if you go to the third sample, you also have two bands. The middle sample and the sample on the left that I'm pointing to, the bands are in essentially the same position. So it is possible that sample no. 1 and this middle sample, sample no. 2 could be from the same person because they have DNA bands that are in the same position.
This third sample on the right, which also has two DNA bands, these bands are clearly on a--in a different position than either the first or the second sample. That tells you immediately that the DNA in this third sample must be from a person who is different from either of these first two. These first two could be from the same person, but this third one must be from a different person because the DNA fragments are in different positions, which means they're different sizes.
MR. CLARKE: Would that be an example of an exclusion?
DR. COTTON: If you were comparing--suppose this was a known individual and these were two evidence samples. This known individual in the third lane over would be excluded as being a possible contributor to the two evidence samples in the right--in the left lane and in the middle lane.
MR. CLARKE: This is done visually as a result of the autoradiograph produced at the end of the RFLP typing process?
DR. COTTON: It's done visually and it's also--that's followed up by a more sophisticated measurement. But in fact, the first thing that you do when you get your x-ray film off is you look at it and you look at the controls and you look at the samples on there and you make some immediate judgment about whether it appears that this--procedures worked okay and whether it appears that you have inclusions or exclusions, and based on those inclusions or exclusions, then you might do further testing or you might not.
MR. CLARKE: Following this visual determination, do you then in some instances turn to another process basically to determine whether or not your visual opinion is a correct one as to a match?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: All right. We'll return to that later. But what I would like to turn your attention to--
MR. CLARKE: And, your Honor, I'm going to leave the chart because I don't want to have to ask to bring it up again.
MR. CLARKE: --and that relates to the amounts of DNA that are in a sample. And I'd like to focus your attention again on this RFLP typing method. If there's no DNA in a particular sample, what do you see at the end of the process on the x-ray or autoradiograph?
DR. COTTON: If there's no human DNA in a particular sample, at the end, you don't see anything. The lane is blank. There are no bands. It's just empty.
MR. CLARKE: Are there other types of DNA that you could see?
DR. COTTON: For the procedure as it's used in laboratories for human identification testing, you're specifically looking at--you want to be looking at human DNA and the test is designed to only detect human DNA. And, therefore--if you were using it in a research lab, you could see other types of DNA. But for this purpose, you're only looking for human DNA. If you have no human DNA there, you won't see anything.
MR. CLARKE: So in your laboratory, your interest is in human DNA as opposed to looking at, for instance, animal DNA or other types?
DR. COTTON: That's right.
MR. CLARKE: What if you have some DNA in a sample? Would you necessarily see results at the end?
DR. COTTON: If you had some DNA in a sample, you might see some results at the end. There are two measures of whether or not you might see results, and one is quantity and the other is quality.
MR. CLARKE: What do you mean by that distinction?
DR. COTTON: If your DNA is in good condition--and let's just go back to the spool of thread analogy. If your DNA is unwound off the spool and it's all in one piece, that's good condition. It's like it was in a nice fresh cell that somebody just drew out of your arm. If your DNA is in good condition and you have enough of it, you will get a result. If your DNA is broken up in a random manner--and the proper term for that is that it may be degraded--you may or may not get a result. And when you think about DNA that's broken up or degraded, you have to think of it sort of as a continuum. It could be only slightly degraded, that is, it's only broken up a little bit, in which case it won't affect your result, you will get a result, or it can be very, very broken up in very, very small pieces. And if that was the case, you would not be able to get a result with this RFLP test.
MR. CLARKE: What happens with DNA? Does it in fact die or degrade or perish?
DR. COTTON: Well, I wouldn't use the term "die" or "perish." it doesn't really fit. "degrade" is the right term, or if you went to make that simple, you could just say it's become broken up into many pieces. And that can happen as a result of environmental effects, and you can generally sort of assume that moisture and heat facilitates degradation; that is, it occurs more rapidly, and cold and dry conditions preserve DNA.
MR. CLARKE: If DNA suffers this degrading process, degradation process, will that result in changing the types from the original type of sample to a new and different type as a result of the process of degradation?
DR. COTTON: No.
MR. CLARKE: I'm sorry?
DR. COTTON: It will not.
MR. CLARKE: So this process of degradation, can it change my DNA into looking like your DNA?
DR. COTTON: No.
MR. CLARKE: Or your DNA into looking like the Court's DNA?
DR. COTTON: No.
MR. CLARKE: Or any members of the jury or the audience?
DR. COTTON: No.
MR. CLARKE: Taking you back to this small amount of DNA, what if you had more DNA in a better condition let's say? Then what do you see?
DR. COTTON: If you have more DNA and it's in good condition, then you will see bands on your autoradiograph or your autorad; and each time you use a different probe, you'll see bands that that probe recognizes. So you can get a lot of information if you have a good amount of DNA and it's in good condition.
MR. CLARKE: Where do you draw the line? In other words, how do you know there's enough DNA there to be able to make an opinion or render an opinion about results from a particular test?
DR. COTTON: Well, you can sort of go about it from two directions. You can measure how much human DNA you have before you do the test and you can run what's commonly referred to as a mini gel, which is a really small gel, about, oh, two inches by three inches and assess whether the DNA appears to be broken up. So you can measure its quantity and you can get an estimate of its quality, and you could do that before you did the test and then say, "well, it looks good. Let's do an RFLP test."
MR. CLARKE: Is that, by the way, using the same process of electrophoresis for this mini gel?
DR. COTTON: Yes, exactly the same.
MR. CLARKE: And that's simply a step to help you evaluate, that is to determine approximately how much DNA is in a sample before you test it?
DR. COTTON: Yes. Umm, if you go back to this green depiction of a gel--
MR. CLARKE: At step 3 on People's 242?
DR. COTTON: Right. If you just made that a lot smaller and which would then represent your mini gel, you can stain that gel with a dye in which you get a pink smear that looks like these smears that are on this diagram for step 3. And if you had a smear like what's shown in step 3, you would look at that and you'd say, "well, gosh, I've got DNA sort of spread out all the way from the top of my mini gel down to the bottom. That's pretty degraded." and if it looked like that, you'd be sort of--you wouldn't be sure whether it would be good enough for RFLP or not. If you--if this diagram in step 3 had only shown the pink color at the top, that's sort of what it would look like if it was in good condition and you ran a mini gel. You're looking at a huge piece because you haven't--when you do this mini gel, you haven't cut it with your restriction enzyme yet. So actually if we could insert an extra step here to be 1-A so that you extracted your DNA and then you ran your little gel and then you made this judgment. If you had DNA that was just hung up at the top of the gel, that would say--you would say, "well, I have very good DNA here. I should be able to go on and do an RFLP test." so DNA is all spread out such that it's--looks relatively degraded, then you would have to make a judgment about whether or not you thought it would be good enough to do an RFLP test or you were going to do some other kind of test with it.
MR. CLARKE: As far as these bands as you see them and referring to for instance step 8 on People's exhibit 242, those are fairly dark bands in that depiction, correct?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: You've also held up one autoradiograph, People's exhibit 246, which also shows a number of bands that seem to be very dark; is that right?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: In fact, actually if you could with the Court's permission--
MR. CLARKE: Could the witness hold 246 up again?
THE COURT: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: First of all, Dr. Cotton, to your knowledge, will we return to autorad and actually show them in closer detail to the jury?
DR. COTTON: Yes, we will.
MR. CLARKE: But just for the moment--and if you could hold that up. I don't know if you can hold it up without that by the background. Let's do that.
THE COURT: Why don't you have Dr. Cotton just step down over there.
MR. CLARKE: All right. That's fine. She can just hold it up against the white background.
MR. CLARKE: Dr. Cotton, again showing People's exhibit 246, that shows a number of very dark patterns; is that right?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: Or bands. Is that the appropriate term?
DR. COTTON: It is.
MR. CLARKE: Now, with regard to samples, for instance that you receive in your laboratory, will the darkness or the intensity of those bands vary?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: Why?
DR. COTTON: The darker the band, that reflects you had more probe bound to it. More probe means that you had more DNA there. So if we just--we don't have anything on here that has very light bands. But if you had something that had very light bands, that would be an indication that you didn't have very much DNA. If you have bands that are dark, that means you have more DNA. Now, there's other ways you can make that--the length of time that you lay the x-ray film over the nylon, the longer you lay it on there, the darker everything becomes. But it will still be relative. A darker band generally has more DNA than a lighter band, and there's a few reasons why that--there's a few technical exceptions to that, but that's the general and correct generalization.
MR. CLARKE: All right. Then if you would have a seat back on the witness stand. Is it the case then, Dr. Cotton, that with regard to samples with not that much DNA in them, but enough to produce a banding pattern, you may see bands that are faint?
DR. COTTON: That's exactly right.
MR. CLARKE: Is "faint" a term that you use in your laboratory?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: Could--what does it mean?
DR. COTTON: It means that instead of a dark crisp line, you have a difference between where there's no band and where there's a band, but the level of darkness there that is the intensity is much less. It's light.
MR. CLARKE: Does that have any significance in your interpretation of results?
DR. COTTON: You're also looking at the position of the band. So whether it's dark or it's light, it's the position that you're interested in. It does affect--that is, you think about it in your interpretation because you're assessing, "I have a lot of DNA here, I don't have very much here," and you may use that information in your interpretation. But it's mainly the position that you're interested in looking at.
MR. CLARKE: What about in terms of faint bands and whether or not you can see them? Does that play a role--I assume that plays a role in your interpretation?
DR. COTTON: Well, if you want to interpret them, you'd better be able to see them.
MR. CLARKE: Are there any policies in effect in the laboratory at interpreting, for instance, results that have faint bands?
DR. COTTON: I don't believe that we have a specific written policy. We do have a common practice in our lab in dealing with faint bands, and we do follow that practice generally whenever we encounter faint bands. It's not actually a written part of our procedure.
MR. CLARKE: And what is that procedure, though not written?
DR. COTTON: There are two parts to it. In the further analysis that we haven't really discussed yet, which involves a computer imaging step, there is a standard level of darkness that we ask that the computer see in order to call something a band. In addition to that, we have to be able to see it ourselves. That is, both the computer has to be able to see it and the analyst has to be able to see it. And if we really are struggling with whether or not a band is light, we will ask several people to come in and cover up the adjacent lanes and make an assessment as to whether all the people involved in doing the analysis of the test agree that they can see a particular band.
MR. CLARKE: When you say, "cover up the adjacent lanes," is that to ensure that whoever is looking at it wouldn't be bias by the presence of bands in other samples?
DR. COTTON: That's right. If you're working on something or another Ph.D. staff or one of the analysts is working on it, if I'm not sure whether or not something is intense enough for me to use it further in the interpretation, I might lay a piece of cardboard down on either side and just say to one of my coworkers, "would you come in and look at this and tell me where you see bands in this lane?" we don't always do that, but that's generally what we do when they get quite light.
MR. CLARKE: As far as this process of DNA, once it's degrading, does this degradation process ever leave two bands appearing that weren't in the original DNA in the sample?
DR. COTTON: No, it doesn't.
MR. CLARKE: So in other words, you either see the DNA from the original sample, or if the degradation is too great, you don't see anything at some point?
DR. COTTON: Well, you've just said what the extremes are. You--you may have an intermediate result where you have the DNA is somewhat degraded. And the effect that that has is, you tend to lose the bands that are larger. That is at the top of the gel. So you may end up with a partial set of bands. You don't see the ones that are large, but you see the ones that are smaller in size. And that can happen. What won't happen is that with degradation, you won't have a band at one size and then have it converted to now a new band at a different size. That's not going to happen.
MR. CLARKE: Okay. And perhaps lastly for today, with regard to this computer imaging process that you just described, can you tell us more about what that is?
DR. COTTON: It's sort of like this elmo machine actually. Well, kind of. The computer imaging system consists of a light box and on which you lay your film, a camera at the top and a computer monitor so that the camera is capturing the image of the autorad and displaying it on the computer screen for you, and then you're asking the computer to help you do some manipulations in terms of saying here's a band and here's a band and here's a band, and then the computer will also, because of its software, do a calculation for you that says, "the band in this position is approximately 5,000 base pairs."
MR. CLARKE: Now, when you say the "autorad" that you have the camera actually focused on, is that an autorad just like People's exhibit 246?
DR. COTTON: Yes.
MR. CLARKE: And then this camera and this software in combination then review the results on that particular autorad?
DR. COTTON: Well, they--reviewing makes it sound like it's thinking about it, and it's not. What it's doing, it's visualizing--it's a video imaging system. It's taking a picture of that autorad and displaying it on the computer monitor, and then you are directing the machine to do particular things, not to the film itself, but to the image.
MR. CLARKE: And what are those things that you direct it to do?
DR. COTTON: You're telling it where the control lanes are, you're telling it where the sample lanes are and you're telling it which lanes you want it to do a calculation, to find a band. That is, the computer will basically scan down, and where there's a dark area, it will identify that as a band, and where there's--so it's looking for changes in levels of darkness. So if it's clear and then it sees a dark area, then it identifies that as a band and then it sort of scans down and finds another band and identifies that. So it's making identification of a band position. And it can do this correctly and it can do it wrong, and the operator has to help it along. And then once you're happy that it's--that it's identified bands and you agree that those are bands, it will do this calculation for you that will give you an estimate of the size of that DNA and base pairs.
MR. CLARKE: And that's the purpose of this imaging process, to assist you in interpreting results; is that right?
DR. COTTON: That's right.
MR. CLARKE: And also to establish the sizes for the various bands according to the methods that you just described?
DR. COTTON: That's right.
MR. CLARKE: All right.
THE COURT: Good spot?
MR. CLARKE: Yes. Thank you, your Honor.
THE COURT: All right. Ladies and gentlemen, we are going to take our recess for the afternoon. Please remember all of my admonitions to you; don't discuss the case amongst yourselves, don't form any opinions about the case, do not conduct any deliberations until the matter has been submitted to you and do not allow anybody to communicate with you. With regard to the case as far as the jury is concerned, we'll stand in recess until 9:00 o'clock. And we have a hearing tomorrow morning set at 8:00 with Mr. Uelmen and I don't recollect who from the Prosecution on the photographs, tomorrow, 8:00 o'clock. All right. We'll stand in recess. And, Dr. Cotton, tomorrow morning, 8:45. All right. Thank you. We'll stand in recess.
(At 1:00 P.M., an adjournment was taken until, Tuesday, May 9, 1995, 9:00 A.M.)
Superior Court of the State of California
For the County of Los Angeles
Department no. 103 Hon. Lance A. Ito, Judge
The People of the State of California, ) ) plaintiff, ) ) ) vs. ) no. Ba097211 )
Orenthal James Simpson, ) ) ) Defendant. )
Reporter's transcript of proceedings
Monday, May 8, 1995
Volume 141
Pages 26239 through 26405, inclusive
Appearances: (See page 2)
Janet M. Moxham, CSR #4588 Christine M. Olson, CSR #2378 official reporters
Appearances:
For the People: Gil garcetti, district attorney by: Marcia R. Clark, william W. Hodgman, christopher A. Darden, cheri A. Lewis, rockne P. Harmon, george W. Clarke, scott M. Gordon lydia C. Bodin, hank M. Goldberg, alan yochelson and darrell S. Mavis, brian R. Kelberg, and kenneth E. Lynch, deputies 18-000 criminal courts building 210 west temple street los angeles, california 90012
For the defendant: Robert L. Shapiro, esquire sara L. Caplan, esquire 2121 avenue of the stars 19th floor los angeles, california 90067
Johnnie L. Cochran, jr., esquire by: Carl E. Douglas, esquire shawn snider chapman, esquire 4929 wilshire boulevard suite 1010 los angeles, california 90010
Gerald F. Uelmen, esquire robert kardashian, esquire alan dershowitz, esquire F. Lee bailey, esquire barry scheck, esquire peter neufeld, esquire robert D. Blasier, esquire william C. Thompson, esquire
I n d e x
Index for volume 141 pages 26239 - 26405
-----------------------------------------------------
Day date session page vol.
Monday May 8, 1995 A.M. 26239 141
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Legend:
Ms. Clark - mc
Mr. Hodgman - h
Mr. Darden d
Ms. Lewis - l
Ms. Kahn - k
Mr. Goldberg - gb
Mr. Clarke - gc
Mr. Harmon - rh
Mr. Gordon - g
Mr. Shapiro - s
Mr. Cochran - c
Mr. Douglas - cd
Mr. Bailey - b
Ms. Chapman - sc
Ms. Blasier- bb
Mr. Uelmen - u
Mr. Scheck - bs
Mr. Neufeld - n
-----------------------------------------------------
Chronological index of witnesses
People's
Witnesses direct cross redirect recross vol.
Douroux, Bernie 26259d 26269c 26290d 141
Cotton, Robin 26259gc 141
-----------------------------------------------------
Alphabetical index of witnesses
Witnesses direct cross redirect recross vol.
Douroux, Bernie 26259d 26269c 26290d 141
Cotton, Robin 26259gc 141
EXHIBITS
PEOPLE'S for in exhibit identification evidence page vol. Page vol.
231 - Photograph of 26240 141 a close-up view of the top of a glass vial with a purple cap and a finger
232 - Plastic pipette 26240 141 (Disposable)
233 - Photograph of 26246 141 The blood vial chart with magnetic indicators and markings
234 - 2-Page document 26267 141 entitled "LAPD investigation" - vehicle Impound report
235 - Drawing by 26299 141 Dr. Cotton entitled "46 chromosomes"
236 - Drawing by 26304 141 Dr. Cotton entitled "chromosome pairs"
237 - Chart 26299 141 entitled "46 chromosomes"
238 - Drawing by 26317 141 Dr. Cotton entitled "double-stranded DNA"
239 - Drawing by 26316 141 Dr. Cotton entitled "single-stranded DNA"
240 - Chart 26319 141 entitled "where is DNA found?"
241 - Drawing by 26347 141 Dr. Cotton entitled "RFLP method"
242 - Drawing by 26353 141 Dr. Cotton entitled "the RFLP method"
243 - Drawing by 26357 141 Dr. Cotton entitled "restriction enzyme cutting site"
244 - Drawing by 26361 141 Dr. Cotton entitled "electrophoresis"
245 - Membrane paper 26370 141 and covering
246 - Audoradiograph 26382 141