Final Exam: A Legal Thriller (59 page)

They watched TV for awhile, and Ben even checked out a few minutes of Geraldo talking about the trial.
 
Good reviews on his opening statement.
 
That felt good.
 
Libby went upstairs about midnight and Ben clicked off the lights and the television and plopped back down on the couch for a few minutes.
 
The only light in the room came from the small fish tank on the table in the corner.
 
Ben watched the two goldfish float lazily in the water.
 
He thought back to what Mark said in the garage about not ever finding out who killed Greenfield.
 
He hoped that wouldn’t be the case, but figured that it was probably true.
 

The hardest part about criminal trials is the unknown and the unknowable because they planted the seeds of doubt that could eat you alive.
 
Maybe Mark was right, Ben thought, maybe a not guilty would be good enough.
 
Ben thought about Bridget Fahey’s rebuttal case.
 
He knew she must be keeping something in reserve to hammer him with in rebuttal.
 
Give up reasonable doubt to argue last?
 
There might be something to that.
 
Ben got up, walked over to the fish tank, said, “Goodnight fish,” clicked off the light on the tank and went upstairs to bed.

The following morning, as Ben entered the courtroom, Stanley
Disko
caught up with Jason Hahn in the locker area at the law school.
 
“You have now been served,” he said after Hahn took the trial subpoena from his hand.
 

Hahn responded with a string of expletives in imaginative combinations that even
Disko
had to appreciate.
 
“You kiss your mother with that mouth?
 
If you have any questions about the subpoena, why don’t you call Professor Harper.
 
She’s in the same boat as you,”
Disko
said over his shoulder as he left the locker area.
 
He nodded to the onlookers on his way out.
 
One
more good
story for his memoirs.
 

Back in Court, Stanley Liu took the stand, a small Asian man whose parents emigrated from Taiwan in the
mid-1950’s
.
 
Stanley was born two years later, and at age forty-five, was one of the foremost blood experts in the United States.
 
He looked fidgety, a crooked grin crossing his face.
 
He wore an ill-fitting tan suit and had a mop of uncontrollable black hair that flopped down in his face and he frequently pushed it away with one hand.
 

Mark conducted the direct-examination and deftly led Liu through his background and considerable experience.
 
Ben watched carefully as Mark questioned Dr. Liu about his evidence collection methods and data analysis techniques.
 
He saw the jury paying careful attention to Dr. Liu’s testimony.
 
From the defense table, he could get a better perspective on how the testimony was being viewed and processed by the individual jury members whom he could not watch and certainly not study while conducting an examination himself.
 

Despite his somewhat quirky demeanor, Dr. Liu was an engaging witness and one to
whom
people seemed to instinctively want to listen.
 
Mark turned his attention to the blood found on Megan’s scarf.
 
“Dr. Liu,” Mark said, “did you ever have occasion to examine the gray cashmere scarf which has been introduced into evidence as Exhibit 15?”
 

“Yes, I have, in some detail.”
 

“As you know, two drops of blood were identified on that scarf, isn’t that correct?”
 

“Yes, that’s correct.”
 

“Were you able to identify anything else on that scarf?”
 

“Yes, I was.
 
There were two different types of hair on the scarf.
 
First, there were several blond hairs.”
 

“What about the other hairs?”
 

“Those were hairs from a different subject,
more
coarse
, some black, some gray.
 
Our further analysis indicated that those hairs likely came from Joseph
Cavallaro
.”
 

“What conclusions, if any, did you draw from that analysis?”
 

Dr. Liu looked serious.
 
“I concluded, of course, that both Ms.
Cavallaro
and her husband occasionally used that scarf.
 
It is my understanding that there were two identical matching scarves,
both gray cashmere
.”
 

“Did you find anything else on the scarf?”
 

Dr. Liu nodded.
 
“Other than the blood, we found traces of what we identified as women’s makeup, at least two different kinds of perfume and men’s cologne.”
 

“Did you draw any conclusions from this?”
 

“Yes.
 
This confirmed our previous analysis that both the husband and the wife frequently used this scarf.”
 

“Objection,
your
Honor,” Bridget Fahey said as she stood.
 
“We object to the use of the word ‘frequently’.”
 

Before the Court could rule, Dr. Liu turned and looked up at the Judge.
 
He said, “
Your
Honor, sir, may I explain my use of the word ‘frequently’?”
 

Judge Wilson looked startled, then said, “Sure, go ahead.”
 

“When I say the word ‘frequently’, I use that word because of the quantity and different sizes of the male hairs found on the scarf.
 
From that I conclude that not all of the hairs got on the scarf on one occasion.
 
Furthermore, that quantity of hairs would be unusual for just one or two uses.
 
Hence, I believe that the scarf was used by both parties on numerous occasions.”
 

Judge Wilson nodded.
 
“Objection overruled,” he said.

Bridget Fahey frowned and sat down.
 
Mark put his head down and shuffled toward the witness.
 
He had kind of an “aw shucks” manner that didn’t always make him appear to be the smartest lawyer in the room, but juries found him appealing.
 
Ben suppressed a smile.
 
Mark continued.
 
“Dr. Liu, did you ever have an occasion to perform any analysis of those drops of blood found on Exhibit 15?”

“Yes, I did.”
 

“What sort of analysis did you conduct?”
 

“Well, the first thing I did was test to confirm whether or not the blood actually came from the victim, Daniel Greenfield.
 
I did this by checking the blood on the scarf against a known sample of Professor Greenfield’s blood.”
 

“What did you determine?”
 

Dr. Liu shrugged.
 
“I determined that the blood on the scarf did, in fact, belong to Daniel Greenfield.”
 

Ben saw several puzzled looks on the faces of the jury.
 
They were apparently expecting something more explosive.
 
Mark nodded several times and moved on.
 
“Did you conduct any other tests on the scarf?”
 

“Yes, I did.
 
We looked at the blood samples themselves to determine whether there were any other elements or compounds present in the blood itself.”
 

“And what did you determine?”
 

“We determined that there were small quantities of an over-the-counter antihistamine, traces of marijuana and traces of cocaine contained in the blood.”
 

Mark looked a little surprised.
 
He scratched his head and asked, “Isn’t this similar to the conclusions drawn by the witnesses for the State?”
 

“Yes.
 
Similar, but not the same.”
 

“What do you mean, not the same?”
 

“In our analysis, the traces of antihistamine and marijuana found in the blood on the scarf were somewhat similar to the amounts found by the prosecution’s witnesses.
 
However, our analysis turned up a much greater concentration of cocaine in the blood on the scarf than was found in the blood analysis done by the prosecution.”
 

Now Bridget Fahey looked puzzled.
 

“What conclusions, if any, Doctor, did you draw from these test results?”
 

“We concluded that the blood on the scarf came from Professor Greenfield’s nose, not from his head wounds.
 
In other words, the blood came from a nosebleed.”
 

Ben saw expressions of enlightenment on the faces of several jurors and more murmuring could be heard from the gallery.
 
Bridget Fahey jumped to her feet.
 
“Objection.”
 

Judge Wilson looked down at her and didn’t answer.
 
He appeared to be waiting for a basis for her objection.
 
Mark turned to face her, also anticipating some sort of response.
 
Fahey stood there, her mind spinning while she tried to come up with an answer for the Court.
 
The best she could come up with was, “There’s an inadequate basis, your Honor, for this conclusion.
 
It is not supported by the evidence.”
 

Judge Wilson shook his head.
 
He didn’t even bother to turn to Mark.
 
“Objection overruled.”
 
Then he looked at Mark and asked, “Do you have any more questions, Counsel?”
 

Mark shook his head, “Nope, Judge, not at this moment,” he said.
 
Then he ambled back to the defense table, not even concealing a grin.
 

Judge Wilson turned back to Bridget Fahey and said, “Your witness, Counsel.”
 

She stood at the prosecution table and looked down at her notes trying to gather herself again.
 
Then she looked back up at the Judge and decided she better get on with it.
 
“Dr. Liu,” she began, “what is the basis for your conclusion that the blood on the scarf came from a nosebleed?”
 

“Several factors,” the Doctor said calmly, “the first of which is the presence of a higher concentration of cocaine.
 
As was indicted in the autopsy, Professor Greenfield exhibited some damage to his septum area, where there was also evidence of recent bleeding and blood coagulation.
 
This is a symptom of cocaine use, with the drug having been ingested through the nose.
 
Because of that, it could be expected that there would be excess cocaine residue present in the nasal canal.
 
When the nose bleeds, that excess cocaine residue would show up in the blood coming from the nose as an increased concentration of cocaine in that blood.
 
These increased concentrations would not occur in blood taken from other parts of the body, including from the head wounds.
 
Also, as you have undoubtedly seen from the photos of the Professor’s injuries, the damage to his skull was in an area confined to that area above and behind the left ear ranging through the rear portion of the skull.
 
There were no wounds to the face or specifically to the nose.”
 

Not exactly what Bridget Fahey was hoping for.
 
She tried to rebound by questioning the Doctor on his background.
 
“It’s true, isn’t it Doctor,” she said, “that you are not a trained pathologist?”
 

Dr. Liu cocked his head.
 
Then he nodded.
 
“Yes, that’s correct.”
 

“Nor are you an expert in head wounds, are you?”
 

“No, but I can tell when a victim doesn’t have any wounds to part of his head.”
 

Fahey looked down at her notes for a long time and Ben sensed that she had no real way to attack his conclusion.
 
Any attack on that would likely have to occur in her rebuttal case.
 
Now that she was in a hole, she decided to stop digging.
 
Looking up at the Judge, she said, “That’s all I have for this witness, your Honor.”
 

After lunch, Mark put on the defense expert on hair, who testified that hair could not be matched to a specific individual in the same manner as blood or fingerprints.
 
Rather, it could only be properly concluded that a given hair was generally consistent with those samples taken from a particular subject.
 
DNA could not be taken from the hair itself, but rather required the presence of blood or flesh such as a skin tag.
 
This typically occurred when a hair was plucked or pulled out, not when it simply fell out.
 
Thus, attempts to match a few strands of hair to a specific individual were a problematic undertaking at best.