Opinion ID: 1390030
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Analysis of EDTA Testing Results

Text: Petitioner's post-conviction DNA expert identified the area in between 6J and 6K to have Petitioner as the majority contributor to those stains. This stain area (subject stain) was tested by Dr. Ballard, along with five control areas around the subject stain. The testing conducted by Petitioner's expert, Dr. Ballard, is inconsistent with Petitioner's theory of tampering. If Petitioner's theory were correct, there would be spiked levels of EDTA in the subject stain on the shirt relative to the levels of EDTA found in the background material. Dr. Ballard's testing revealed the opposite: that the subject stain contains a level of EDTA (1) lower than most of the controls on the T-shirt, and (2) dramatically lower than the level of EDTA expected in a tampering scenario involving blood from a purple-topped tube. According to Dr. Ballard, approximately 110 nanograms of EDTA were present in the subject blood stain. This amount was the second lowest for all of the samples taken from the T-shirt. For the controls, the average amount of EDTA found was 173 nanograms, with a range from 16 to 360 nanograms. The EDTA in the subject blood stain is below the average for all five control areas on the T-shirt. This similarity between the level of EDTA found in the background and the level found in the subject stain does not support Petitioner's theory that the blood was planted. As Petitioner represented to the Ninth Circuit, [i]f the blood was planted . . . it will reflect a high level of EDTA. Cooper, 358 F.3d at 1124. But the flip side of that coin, as observed by Judges Silverman and Rawlinson in their concurrence, is that if the blood is not contaminated by EDTA, the shirt conclusively proves [Cooper's] guilt. Dr. Ballard's results place Petitioner squarely within that second scenario. The EDTA level in the subject stain is not elevated, but is instead lower than that of most of the control areas. As a result, the test refutes Petitioner's tampering theory. The results from the subject stain dramatically differ from the results from the Control T-shirt, on which blood was planted from a purple-topped tube. On the Control T-shirt, blood from a purple-topped tube containing EDTA as a preservative was planted in a stain similar in size to the subject stain. In that sample, Dr. Ballard found 1100 nanograms of EDTA, as expected. The planted blood on the control T-shirt reflects an EDTA level ten times as great as the level of EDTA detected in the subject stain (110 ng). If, as Petitioner contends, Petitioner's blood had indeed been placed on the T-shirt unnaturally, there should be a level of EDTA similar to  not dwarfed by  that found in the planted blood on the Control T-shirt.