Steve Martini - Shadow of Power

Back at the counsel table, Harry hands me the photo. I ask Quinn if I may approach the witness. I set the eight-by-ten color glossy on the light table in front of Prichert. Instantly it is projected on the overhead, where the jury, the judge, and Tuchio can see it. The close-up shot catches just the faintest glimmer of what I’m interested in, an area just over two inches long on the photograph.

“Mr. Prichert, do you recognize this photograph?”

“Yes.”

“Can you tell the jury what it is?”

“I believe it’s been marked for identification. That’s a partial shot of one of the leather cases. Unless I’m wrong, it’s the zipper on the light leather portfolio.”

“That’s right.”

Tuchio opened the door on this evidence in his own case when he got into the little blood spots, the transfer marks.

“Can you tell the jury what that is, right there?” I circle the area on the photo with the retracted point of my pen. Prichert looks at it, craning his neck. He removes his glasses for a second and polishes the lenses on the sleeve of his coat. He puts them back on and looks again.

“I’m sorry-but I don’t think I see what it is you’re referring to.”

“Right there.” I point to it again.

“It looks like maybe the shot is a little out of focus at that point. I’d say the focal point is farther out at the leather thong on the pull of the zipper.”

“You’re right, it is. It’s very hard to see in this photograph.”

In the picture it is nearly translucent, a thin, fine line that unless you studied it intently, you would never notice. Magnified nearly to a blur in the photo, it seems to disappear into the smooth, deep finish of the calfskin. It is why Harry, searching for evidence of blood, thought he was seeing a seam in the leather. Until he finally realized that it was a tiny section of a line straight as a ruler with a fine, dried mist of what looked like faded rust on one side and clear, smooth leather on the other.

“I think if we looked at the real item, you could see it more clearly,” I tell Prichert.

“Your Honor, I’m going to object.” Tuchio is out of his chair. “Whatever Mr. Madriani is doing, it is beyond the scope of direct. If he wants to do it, let him do it in his own case.”

“What I am do-”

“No. No.” Quinn cuts me off. “Bring it up here,” he says. He flips the sound button, and we go at it along the far side of the bench, away from the jury.

Tuchio is arguing that he never touched the folio during direct and that I shouldn’t be allowed to do it on cross.

“Your Honor, Mr. Tuchio went on at length regarding blood evidence, on the floor in the bathroom, blood on the victim’s chair, and blood transfer marks on the briefcases. All I’m doing here is addressing blood evidence on one of the cases, the small portfolio.”

“There were no transfer marks on the portfolio,” says Tuchio.

“I beg to differ. There is blood on the portfolio, and it was delivered there by centrifugal force. I’d call that a transfer.”

“Transfer involves touching,” says Tuchio.

“Maybe I should ask your witness,” I tell him.

The judge tells me to go ahead, and he flips the switch so everybody can hear again. Tuchio sits down, and I ask Prichert whether drops or particles of blood flung from an object such as the hammer, imparting themselves onto an object such as a briefcase, could be considered transfer evidence.

“Sure. You could look at it that way.”

“I’m going to renew my objection,” says Tuchio.

“Overruled,” says Quinn.

I ask the judge to have the clerk retrieve the portfolio from one of the evidence carts.

To this point we have been using photographs to document much of the physical evidence for reasons of convenience-they’re easier to handle-and because they provide a more permanent record. But the best evidence in this case will be the item itself.

Ruiz puts on gloves before he touches the leather portfolio, then brings it over and lays it on the rostrum just next to the witness stand. The portfolio had been on the table near the television in the hotel room, approximately twelve feet from where Scarborough sat on the morning he was murdered.

“This right here.” I point with my pen, avoiding contact.

Prichert studies it, this time leaning back in the chair. He can see it now. I’m guessing that he didn’t notice it during the investigation that day because two crime-scene photographers were moving among the items in the hotel room taking pictures with macro lenses, close-ups of the gloved prints in blood on the other two briefcases.

The portfolio, the top opening of which was unzipped, bore no gloved print marks. Moreover, it was empty. When Prichert turned his attention to these items in the lab, the one he concentrated on was the clean attaché case, which was on the couch in the living room, out of the line of fire from the blood spatter.

“Do you see what looks like a kind of rectangular outline of clear leather, here in the center of the portfolio?” I point to the area with my pen.

He looks more closely. “The distinction is faint,” he says. “Hard to see. But I think I see what you’re referring to.”

“And around the outside of that outline, do you see that?”

“Yes…”

I can tell by the look in Prichert’s eyes that he already knows what’s happened here.

“Can you tell the jury what that is, covering the surface on this side of the portfolio, almost all of it except the inside of the rectangular outline?”

He looks more closely. “I probably wouldn’t be able to tell you, except that I know where that portfolio was located at the time of the murder. While it doesn’t look normal, from the appearance I would say it’s a very fine mist of blood spatter. Though it’s much lighter in color than what you would usually associate with blood evidence.”

“As a trace-evidence expert, you deal with minute amounts of blood fairly regularly, don’t you?”

“I’m not a blood-spatter expert, if that’s what you mean.”

“No, but I assume you’ve attended crime scenes involving traumatic head wounds before?”

“I have.”

“In your experience in dealing with those cases, is there anything unique about the blood in those cases, particularly the density and color of the blood?”

“You’re talking about spinal fluid.”

“That’s what I’m talking about.”

“I would say that’s probably a good guess,” he says. “Blood diluted with spinal fluid might very well account for the near transparency of the stains on that leather.”

“So you’ve seen something like this before?”

“Not quite like that,” he says. “No. Every case is different.”

“Could the fine mist also be the result of the distance between the leather portfolio and the point where the hammer was swung?”

“It could.”

The seminal rule in asking any question in court is to know the answer before you ask. Harry consulted two experts with regard to an explanation for the fine film of blood that landed on the portfolio. The first was a blood-evidence expert who told us that distance from the point of origin would be one contributing factor; the farther the distance, the finer the spray. The other expert, a medical pathologist, provided the missing element, cerebrospinal fluid. The human brain virtually floats in this. Puncture the skull and what you get is not only a vigorous flow of deep red blood, often surging with the force of a pump, but a less-viscous, almost clear flow of spinal fluid. It is the reason that blood from massive head wounds often appears to be diluted, almost watery.

“Let me draw your attention back to the clear rectangular area in the leather on that side of the portfolio. Can you tell the jury what might have caused this outline to be formed?”