Opinion ID: 1936916
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: Cigarette Butts

Text: A search of the victim's automobile revealed two smoked cigarette butts on the rear floorboard behind the passenger seat. One of the cigarette butts was identified as being a Kool cigarette, while the other was later identified as a Camel cigarette. In a field near the vehicle, investigators found a pair of blue house slippers, which were near an open package of Kool cigarettes, opened from the bottom. Evidence at trial indicated that Buckman smoked Kool cigarettes and opened his cigarette packages from the bottom. Testimony at trial also indicated that Fisher was known to often wear blue bedroom slippers, even in public. Dr. Schanfield tested the cigarette butts as part of the original investigation. Schanfield tested the two cigarette butts and two control-group cigarettes, also Kool and Camel brand, for four different qualities: (1) A2M immunoglobin allotype, (2) KM immunoglobin allotype, (3) ABH blood group, and (4) Lewis blood group substance. These findings were compared to samples from Buckman, Fisher, and Eric Beckwith, the resident of the apartment outside which Fisher and Buckman were arrested. The results of these tests were complicated by the possibility that each of the cigarettes might have been smoked by more than one person. Schanfield concluded that Buckman could not be excluded as the person who smoked the Kool and that if the Kool was smoked by only one person, Beckwith and Fisher were excluded as that person. Schanfield testified that the frequency of the qualities for which the cigarette butts were tested, listed above, was such that the qualities found on the Kool were found in 0.7 percent of the white population of the United States and 4.8 percent of the black population of the United States. With respect to the Camel cigarette, Schanfield was able to determine only that the victim and Beckwith were excluded as the smoker of the Camel, but that Fisher and Buckman were not. In the instant case, the cigarette butts were presented to UNMC for testing in a plastic bag labeled as Exhibit 114 at Buckman's original trial. At the trial, the bag had contained the two cigarette butts from the victim's car and the two control-group cigarettes. When received by UNMC in the instant case, the bag contained seven commingled items, which were organized by UNMC and labeled as items 4A through 4G. UNMC attempted to extract DNA from each of the items, and a partial DNA profile was obtained from two of the items: 4B, a cigarette butt consisting of paper and a partial filter, and 4C, a cigarette butt consisting only of paper. No DNA profile was obtained from any of the other items. Because DNA testing had already been ordered and completed, the State did not argue, pursuant to § 29-4120(5), that the cigarette butts had not been retained under circumstances likely to safeguard the integrity of their original physical composition. Item 4B appears to have come from a smoked cigarette, but it is impossible to determine if it came from the Kool or Camel cigarette. UNMC's testing indicated that the DNA on item 4B came from more than one individual. Buckman could have been a contributor of some of the alleles detected, but could not have been a contributor of some of the others. Dr. Ronald Rubocki, the director of the UNMC's human DNA identification laboratory, at one point opined that Buckman was not a contributor to the DNA found on item 4B. Rubocki later retreated from that opinion and characterized the results of the testing as inconclusive. Item 4C is from a Kool cigarette, apparently unsmokedprobably the control-group Kool cigarette. How the control-group cigarette would have come to have DNA on it is unknown, but could have resulted from the handling or storage of the contents of exhibit 114. The test results for item 4C were consistent with a partial profile from the victim, but also with a possible mixture from more than one individual. Buckman could have contributed some of the alleles found on item 4C, but could not have contributed some others. As with item 4B, the results of the testing of item 4C are best summarized as inconclusive.