Guilty Blood Page 4

  CHAPTER 12

  Less than a week and a half had passed since Brandon’s arrest, but the court was already holding a sort of mini-trial called a preliminary examination. Nothing like this happened in civil cases, so Nate wasn’t entirely sure what to make of it. One thing was clear, though: events moved a lot faster in criminal court than he was used to.

  He sat next to Jessica in the front row of the courtroom gallery in the Davidson Courthouse in Oakland. They were just behind the bar, the railing that separated the spectator seating from the rest of the courtroom. The courthouse had been built in the 1930s, and the courtroom still had the original WPA-style decor—white plaster walls and dark wood trim carved with blocky socialist-realist figures and other details.

  The judge looked like he might also be from the 1930s. His name was Oswald Whittaker, and he was a frail, gaunt man with a fringe of white hair at the base of his skull. Clawlike, age-spotted hands protruded from his voluminous, faded black robe. But his blue eyes were sharp and alert.

  Brandon sat at one of two tables facing the bench, and Jessica had positioned herself immediately behind him. She leaned forward in her seat, as if she wanted to be as physically close to her son as possible.

  Two lawyers stood at the lectern between the two tables. The one closest to Brandon was a petite woman of about thirty with short dark hair and a serious demeanor. Based on the court docket, Nate guessed that she was Deputy Public Defender Sofia Acuña, the attorney who had filed an appearance on Brandon’s behalf last week. The other lawyer was a short, balding man of about Nate’s age who wore an off-the-rack navy suit. Nate suspected that he was Assistant District Attorney Jason Brown, who had filed an appearance for the People.

  Both lawyers were talking with the judge, going through what seemed to be routine preliminary stipulations. Then the public defender sat down, leaving the lectern to the prosecutor. “May I call my first witness?” he asked.

  “Proceed,” Judge Whittaker said.

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” Brown said, turning to the gallery. “The People call Detective Samuel Quinn.”

  A fit-looking man of about forty stood, walked down the aisle carrying a bulky manila envelope, and took the witness stand. He looked very relaxed, and Nate suspected he had testified dozens of times before. That was both a blessing and a curse in a witness. Veteran witnesses generally knew the ropes and wouldn’t get flustered easily. But they also tended to give canned answers or testify on autopilot, which could get them in trouble on cross-examination.

  “Are you a detective with the Oakland Police Department?” Brown asked after Quinn had been sworn in.

  “I am.”

  “How long have you been with the department?”

  “Fifteen years.”

  “And how long have you specialized in homicide investigations?”

  “For the past five years.”

  “Are you the investigating officer for the homicide of Lincoln Thomas?”

  “Yes.”

  “When and how did your investigation begin?”

  “At approximately twelve fifteen a.m. on October twenty-six, I received a call from one of the officers at the crime scene. I then drove to the scene and began my investigation.”

  “Please describe what you found at the crime scene.”

  Nate glanced at Brandon’s lawyer, expecting her to object because the question called for a narrative. But she stayed seated and merely listened.

  “The crime scene was an alley behind the Captain’s Lounge, a bar near the Port of Oakland. I spoke with one of the officers already at the scene, who told me that he had responded to a report of a man lying in a pool of blood.”

  Hearsay! Nate objected in his mind. If the prosecutor wanted the judge to hear what the responding officer had to say, he needed to put the officer on the stand. But for some reason Acuña still stayed in her seat.

  “I then proceeded to the crime scene, which had already been taped off when I arrived,” Detective Quinn continued. “Evidence technicians were processing it.”

  “Does this photograph, which I’ve marked as the People’s Exhibit One, accurately depict the scene you saw?” Brown asked, walking across the well of the court and handing a sheet of paper each to the witness and the clerk, who handed it up to the judge. The prosecutor then returned to the lectern and handed a copy to the deputy public defender.

  Looking over Acuña’s shoulder, Nate could see a picture of a stocky, middle-aged white man lying on his back on a grimy sidewalk. He wore a white shirt, which was almost entirely covered in blood. A black-red pool spread over the cement beneath his torso.

  The detective nodded. “It does.”

  “Did you observe one of the technicians removing material from under the fingernails of Mr. Thomas’s right hand?”

  “I did.”

  “Was the technician following departmental protocol for handling potential DNA evidence?”

  “She appeared to be, yes. She wore plastic gloves and was using a DNA retrieval kit.”

  “All right, what did you do next?”

  “I went into the bar and interviewed the bartender and several other witnesses.”

  “And what did they tell you?”

  More hearsay on the way. Not that Acuña seemed to care.

  “They informed me that Mr. Thomas was a regular at the Captain’s Lounge. That night, he entered alone at approximately seven p.m. He played several games of pool with another regular and consumed several beers. At approximately ten p.m., he paid his tab with cash and left alone. No one followed him. The bartender found Mr. Thomas’s body at approximately midnight, when he went out behind the bar to smoke a cigarette in the alley.”

  “What did you do after that?” Brown asked.

  “I finished interviewing everyone who was at the bar. The technicians and the medical examiner’s team were concluding their work by that point. There really isn’t anything else to tell about that night.”

  “What was the next development in the case?”

  “The next morning, the Berkeley Police Department received a call from the manager of a 7-Eleven located approximately three blocks from the apartment building where the defendant lived. One of the employees had discovered a bloody knife in a trash can. Once they determined that Mr. Thomas’s blood was on the knife, they called me.”

  Nate could think of at least three rules of evidence violated by that testimony, but Acuña simply sat in her seat, taking notes.

  “Did you subsequently obtain the knife from the Berkeley PD?”

  The detective nodded. “On November twelve, I picked it up, transported it back to Oakland, and deposited it in our evidence locker.”

  “Did you bring it here today?”

  “Yes. I checked it out of the evidence locker and placed it into this envelope.” Detective Quinn held up the manila envelope he had brought with him.

  “Please open the envelope and remove the knife.”

  The witness did so and pulled out a large sealed plastic bag containing a knife with a long double-edged blade and a spear point. Both the handle and the blade were nonreflective black, coated with splotches of a slightly lighter and shinier substance that Nate assumed was dried blood.

  “We’ll mark this as People’s Exhibit Two,” the prosecutor said to the clerk. He turned back to the witness. “Are you familiar with this type of knife?”

  “Yes. It’s a Gerber Mark II. It’s a well-known fighting knife.”

  “So not the type of utility knife you’d carry for doing everyday tasks?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, what was the next development in the case?”

  “Well, we received the autopsy report for Mr. Thomas and the DNA results. I believe another witness will testify about those. After that, I sought and obtained a warrant and arrested the defendant, Brandon Ames.” The detective nodded in Brandon’s direction.

  “Did you obtain a DNA sample from him?”

  “Yes, we take DNA samples from every
individual who is arrested on a felony charge. I gave him two swabs and asked him to rub them inside his cheek, which he did.”

  “What did you do with those swabs?”

  “I placed them into a sterile envelope, logged them into our evidence locker, and requested that they be sent to the lab for testing. Which they were.”

  “Thank you, Detective Quinn.” Brown looked at the judge. “No further questions, Your Honor.”

  “Any cross-examination, Counsel?” the judge asked Brandon’s lawyer in a quavery voice.

  After her detached performance so far, Nate expected her to pass. But she said, “Yes, Your Honor.”

  Brown sat down and Acuña took his place at the lectern. “Good morning, Detective. I’ve got just a few questions for you. First, did you ask any of the witnesses whether they saw Mr. Ames in the Captain’s Lounge on the night of Mr. Thomas’s death?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did they say?”

  “None of them saw him,” the detective admitted.

  “Did you ask whether they had ever seen Mr. Ames in the Captain’s Lounge?”

  “Yes.”

  “Had any of them seen him there?”

  Quinn squirmed slightly. “Not that they recalled.”

  “Did you attempt to locate witnesses outside the bar?”

  “Yes. We didn’t find any.”

  “Was a cell phone found on Mr. Thomas’s body?”

  “Yes.”

  “And it was searched, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was Mr. Ames in Mr. Thomas’s contacts list?”

  “No.”

  “Did the phone contain evidence of calls, texts, or emails between Mr. Ames and Mr. Thomas?”

  “No.”

  “Did you examine the defendant’s body for scratches when he was arrested?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you find any?”

  The detective leaned forward in his seat. “Two weeks had passed since Mr. Thomas died, so any scratches would have healed.”

  “So the answer to my question is no, you didn’t find any scratches on the defendant, correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “Are you aware of any evidence tying Mr. Ames to the murder other than the knife found three blocks from his apartment and the DNA found on the victim’s body?”

  The detective hesitated for a moment and glanced at the prosecutor as if hoping he would object. He didn’t.

  “No,” Quinn said at last.

  “Thank you. No further questions.”

  Acuña sat down, having significantly improved Nate’s opinion of her. That had been a nice piece of cross, at least as good as what he’d expect from one of his younger lawyers. So why had she been so lackadaisical earlier?

  The judge turned to Brown. “Any redirect?”

  Brown stood and stepped to the lectern. “Yes, Your Honor. Detective Quinn, did any of the evidence you gathered indicate that there might be an innocent explanation for why the defendant’s DNA was under Mr. Thomas’s fingernails?”

  Another objectionable question, to which Acuña did not object. Nate gritted his teeth, but there was nothing he could do. He decided to try to ignore her lapses from now on.

  “No.”

  “No further questions.”

  “You may step down, Detective,” the judge said. He nodded to the prosecutor. “You may call your next witness, Mr. Brown.”

  “The People call Dr. Linda Hassan,” Brown said. As a general rule, witnesses who haven’t testified yet are excluded from the courtroom to keep them from influencing each other’s testimony. Brown turned to the back of the courtroom and nodded to a young woman in the last row by the door. The woman slipped out and appeared a few seconds later, accompanied by an olive-skinned woman of about fifty with gray-streaked black hair pulled back in a bun.

  The older woman took the stand and was sworn in.

  “Dr. Hassan, could you please summarize your education and training?” Brown asked.

  “I received my bachelor’s degree from St. Olaf College and my medical degree from Stanford. I am board certified in forensic pathology, and I received two years of training in that field in the Stanford hospital system.”

  “What is your current title?”

  “I’m a forensic pathologist with the Oakland Police Department.”

  “How many autopsies have you performed?”

  She thought for a moment. “I’m not sure. Over five hundred.”

  Brown turned to the judge. “I would like to qualify Dr. Hassan as an expert in the field of forensic pathology.”

  “Any objection?” the judge asked Acuña.

  She rose. “Not for purposes of this hearing, Your Honor. However, we reserve the right to object to Dr. Hassan at trial.”

  The judge nodded. “All right. Dr. Hassan is qualified as an expert in forensic pathology, but only for purposes of the preliminary examination. You may inquire regarding her expert opinions.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor.” Brown turned back to the witness. “Dr. Hassan, did you perform an autopsy on the body of Mr. Lincoln Thomas?”

  “Yes.”

  “And did you prepare a report of that autopsy?”

  “Yes.”

  Brown picked up a manila folder from his table and took out several copies of a document, which he distributed to Acuña, the court clerk, and the witness. “Is this the report you prepared of the autopsy of Mr. Thomas?”

  She looked at it briefly, then nodded. “Yes.”

  “Thank you. The autopsy report is marked as the People’s Exhibit Three. Please describe the injuries that you found on his body.”

  Dr. Hassan glanced at the report. “There were multiple shallow cuts to his forearms and hands. These were what we would typically classify as defensive wounds. There was also a single deep stab wound in the left side of his chest. The left ventricle of his heart was punctured, leading to his death.”

  “What type of weapon could have caused those wounds?”

  “Several, I suppose, but a sharp, long-bladed knife is most likely.”

  The prosecutor held up the bag containing the bloody knife. “Have you evaluated whether those wounds could have been made by a Gerber Mark II?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what did you conclude?”

  “That a knife like that was a good match for the wounds on Mr. Thomas’s body.”

  “Thank you. No further questions.”

  “Cross-examination?” the judge asked Brandon’s lawyer.

  “Yes, Your Honor,” she said as she took over the lectern. “Dr. Hassan, were there any other noteworthy findings from Mr. Thomas’s autopsy—in the toxicology results, for example?”

  Dr. Hassan flipped through the report. “He had some alcohol in his blood—around .06 percent. I’m not sure whether that’s noteworthy, as he wasn’t driving and that’s below the DUI limit, in any event.”

  “Thank you, Doctor. No further questions.”

  Another odd moment, Nate thought. Competent lawyers almost never ask questions in court unless they already know the answer—and the almost disappears when the questions come on cross-examination. At best, the lawyer usually winds up looking amateurish and unprepared. Like Acuña just did. All her cross-examination accomplished was to make clear to everyone in the courtroom that she hadn’t read—or at least hadn’t understood—the autopsy report.

  The judge looked at the prosecutor. “Any redirect, Mr. Brown?”

  “No, Your Honor.”

  “You may step down, Doctor,” the judge said to the witness. “Your next witness, Mr. Brown.”

  “The People call Janet Harkin.”

  The woman in the back of the courtroom stepped out again, then reappeared with a tall, angular blonde woman in her late forties, who took the witness stand and was sworn in.

  “Ms. Harkin, what is your current position?”

  “I am a criminalist with the Criminalistics Laboratory of the Alameda County Sheriff’s Off
ice,” she said.

  “What does a criminalist do?”

  “We process and analyze evidence, such as bodily fluids or bloodstains.”

  “Including DNA evidence?”

  “Yes.”

  “Please briefly describe your education and experience in the field of criminalistics, particularly DNA evidence.”

  Harkin nodded. “I received a bachelor of science degree from Michigan State in criminalistics. I also have taken several courses at Berkeley that specifically relate to DNA analysis. And I have to take proficiency tests twice a year in DNA analysis.”

  “How many proficiency tests have you taken?”

  “Let’s see. I’ve been with the lab for eight years, so sixteen.”

  “Did you pass them all?”

  “Yes.”

  “How many DNA analyses have you performed while at the Alameda County Criminalistics Lab?”

  “Over a hundred per year, so probably around a thousand total.”

  “How many times has a court found that you are qualified to testify as an expert in criminalistics?”

  “About thirty times.”

  “And how many times have you qualified specifically in DNA analysis?”

  “Twenty to twenty-five times.”

  “Your Honor, I move that Ms. Harkin be qualified as an expert in criminalistics and DNA analysis.”

  “Any objection?” the judge asked Acuña.

  She half rose. “Not for purposes of this hearing, Your Honor.”

  “All right. The witness is qualified as an expert in criminalistics and DNA analysis for purposes of the preliminary examination in this matter. You may proceed, Mr. Brown.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor. Ms. Harkin, could you explain briefly what DNA analysis does?”

  “Certainly. DNA is short for deoxyribonucleic acid,” she explained, launching into what was clearly a well-rehearsed speech. “It’s a complex molecule found in the nuclei and mitochondria of every human cell. Each person’s DNA is unique, unless the person has an identical twin. DNA analysis compares DNA found in cells left someplace—often a crime scene—with cells taken from a specific individual.”

  “And how do you accomplish that? Do you compare the full DNA molecule found at the crime scene to the sample taken from the individual?”

  “No, we compare the gene variants—which are called alleles—at thirteen points on the molecules. Each point is called a locus, by the way.”