Page 133 of Resurrection Walk

Coelho signaled us forward with her hand.

“Come up,” she said.

Morris and I went to the bench, and the judge leaned forward to hear his objection.

“Your Honor, counsel is straying into an area of questioning the court ruled inadmissible yesterday,” Morris said. “I don’t know if he is trying to set up another outburst followed by a rebuke from the court, but he is obviously heading toward the forbidden zone.”

“Not true, Judge,” I said quickly. “I don’t intend to ask this witness anything about the lack of Lucinda Sanz’s DNA on the GSR pad. The court’s ruling was crystal clear to me yesterday.”

“I would think that a night in jail would keep you far away from what was ruled out yesterday, Mr. Haller,” Coelho said.

“It has, Judge,” I said. “And you can put me back in the cell if I bring up my client’s DNA or lack thereof.”

“Very well, proceed,” Coelho said. “Carefully. Objection over-ruled.”

We went back to our places and I checked my notes.

“Again, Sergeant Sanger, are you familiar with touch DNA?” I asked.

“I know what it is,” Sanger said. “But I’m not an expert on it. We have a lab for that.”

“Well, you don’t need to be an expert to answer this. How is it, with the protocol you say you followed in collecting GSR from Lucinda Sanz, that your own DNA ended up on at least one of the GSR stubs you allegedly swiped on Lucinda Sanz’s hands and arms?”

Morris bolted up from his chair as if he had received an electric shock. He spread his arms wide.

“Your Honor, counsel has done exactly what he just said he would not do,” he said.

“No, I did not,” I said quickly. “I asked the witness if —”

“Let me stop you there,” Coelho said. “I’ll see both of you in chambers right now. Everyone else can take a fifteen-minute break.”

She left the bench in a swirl of black robe. Morris and I followed.

46

STILL IN HERrobe, the judge looked at us from behind her desk.

“Sit,” she commanded. “Mr. Haller, I find myself losing patience with you once again. I can’t believe it’s because you find the accommodations at the Metropolitan Detention Center to your liking.”

“No, Judge,” I said. “Not at all.”

“Then I don’t understand what you’re doing,” she said. “As Mr. Morris has already pointed out, you are walking dangerously close to fire. I ruled the lab results proffered yesterday inadmissible, and here you are, asking the witness about lab results.”

I nodded in agreement as she said it.

“Judge, you ruled that the GSR pads could have been tested for Lucinda Sanz’s DNA by the defense at the time of the initial prosecution of this case,” I said. “You ruled that it wasn’t new evidence brought to light under the requirements of habeas but rather a misstep by the defense attorney back then and therefore inadmissible. As I said during the sidebar, I am not going there.”

“Then where are you going?” Coelho asked.

“The witness just testified to the protocols she allegedly followed when she tested Lucinda Sanz for gunshot residue. She gloved up, opened the testing package, swiped the stubs over Sanz, and resealed them in the package. I am prepared to provide the court with evidence that Sergeant Sanger’s DNA is on the stub turned over to the defense five years ago and held secure at Applied Forensics ever since.”

“You did a comparison with her DNA?”

“Yes, Judge.”

“And where did you get her DNA, since this was not a court-ordered analysis?”

“Sanger is a smoker. Her DNA was taken from a cigarette butt she discarded yesterday after court. My investigator and forensics expert collected it and took it to Applied Forensics for comparison to the unidentified DNA found on the stub from the Sanz case. Just so you know, this analysis did not require examination of the GSR pad, which is evidence and would have required an order from you. This was a comparison of DNA from the collected cigarette butt to the unknown DNA profile found during the earlier analysis of the evidence. We got the results just before court convened today. It’s Sanger’s DNA and I am entitled to ask her how it got there.”

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