Opinion ID: 1210687
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Refusal to Permit Inquiry into Why Vial VV-2, Which Should Have Contained Only Cooper's Blood, Contained the DNA of Two or More People

Text: On August 1, 1983, two days after Cooper's arrest, two SBCSD criminalists drew Cooper's blood. They put that blood into a vial labeled VV-2. The vial contained the preservative EDTA. In 2004, during the court-ordered testing of the hairs Jessica clutched in her hand, [3] the State made a mistake. It inadvertently sent a card containing blood from vial VV-2 to Dr. Terry Melton, the expert charged with testing the hairs. ER 3187. This was the first time since 1983 that any non-State personnel had been permitted to see or test blood from vial VV-2. Dr. Melton tested the blood from VV-2, unaware of the fact that the State had not intended to send it to her. Dr. Melton found that the blood from VV-2 contained the DNA of two or more people. This was a truly startling finding. On August 2, 2004, Dr. Melton informed the court of her finding. ER 5645. Vial VV-2 originally contained only Cooper's blood, and should have continued to contain only Cooper's blood. The most logical explanation for the finding is that someone added another person's blood to the vial. Why might that have been done? One explanation is that someone took some of Cooper's blood out of the vial for some purpose (planting it on the t-shirt?), and wanted the vial to appear as full as it previously had been. In order to accomplish that, he or she had to add someone else's blood to the vial to bring it back up to the proper level. On August 4, Cooper's lawyer raised Dr. Melton's discovery with the district court. Perhaps the court thought Cooper's lawyer was speaking of DNA from the hairs. The court stated, [W]e never expected that it was going to be Cooper. 8/6/04 RT 138. Counsel replied, [I]t is not the hairs that were sent that we're talking about. It is the known sample that was sent, and that's been contaminated. And there is a very serious issue about that. Id. at 139. On September 10, Cooper moved for an evidentiary hearing, inter alia, to determine the cause for the appearance of a `mixture' of DNA in Petitioner's blood sample also submitted to Dr. Melton. He wrote: VV-2 is the blood sample collected from Petitioner at the time of his arrest[.]... [The][b]lood sample should only have contained Petitioner's DNA[.] ... Dr. Melton's report reveals that a mixture of DNA sources was detected in VV-2. ... In light of prior evidence presented by Petitioner regarding tampering or contamination of biological evidence in this case, Dr. Melton's findings regarding VV-2 are extremely alarming and mandate further inquiry. ER 4168. On February 3, 2005, the district court denied Cooper's motion. It did not mention vial VV-2 in its order. On April 22, 2005, in final oral argument to the district court, Cooper's counsel returned to the subject of the blood in vial VV-2. He said, [W]ith regard to VV-2, I just want to be  make this clear. There seems to be a possible misunderstanding. VV-2, which is the sample that Doctor Melton tested and found a mixture in, it's Petitioner's blood sample. It is not a hair sample. I wasn't sure if the Court was clear on that. 4/22/05 RT 153. The court immediately interrupted, And it's consumed. Id. Cooper's counsel agreed that Dr. Melton had consumed the sample on the card she had been sent, but stated, [T]hat doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't more VV-2 in San Bernardino or at the DOJ that could be tested. Id. The State's counsel then responded, I can represent to the Court that VV-2 was completely consumed by Doctor Melton. Doctor Melton was shipped the remainder of this particular blood sample, and she consumed it, and it's reflected in her report. So we don't have any more of that particular reference sample. Id. at 156. The State's counsel seems to have meant to say (or at least to have meant the court to understand) that there was no blood remaining in vial VV-2. If that is what counsel meant to say, it was a startling statement. The State had never before said or even suggested such a thing. For example, when Cooper moved in September 2004 for an evidentiary hearing on how the DNA of two people came to be in vial VV-2, the State did not say or even suggest that vial VV-2 was empty. Nor had the State ever presented evidence to support such a statement. Nor had the district court relied on the fact that vial VV-2 was empty in denying Cooper's motion for an evidentiary hearing. Cooper's counsel told the district court that Dr. Melton's finding that the DNA of two or more people was in the blood that came from vial VV-2 was extremely alarming and mandate[d] further inquiry. The district court refused to allow any investigation into the issue, even though the presence of additional DNA in vial VV-2 clearly pointed to evidence tampering by the State.