Opinion ID: 2785252
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Medical Examiner’s Testimony

Text: No matter how much circumstantial evidence the prosecution could amass tending to link Rivas to the crime, however, it had no case unless it could prove that Hill died on Friday night. Fitzpatrick himself acknowledged that Rivas’s alibi was ‚complete—for Saturday night.‛ Id. at 55. Indeed, it was the People’s position that Rivas’s alibi was so strong on Saturday night precisely because he had concocted it, having murdered Hill the night before. Therefore, the prosecution’s case rested almost entirely on the testimony of Mitchell, the medical examiner, to persuade the jury that Hill died on Friday night and not on Saturday as Mitchell had initially determined. Mitchell testified that, when he first observed Hill’s body on the afternoon of Monday, March 30, it ‚was in rigor,‛ and that by the time he performed an autopsy later that day, ‚s+he was coming out of rigor.‛ Id. at 869, 872.16 He cautioned that no medical examiner 16In the ‚scene investigation‛ report that Mitchell prepared and signed at the time of his initial inquiry into the 22 can pinpoint with certainty the time of a person’s death, id. at 886, but stated that, based on his observations of the body, there was nothing inconsistent with Hill having died on either the night of Saturday, March 28, or Friday, March 27. Id. at 888. However, taking into account a number of external factors—namely, that Hill’s cat was seen outside on Saturday morning; that Hill had not been seen after Friday; that she never contacted the friend whom she intended to visit that weekend; that her car had apparently not been driven since Friday; and that she had not been in touch with her father despite the fact that his wife was gravely ill— Mitchell opined that ‚it’s more likely that she died Friday night, to possibly very early Saturday morning‛ than on Saturday night. Trial Tr. [at] 889–90. He also stated his opinion ‚within a reasonable degree of medical certainty‛ that Hill died as a result of being strangled. Id. at 891.17 Confronted on cross-examination with contemporaneous newspaper accounts that reported on his preliminary findings, Mitchell admitted that he ‚q+uite possibly‛ had estimated at some point that Hill died late on Saturday night or early Sunday morning. cause and time of Hill’s death, he reported that he had found Hill’s body in ‚full rigor, with fixed anterior livor.‛ See Remand Hearing Tr. [at] 75–76[, dated Sept. 21 & 22, 2009] (emphasis added). 17 Whether by design or oversight, Mitchell did not testify that his opinion on Hill’s time of death was ‚within a reasonable degree of medical certainty.‛ Trial Tr. at 891. 23 Id. at 895–96.18 Mitchell also conceded that, when he testified before the grand jury in November 1992, he had stated that it was merely ‚on the outside edge of  + possibility‛ that Hill could have been murdered on Friday night. Id. at 907. At trial, however, he insisted that he had never ‚tied himself+‛ to a Saturday night estimate. Id. at 895. He stressed that the onset and relaxation of rigor mortis was highly variable and could be slowed, for example, by cold temperatures. Id. at 905–06. Although Mitchell thus acknowledged that in most cases rigor mortis relaxes within twenty-four to forty-eight hours (which would put Hill’s time of death somewhere between Saturday and Sunday afternoon), he suggested that the cool temperatures in Hill’s apartment could have retarded the process. On redirect examination, Mitchell explained that, when he testified before the grand jury several months earlier, he had not reviewed ‚some of his+ notes and slides.‛ Id. at 915. Having had the opportunity to review the ‚slides‛ before trial, he noticed in them ‚some 18 Although Calle attempted to impeach Mitchell with newspaper articles suggesting that Mitchell had initially estimated the time of death to be [Saturday] night, he did not refer to the police affidavit supporting the application to search Rivas’s residence, which stated that Mitchell had preliminarily estimated the time of Hill’s death to be ‚sometime between+ S+aturday the 28th of March afternoon and [S]unday morning [the] 29th of March 1987,‛ Section 440.10 Mot. Exh. 2. See Section 440.10 Hearing Tr. at 98. 24 decomposition to the brain.‛ Id. This, he stated, ‚tends to push the [time+ limits further out.‛ Id.19