Grinds My Gears

[Charles Parker]

This is in honor of Peter Griffin who makes me laugh (sometimes).

You Know What Grinds My Gears

Sitting in a courthouse for ¾ of the day for 15 minutes of testimony!

This thing started with a stop and rob and the subject pulled a gun on two clerks and took a little over $1,000 and a cell phone. Before he robbed the clerks he had picked up a soda bottle and left it on the counter when he took the money and ran. The bottle was processed and you know what happens when a cool bottle starts to “sweat”. Well I have to hand it to the CSA as he was able to develop a latent print on that bottle (which I did not know until later). A few weeks go by and the investigator gets a lead as this subject shoplifts some items from another store and gets caught. He fits the general description so the detective puts together a line up and heads for the witnesses and lo and behold they both pick him out. The detective files his case (forgets to ask for a latent comparison).

The case rocks along and the ADA calls me up wanting to know where the latent comparison report is. I look it up and tell the ADA that no request was received by the Latent Section (the Detective has a different story about making one but someone other than him dropped the ball). Well he wants a rush—priority as this thing is going to court PDQ. I then make my second mistake (answering the phone was the first one) and tell him no problem I will get right on it.

Well I pull the latent prints and sit down and this latent print was light, had movement all over it with moisture droplets, and a sweat run down part of it and to top it off it was from the palm of the hand with NO FOCAL AREAS. It is the kind of latent print you look at and you let out a deep sigh because you know you are going to be spending a lot of time on it.

I start my examination and I am trying to remember all those search clues that Ron Smith told me about and how it is better not to turn the latent around and around. Finally I locate my anchor and slowly work my way from latent to inked back to latent back to inked print, etc. I take it to PS and scan it in and work both of them from the screen (I do not care what anybody says, I like working from the screen as I cannot use pointer anymore as my fingers shake and I tear the tape up from the lift—pointers are deadly in my fingers these days.)

Finally I reach a conclusion with thirteen events in agreement, mark it, and send it to be verified or whatever it is called these days and tell the LPE that this is a RUSH. The next day the Rubber Stamper brings it back and as it is being bar-coded back to my custody she looks at me and raises one eyebrow and with a curt voice states “I do not want to see another one of this quality for a long, long, long time”. I put a fake smile on my lips and she turns quickly and disappears into the tangle of cubicles that form the maze of the Latent Print Section.

I type my report with all the flash and zinger words I can remember and send it for Admin Review with the RUSH tag attached (a good way to get work finished even if it is not a priority). It comes back in a short time and I am on the phone to the ADA (I am not in the mood to talk to the detective right then). The ADA says “Atta Boy” and is fixing to hang up when I ask the dumb question “who is the defense counsel”? He says it is Ms XYZ and hangs up.

I groan and declare this is not a Chuckie-Boy week as things just went from bad to worse. Ms XYZ is the defense counsel that had me on the stand a year ago for four hours asking me all kind of questions about mind-set, error rate, methodology, etc. Before I went on she had the CSS on the stand for 9 hours. Now I know this lady is not going to make the same mistakes twice and she is going to be loaded up for bear, elk, moose and all the other things that Ann likes to hunt.

Here is a defense attorneys dream. Two ID witnesses that are not exactly nuns in society, shown a line up two weeks later and a single latent print that no one is going to see on the lift card unless they have a 10X magnifier, a strong white light and 20-10 vision. The jury is certainly never going to see it if they get their hands on it. No weapon was found, the clothing he was wearing is gone and he is screaming he did not do it and he has never been in that store. Time to gear up Chuckie-Boy.

Court day and I get up early and clean up. As I am getting dressed I open my dresser drawer and see my athletic supporter there (a cup). I think should I put that on in case there is kicking, biting and scratching breaks out in the courtroom. I decide against it as I will just take my chances. I drag out my best J.C. Pen-Nay suit and try to brush all the cat hair off it (damn cats). I get into work early and scan my latent and exemplars in LIMS in case they get entered as evidence as I will need something to put back in file so I can comply with accreditation, certification, registration, mortification and all the other words that end in “tion”. I head for the pool cars and what the “heck” there are none there. Great now I will have to park 4 blocks away in my private vehicle. I call the supervisor with the intention of giving him a “what for” but someone must have warned him as he defuses the situation and gives me his car keys. As I am walking to the car I wonder why he did that. Is it low on gas and he wants me to fill it up; does he want me to wash it. Something is going on here but I do not have the time to figure it out yet.

I head for the DA’s office as they want to talk to me early---a pre-trial conference. Maybe this is a trend or something. I get there early. You know what they say the “early bird gets the worm”. Well whoever said that obviously has never gone to the DA’s office for a meeting. I wait in the lobby and my time comes and goes. I slowly nod off and wake up with someone shoving their hand out at me. The ADA introduces himself and says he has another attorney who will be second chairing and who will be doing all the questioning as he is the DA’s expert “expert witness” questioner. I said “huh” and a shiver runs down my spine. So I sit down and wait some more. In a little while this other ADA comes out and introduces himself and says to follow him. We wander the maze back to his office and I am thinking to myself I should have been dropping bread crumbs along the way. We get to his office and we sit down and he tells me he will ask me my qualifications and then ask about the evidence. I reach for my satchel explaining I have some questions prepared and he states “No---that is OK, as I have my own questions”. That shiver comes back. I ask him what kind of questions and he states “Oh, you know the standard ones”. I then ask you mean the ones in the Texas District Attorneys set of Expert Predicate Questions and he states yes. Now I have seen those questions and I do not know who dreamed them up but whoever did certainly needs to be eliminated from the gene pool. The ADA jumps up and heads toward the door with the statement that he needs to get me up to the court room so I can print the subject. I follow and mutter to myself that I would never answer the office phone ever again in my life.

We get to the courtroom and there is Ms XYZ and the defendant. I say “Hi” to Ms XYZ and she just looks at me with that look that could freeze the devil out of hell itself. I print her client and she is watching me like a hawk. I finish and go to the ADA who then asks that I compare the prints with the latent print. I make a comment about DNA and Firearms examinations done in the court room but I do not think he caught the snide remark as he just responds with “huh”. I compare the inked prints from the original examination with the set I just obtained and yep they be the same person. I then check all my paperwork, taking my time and then approach him and in my best and loud voice “yes sir, they are the same”. I then take a seat and wait for the judge to come in and swear in the witnesses.

As I am sitting there they bring the jury in for them to be sworn in. The jury is all females except for one. I say to myself “now that is certainly interesting”. Finally the witnesses get sworn in with the usual “Invoking of the Rule”. Yea, like I am going to talk to this detective---I don’t think so. I go out in the hallway and head for the men’s room where I try to slick up and make sure the cowlick is down and stomach pulled in. Got to look nice for the ladies! So the wait begins. One hour, then two and my gut hurts from its unnatural position for so long. The tie is starting chaff my neck and I have hand picked every piece of cat hair off the suit and it is starting to become a visible pile on the floor next to me. I am getting uncomfortable and I am thinking about going down the hall and getting an attorney so I can sue for cruel and unusual punishment. Three hours, then four and all of a sudden the courtroom breaks and everyone is scattering like a covey of quail. The DA’s Expert on Experts comes over and says lunch break but I need you back here early as I think we can get to you next. Yea-Right. So I go off to the snack bar downstairs and grab one of those cold pre- processed tuna fish sandwiches. You know the ones made during the Iraq war and I do not mean the current one but the one before.

I get back to hallway outside the court room and notice that the pile of cat hair has not moved, but there are two cleaning crew people that are looking at it funny. I decide to pick a different place to sit. Finally the Expert-Expert shows up right before court is to start and says he got caught in traffic but would try to get me on right away. So I sit down and now everyone is gone. I have the hallway to myself. The screaming kids are gone. The other witnesses are gone and I am all alone----with that tuna fish sandwich trying to swim upstream again.

Finally the doors swing open and the bailiff comes out and looks up and down the hallway and calls out “Mr. Charles Parker” and as I am getting up he asks the question “are you Charles Parker”? Now I have the desire and urge to answer in a smart alecky way as I am the only one in the hallway, but my desire to get this over with far outweighs my need for short term gratification. So I say “yes” and step into the courtroom and find the witness chair and sit down. The Experts-Expert then goes though my qualifications and starts with those out of place and out of sync questions. About half way through all of a sudden my mind goes blank---I get vapor locked. Now it has been a long time since I locked up in a court room. That just does not happen to me. But it did. I look at the jury and with a smile state “I have lost my train of thought” and then turn to the ADA and state “can you repeat the question” which he does and I get back on track. For fifteen minutes the Experts-Expert asks questions and all the evidence gets in. He stands and tells the judge that he has concluded his questions. I turn slightly towards Ms XYZ and she pauses and then states in a clear and distinct voice “I have no questions for this witness”. I sit back and in a low voice I mumble “the worm has turned” and the judge leans over and asks “did you say something Mr. Parker” and I quickly respond with “your honor, may I be excused to go back to work” and the judge says yes. I pick up my satchel and head for the door.

I have to say I did some very poor testimony that day. I know I can certainly do better, but some days you are the windshield and some days you are the bug. The next day my supervisor calls me in and he has my “witness evaluation form” from the ADA and I cringe, and tell my boss that my testimony was not up to par. He looks at the form and hands it to me. Every box on it is checked ‘Excellent’ and at the bottom the ADA wrote “Mr. Parker was excellent. If I had to choose I would want him on all of my print cases.” From my POV he has not seen very many latent print people testify if he thought that was excellent. Then my boss looks at me and says did I know that after I testified that the defendant through his attorney wanted to agree to a plea. They excused the jury and they settled a plea agreement right there.

Life is fickle that way, but it still grinds my gears that I had to sit for ¾ of the day for 15 minutes of testimony.

Life as a Latent Print Examiner.

[Ann Horsman]

Great read Charlie and good job! This sure brings up a lot of emotion for the grueling situations we must put up with. I lucked out not long ago as well. I had to testify on a drug case where I made an ID on a baggie.

We had a lengthy drive to a remote location here in VT. It was a border town with another country, that's how far away it was. Worse, I woke up that morning with a very nasty cold. You know cold medicine and testimony don't mix well. I was trippin' on Sudafed big time.

The chemist who had to go before me got the Daubert questions. She wasn't to happy about that and reminds me every time I see her about it. I think both attorneys were tired by the time I had to take the stand. It was like a flash back to a Matlock court trial but I endured.

That courtroom had the best view I had ever seen for a court. Mountains and a massive lake, nice! Wished I had a camera with me. I got to chat with the baliff on some secret fishing honey holes and places the big bucks hide out.

BTW- I am off to hunt black bear in two weeks.

[Gerald Clough]

Charles. Charles. Time to saddle up and ride off into the mesquite for the day and have a long talk with the horse. And hope some yahoo doesn't pop out of the brush with a lift from an over powdered half reversed overlay that he wants you to compare to his brick layer suspect.

[Amy Hart]

I sympathize...I occasionally have to travel 300 miles to testify on cases from other labs in my state. Twice, I had travelled about 250 of the 300 miles only to learn that the defendant decided to plead guilty. On one of those occasions, the pool car broke down shortly before I found out that I would not be needed for court. That time, I got to wait for the tow truck instead of an attorney! When I actually make it to the courthouse, I usually have a minimum of an hour wait to talk to the State's Attorney, and then 3 or 4 hours to kill before anyone needs to see me again. But, nothing compares to making the 300 mile journey and then waiting 3 days to find out that they just couldn't get me on the stand until the next week...

[RL Tavernaro]

So typical. Would it surprise anyone if a post script from the following week applied?

'Chewed out by supervisor for case production being down the previous week.'

[Pat A. Wertheim]

In my lab we work four tens. On a day off a few years ago (before cell phones were readily available), my pager went off. I was at the hardware store picking up something for a project I had been working on all morning at home, twenty miles from work. I used the store phone to call my secretary, who advised me I was needed in court immediately. I told her I did not have a subpoena and it would take an hour, at least. She said they were all waiting for me, I was to be the next witness, and the judge was not a happy camper. I rushed home, jumped through the shower to rinse off the sweat, threw on my court costume (blue pinstripe, as recommended by the FBI back then), sped downtown and found the closest parking place three blocks from the courthouse, jogged the three blocks and got sweaty again, and rushed into the courtroom. When I walked through the door, breathing hard from the jog, only a half dozen people were there, all sitting still and quiet. The judge was sitting in his chair looking bored. The clerk and bailiff were in their places mostly asleep. The prosecutor was sitting at his table doing nothing. The defendant was sitting by his attorney at their table. As I came through the door, they all turned and looked at me. The defense attorney picked up a piece of paper from his table, jumped up, and handed it to the clerk. As soon as the clerk took it, with me not even a third the way to the bench, the judge said, "Thank you for coming, Mr. Wertheim, but the defense just stipulated to the fingerprint identification and you won't be needed after all."

What a game!

[bmeans]

Thanks Charles, I needed that.

A few years ago, one of our new drug analyst got a phone call from a federal courthouse outside our normal work area (it was a case he worked while helping another lab). The person on the phone was irate that out analyst had not shown, being "in clear violation of the subpoena." We told the person that we did not have a subpoena, when one of our Narcotics Agents walks in with a paper in his hand, stating, "This was sent to our fax." (It seams the subpoenas always get sent to the wrong fax numbers when they're late, etc.; surely just a coincidence.) We tried to explain that the attorneys usually call beforehand to let us know that we’re needed (our Drug Analyst get about 20 subpoenas a week). You can imagine how well that went over.

So, our Drug Analyst runs home and changes fro court. He is then rushed to the airport where the Department plane is waiting (you know, the two seater that shakes before it’s started…). The plane departs and lands at the destination where he’s rushed to the courthouse. He sit for a couple hours until he is finally called and sworn. His testimony went something like this:

• Prosecutor: Criminalist (this used to be our title) <Name>, is this your signature on the report?
  Criminalist: Yes, sir, that is my signature.
  Prosecutor: No further questions.
  Defense: No questions, Your Honor.

(To our surprise, this is where the judge turned to the prosecutor and said, “You drug him all the way here for that?” He had more to say, but that’s another story.)