Alan Jacobson - False accusations

Perfect answer; Denton smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Saperstein. I have nothing further.”

Half an hour after Calvino dismissed the jury for the day, Hellman stopped by Denton’s office and knocked on the stippled glass of his door. “Nice job today, Tim,” he said.

Denton’s tie was loosened and dangling from an unbuttoned collar. “This wool stuff is really comfortable,” he said, running a hand along the lapel of his suit coat.

Hellman hiked his brow. “I’ve been trying to tell you that for years.”

They smiled as Denton sunk down into his chair. “It was a good day.”

“I look forward to many more. You’re just getting started.”

Denton stretched. “I’m glad Harding’s at the defense table. I feel very comfortable with our case against her.”

“Me too. And I’m not just saying that. I think justice will truly be done.”

Denton shook his head and sighed. “Tomorrow will be interesting. We’ve got the DNA expert at leadoff followed by Stanton.”

Hellman apologized for not being able to be present due to a trial he was scheduled to begin in the morning, and excused himself. Denton pulled out a crumpled tinfoil mass that was wrapped in a plastic bag: leftovers of his baloney sandwich from yesterday-his dinner for this evening. He had hundreds of pages of documents to review. It was going to be a long night.

Lou Palucci was laughing, the phone receiver bobbing up and down with the flab on his double chin.

“I’m serious,” Chandler said. “I need you to do me a favor.” He heard a door close and realized Palucci was probably still at the lab and had just sequestered himself inside his office.

“The last favor I did for you nearly cost me my job. Is your memory that short?”

“Last time I checked, you were still in charge of the lab.”

“The answer’s no, Chandler. Absolutely not.”

“You don’t even know what I need.”

“The very point,” Palucci said, “is that you need something. And that means that I can’t help you. I work for the state, not Ryan Chandler.”

Chandler took a deep breath. “Lou, this is no big deal, but you’re the only one who can do it.”

“I don’t like the sound of it already, and I don’t even know what ‘it’ is.”

“It’s just a few numbers. Lot numbers, on the bottoms of the beer cans found in Phil Madison’s car and those confiscated from Harding’s house.”

“Why do you need those?”

“Don’t ask why. Just get them for me. You’re not running any tests, you’re not spending any state money for private purposes-”

“I’ll think about it. I need to let things settle down a bit before I go poking around. I’ll call you from home if I have anything for you.”

Chandler thanked him and hung up, then slumped in his chair. At this point, there was nothing to do unless Palucci called him back. As he sat there, he thought of a case his father had presided over, a case that first lit the spark in his heart for choosing police work as a career when he was sixteen years old. He smiled at the memory of sitting with his dad on a pier in Bay Shore, Long Island, going over the forensic evidence that helped put a killer behind bars for life.

Johnny Donnelly’s voice echoed through his head.

“It’s time, Junior…it’s time…”

Chandler picked up the phone, stared at it for a long moment, then dialed his father.

The following morning, with the sun poking through the low-hung sky for the first time in two weeks, Denton called Dr. Leonard Ross to the stand. Dr. Ross, a researcher well schooled in the analysis and typing of DNA, had written a textbook on the topic. As a witness he was presentable, though he did have a tendency to talk above the heads of the jurors at times. At two thousand dollars for a half-day of testimony, Denton wanted to make sure Ross’s message got through loud and clear to the jurors; he met with his witness on two occasions to go over the testimony and ensure the fact that the words he used were no more than three syllables in length.

Ross testified as to what the prosecution wanted to communicate to the jury: that the evidence was properly handled and preserved with little or no risk of contamination, and the delay in running the DNA testing was of no consequence whatsoever.

He explained the process of DNA analysis, starting with the protein building blocks and moving through genetics in half an hour in a manner that would have had even a ten-year-old nodding comprehension. Denton was pleased with how it was presented.

Although Warwick pecked away with information supposedly quoted from his own consultant, namely that the delay could have caused degradation and produced incorrect results, Ross stood by his position. He referred to his textbook repeatedly, a tactic that was designed to solidify his reputation as the expert and to ground his opinions in fact. “You’re arguing with the person who wrote the book,” Ross said at one point-which could have been taken as egotistical and turned off the jury. However, it came off instead as his way of defending himself from Warwick’s incessant attack that was riddled with desperation tactics and baseless opinions.

“Answer this for me, sir,” Warwick asked, getting up close to Ross, “why did the lab use the PCR method as opposed to the RFLP method of analysis?”

“PCR is more sensitive. It also allows typing in situations where it wouldn’t have been possible before. It gives us the ability to type DNA with the smallest of sample sizes. All we require is one-billionth of a gram of DNA. Before, we wouldn’t have been able to even begin analysis with RFLP on such a small sample size.”

“PCR…isn’t that the method where photocopies are made of the DNA pattern? Isn’t it less accurate than RFLP?”

“Let me answer one question at a time,” Ross said with a chuckle. “You mention photocopying. That’s a gross simplification to the point of being misleading. PCR is a technique that was developed from the very basis of how DNA strands naturally replicate, or copy themselves, within a cell. The key concept is that an enzyme called DNA polymerase can be stimulated to synthesize, or create, a specific region of DNA. In the same manner, PCR can be used to repeatedly duplicate or amplify a strand of DNA many millions of times. So it’s not photocopying,” he said, talking down to Warwick in a manner in which a teacher reprimands a student who was attempting to show off at the teacher’s expense.

“Now to your other question of PCR being less accurate than RFLP,” Ross continued. “It used to be that the frequency of occurrence of one of the gene types that is isolated, the DQ alpha gene, is greater than the frequencies typically obtained through the RFLP method. But, a typing kit known as Polymarker allows the typing of five different genetic markers. When used in combination with DQ alpha, it will produce frequencies of occurrence of less than one in a thousand. In this case, Mr. Saperstein also included the DIS80 marker, which is quite an uncommon marker.

“In general, the more markers you use, the better the odds are in excluding possible matches from the general population. That’s why the odds in this case are one in fifty thousand.” Ross paused for a second to take a breath. “So, I personally do not feel that anything significant is lost with the PCR method-in fact, a tremendous amount is gained.”

Warwick looked perturbed for a moment. He had committed the cardinal sin in cross-examination: he had asked a question without making sure he knew the answer that was coming. But in fact, there was no way that Warwick could have known that Ross was going to cite cutting-edge research and methodology.