This trial started November 24, 2003 and is ongoing.

February 10, 2004
by
hbm

I arrive during the morning break, at 10:40.  The defendants are not present.  James Konat is sharing an anecdote of a colleague getting food poisoning.  Good times, good times.  Other general chit-chat ensues.  I overhear that it is clerk Shyrrel's last week before taking the bar exam.  She fills everyone's table-top water pitchers while the defense attorneys have a final pow-wow before the session starts.  I am the only observer present.  The defendants are brought in at 10:50.  Burns is better dressed today: a familiar gray sweater is back, but not tucked-in this time!  Rafay and Marc Stenchever joke with a girl eating a bagel.  I saw this same woman at an earlier session, and thought she might be an assistant to the judge.  That remains unclear, but the sight of her- young, attractive- always makes me wonder how the defendants (well, specifically Rafay, who is more social) could possibly chat and joke so easily with such a female, recognizing that this may be the last of such carefree, male-to-female social interaction in their lives.  If convicted, the women these two men see will be few and far between for the duration of their days.  I’m speaking about seeing women face-to-face, of course; watching Bay Watch reruns in prison doesn’t count.  Funny, how seemingly trivial things put the gravity of the situation into perspective.  Burns whispers closely with Jeff Robinson.  Shyrrel tells the court it will be a moment: a juror has a "personal problem."  Everyone seems in bizarrely high spirits today.  EVERYONE is joking and chatting with everyone else- even Sebastian Burns, which is something I haven’t observed before.

Judge Mertel enters, and asks the court two question's on the jury's behalf: 1) can the juror's take their notebooks with them on breaks, and 2) can the jurors take their notebooks home with them, in case ideas pop into their heads at home?  Currently, they are not permitted to do either.  The judge allows the attorneys to answer at a later time.

Court is now in session, and the testimony of Mr. Sweeny continues (see Trial Diary Feb. 9). James begins the questioning.

Some of the day's Evidence:
Wall board: defects on blood stain transfer & spatter
Photograph of E wall of master bedroom: Sweeny documented characteristics and position of blood staining, including angle & direction applied.  No idea how the angle of the blood smatterings determine who killed the victims, but anyhow…
Photo of living room: Sweeny detected prints on windows. James asks if Gluco-Green (gluco-malachite) can cause false positives. Sweeny says yes, but errors are due to interpretation of the shade and speed of the color change to green.  I’m interested to learn that broccoli juice, apparently, causes (interpretive) false-positives.  Today, spots testing positive can often be DNA tested to further confirm that blood is present, and establish who it belongs to.  Sweeny made the decision of which samples should be DNA tested.  No part of the windows (which featured defendant finger-prints) tested positive for blood with gluco-malachite.  This is significant, again, because none (of the few) defendant fingerprints found at the scene were bloody.  Given the high-gore-intensity of the murders, this amazes me.  If Burns and Rafay committed the murders, they must have been 18-year-old forensic magicians, or had astonishing beginners luck.  (Make sure and join/read our forum, which further discusses the lack of blood evidence on the defendants).
Shower doors (again): Sweeny says doors had blood staining, or at least "reddish deposits.”  Spot testing was positive for blood with gluco malachite in many spots.  The staining was diluted blood- very thin, according to Sweeny.

This is the nitty-gritty evidence, the “meat” of the trial.  They are simply going over in great detail exactly where each & every stain was placed.  Nothing is being said to clarify where this testimony is going, or how the positioning of the stains implicate (or don’t implicate) the defendants.  Yes, yes, sure there’s blood on the shower.  That is the fact presently being established (very slowly) by the prosecution.  But I’ll be a lot more interested, personally, when discussion turns to what that means regarding the guilt or innocence of Burns and Rafay.  I am wondering if they’ll argue that the watered-down blood smatterings in the shower (the time of placement or from whom they came being indeterminable) would implicate Burns and Rafay because if the killers were strangers to the house, they wouldn’t feel comfortable sticking around the crime scene to wash the blood off.

Today I’m struck by the fact that technology in the courtroom sure makes this cumbersome process easier.  The evidence has been turned into a tidy PowerPoint and photo-slide parade, and the modern laser pointer even enables witnesses to gesture towards specific things onscreen without rising!  All the attorneys can see an up-close view of the evidence being presented on their lap-tops- not to mention that the collecting, scanning, documenting, and organizing that went into preparing this evidence before the trial started boggles the mind.  In the days before such technology, I can imagine things were a lot less thorough in the courtroom.  Or, there simple wasn’t as much evidence to collect, package, and go over in court, because forensic science was not as good in the past in any case.  Defense attorney Veronica Freitas plays with a laser beam pointed towards audience.  Technology isn’t only useful- it’s entertaining!