Opinion ID: 2544661
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Expert Testimony About Knifescraping Tests

Text: As mentioned in discussing the previous contention, Debbie Madden, a criminalist employed by the San Francisco Police Department Crime Laboratory, scraped a dried stain from a knife that defendant was carrying when he was arrested. Using certain forensic testing procedures, she determined that the stain was human blood and that it contained genetic markers consistent with the blood of victim Pedersen and inconsistent with defendant's blood. During jury selection, the defense brought a motion objecting to evidence of the testing and results. At the hearing on defendant's motion, Madden testified that after scraping the dried stain material from the knife, she determined that the amount of material was insufficient to perform more than one typing test, and that she then notified the district attorney's office of this determination and suggested that defense counsel be notified so the defense could have its own expert observe her testing of the dried stain material and collaborate with her in that testing. The defense objected on the ground of attorney-client privilege to any further reference to a defense expert being present during the testing of the dried stain material. The trial court deferred its ruling on the objection. Later, the prosecution announced its intention to call the defense expert, Gary Alan Sims, to testify at the Kelly hearing. Invoking the attorney-client and work product privileges, the defense objected and requested an in camera hearing out of the prosecutor's presence to discuss confidential communications. The court agreed to hold an in camera hearing on the privilege issues. During that hearing, Sims testified that while he was employed as a criminalist at a private forensic laboratory the defense had hired him as a consultant with the understanding that any reports he prepared would be communicated to the defense only and not to the prosecution. He was to monitor and observe the work of Debbie Madden in testing the dried stain material to make sure the tests were being done properly. After this in camera hearing, the trial court denied the defense motion to exclude Sims's testimony. Sims then testified at the Kelly hearing about his participation in the testing of the dried stain material. When Madden explained to him the tests she proposed to run, he agreed that they were appropriate. For the multisystem run, he actually placed the samples on the gel. After Madden read the results of the tests, Sims independently read the results and, because he did not disagree with Madden's readings, he initialed her findings in the bench notes. Neither side called Sims as a witness to testify at the trial. Sims's name was first mentioned at the trial during cross-examination of prosecution witness Debbie Madden, who testified, in response to defense counsel's questions, that Sims was someone who had participated in the testing of the dried stain material but who was not a member of [Madden's] crime lab. In cross-examining Madden, defense counsel used a sketch that Sims had drawn and attempted, without success, to introduce Sims's prior testimony. On redirect, Madden testified, without objection, that Sims was present during the testing at the request of defense counsel. She also testified that Sims had placed his initials on her bench notes for the testing, and that ordinarily this indicates agreement with the readings of the results. To cast doubt on the reliability of Madden's conclusions, the defense called as an expert witness Mary Elizabeth Reynolds, who was the assistant manager of a hospital's clinical serology laboratory but who, unlike Sims, lacked experience in forensic serology. On direct examination, defense counsel asked her to consider a drawing that Sims had prepared showing certain test results. On cross-examination, she testified that Sims was a criminalist whom the defense had hired to observe Madden performing the testing on the knife stain, and that he had testified to an opinion that the knife stain was human blood. During argument to the jury at the guilt phase, the prosecutor urged the jury, in assessing the reliability of the dried stain test results, to consider the failure of the defense to call Sims, the expert the defense had hired to collaborate in that testing. Defendant now contends that the trial court erred in denying the defense motion to exclude all evidence of Sims's participation in the dried stain testing, and that the court's ruling violated the attorney-client privilege and his rights under the state and federal Constitutions to due process of law and to the effective assistance of counsel. We reject the claim. Defendant relies on People v. Meredith (1981) 29 Cal.3d 682, 175 Cal.Rptr. 612, 631 P.2d 46. There, a defendant charged with murder and robbery told his attorney that he had placed the victim's wallet in a trash can behind his own residence. The attorney sent an investigator to retrieve the wallet and, after examining it, turned it over to the police. At trial, the prosecution called the defense investigator as a witness to testify about the location where he found the wallet, but the prosecution did not attempt to introduce evidence about how the investigator came to look there. On the appeal from his resulting conviction, the defendant argued that admission of evidence about the location where the investigator found the wallet violated the attorney-client privilege. This court held that an observation by defense counsel or his investigator, which is the product of a privileged communication, may not be admitted unless the defense by altering or removing physical evidence has precluded the prosecution from making that same observation. ( Id. at p. 686, 175 Cal.Rptr. 612, 631 P.2d 46.) Because the investigator's removal of the wallet frustrated any possibility that the police might later discover it in the trash can, the evidence was properly admitted. ( Id. at p. 687, 175 Cal.Rptr. 612, 631 P.2d 46.) Defendant argues that under the rule declared in People v. Meredith, supra, 29 Cal.3d 682, 175 Cal.Rptr. 612, 631 P.2d 46, the trial court should not have admitted evidence of Sims's collaboration in the testing of the dried stain. We disagree. Nothing in the record shows that any of Sims's observations during the testing were the product of a privileged communication. Defendant points to an offer of proof by defense counsel during the hearing in chambers to the effect that defendant had told counsel that the stain on the knife was not Pedersen's blood but that it could be either human blood (because various persons had used the knife for martial arts exercises, during which they might have cut themselves), or animal blood (because defendant had used the knife to cut meat for cooking). Although this was evidence of a privileged communication between defendant and counsel, there was no evidence that counsel disclosed any of this communication to Sims or that Sims in any way relied upon the communication, or upon any information derived from the communication, when he collaborated with Madden in the testing of the dried stain material. Neither the knife itself nor the bloodstain on the knife was discovered as a result of any privileged communication. Because there is no evidence that Sims's observations during the testing or his opinions concerning the validity of the testing were the product of a privileged communication, admission of Sims's testimony and other evidence concerning his role in the testing of the dried stain material did not violate defendant's attorney-client privilege. Defendant's reliance on Prince v. Superior Court (1992) 8 Cal.App.4th 1176, 10 Cal.Rptr.2d 855 is equally misplaced. There, police investigators at a murder scene collected a semen stain from a comforter and two vaginal swabs from the victim's corpse. A prosecution criminalist divided the stain from the comforter into three parts. He' sent one part to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which reported the sample insufficient for matching purposes. He sent the second part to a private laboratory (Cellmark), which performed DNA analysis using the RFLP method and reported that the sample matched the DNA profile of the defendant. The trial court ordered that the third part of the semen stain from the comforter be tested by the RFLP method, that the defendant could select the testing facility subject to the prosecution's consent, and that all reports of these test results would be available to both the defense and the prosecution. The trial court ordered that the prosecution and the defense each be given one of the vaginal swabs for DNA testing using the PCR method and that each party would be permitted to observe both tests and receive reports of both tests. ( Id, at pp. 1178-1179, 10 Cal. Rptr.2d 855.) The defendant petitioned the Court of Appeal for a writ of mandate. He did not challenge the ruling concerning the stain on the comforter, but he did challenge the ruling on the vaginal swabs insofar as it permitted the prosecution to observe the testing of the swab assigned to the defense and to obtain the results of that testing. The Court of Appeal agreed that this portion of the trial court's order deprived the defendant of the effective assistance of counsel. The Court of Appeal explained: While it is true the goal of the judicial process is to find the truth, allowing the defense to conduct an independent test of the DNA will not unfairly prejudice the People or result in injustice. If the test matches [the defendant] with the crime, defense counsel will not call the expert and the case will proceed on evidence already possessed by the People as if the defense test had not been made. The People will have, at least, four semen test samples. If the defense test excludes [the defendant], the tester will surely testify and the defense will have to disclose his or her identity and provide any report to the prosecution. ( Prince v. Superior Court, supra, 8 Cal.App.4th at p. 1180, 10 Cal.Rptr.2d 855.) Here, there was not a sufficient quantity of materia] for independent testing by the defense and the prosecution. There was a single series of tests on the limited sample witnessed by two individuals, Madden and Sims. (See People v. Cooper (1991) 53 Cal.3d 771, 814-816, 281 Cal.Rptr. 90, 809 P.2d 865.) When the defense questioned the validity of the test results, based on alleged inadequacy in Madden's documentation of the test procedures and the results obtained, the prosecution had a substantial need for Sims's testimony as the only other percipient witness to the tests. The prosecutor did not question Sims about any reports he may have submitted to defense counsel and focused mainly upon what Sims had seen rather than upon the opinions he may have formed. Although the prosecution did question Sims at the Kelly hearing about his initials on the lab notes, the act of initialing the lab notes was not confidential and thus not within the attorney-client or work product privileges. The trial court's ruling permitting the prosecution to call Sims as a witness at the Kelly hearing did not violate defendant's right to the effective assistance of counsel. Finally, defendant argues that the jury should not have been told that the defense had retained Sims as an expert because this information lacked relevance. On the contrary, information that a party retained an expert is relevant to the possible bias of that expert. ( People v. Coddington (2000) 23 Cal.4th 529, 617, 97 Cal. Rptr.2d 528, 2 P.3d 1081, overruled on another ground in Price v. Superior Court (2001) 25 Cal.4th 1046, 1069, fn. 13, 108 Cal.Rptr.2d 409, 25 P.3d 618.) Although Sims did not testify before the jury, and thus his credibility was never directly placed in issue, defense cross-examination elicited testimony from Madden that Sims was present during the testing of the dried stain material. In deciding the significance of the failure of either party to call Sims as a witness, the jury could properly consider the information that the defense had hired Sims to observe the testing. (See People v. Wash, supra, 6 Cal.4th at pp. 262-263, 24 Cal.Rptr.2d 421, 861 P.2d 1107 [prosecutor may comment on defense's failure to call logical witness].)