From the Eyes of a Juror

  Chapter 38 – Recommendations & Suggestions, Guns & DNA

  Tuesday morning June 10, 2008 – 6:30 AM

  Morning came early for Frank Newlan. He had just spent another long night staring at the ceiling, unable to get the John Breslin murder trial out of his mind…and although his body was beyond tired, he couldn’t seem to turn his brain off. And the net result of this lethargy was an endless stream of red cars, massive explosions, old girlfriends, ruthless murderers, and cryptic love letters, all intermingled and floating through his cranium like a London fog.

  And when Newlan did manage to nod off for a few minutes, he dreamt of guns; guns of every size and shape; pistols, rifles, machine guns, rocket launchers, and tanks; guns hidden in darkened corners; guns fired by unknown enemies; guns following his every move.

  Finally, at the crack of dawn, with the sight of the sun rising though his bedroom window and the nagging fear that more violent dreams would overtake him if he fell asleep again, Newlan decided that he might as well get up and pay a visit down to the condo exercise room so that he might take a swing at working off some of the stress that had been building up inside of him since the start of the trial.

  Since Newlan was up and about earlier than usual this morning, even by his early-bird standards, he had afforded himself plenty of time to ride the stationary bike and sit in the sauna for an extended period before heading back up to his condo for a toasted bagel and a cup of coffee. And even after dawdling over breakfast, his unhurried schedule allowed him to prepare for another day at the courthouse at his leisure and still have a half hour leftover, which he used to watch the morning news while smoking a tranquilizing joint.

  However, when the anchorwoman announced, “Coming up after the break, the latest news in the ‘horrible hubby’ murder trials”, Newlan immediately reached for his foam TV brick and launched it at the set like a quarterback winging a spiraling football downfield to a sprinting wide receiver. It figured that just when the reefer was beginning to improve his disposition, the news lady pissed him off again, and so he decided; “the hell with it…I might as well hit the road.”

  Of course, before Newlan made his way out the door, he kept to his customary morning routine of picking out a CD or two for the ride. He was rapidly becoming more and more annoyed by the fact that for the foreseeable future, his daily commute, which normally entailed a short drive down the road to his office, was turning out to be a diurnal headache. He wasn’t sure how many more of these long, traffic-filled excursions to and from the Middlesex Superior Courthouse he could take before he lost his mind, but he knew it wasn’t many, and his music was the only thing that made the grinding trip even remotely bearable.

  Over the years, Newlan had amassed an impressive collection of roughly five thousand records and CD’s, all meticulously stored in alphabetical order. The collection was in fact so extensive that often times he wouldn’t be in the mood to browse through row after row of CD’s, so he’d invariably just grab something from the letter “A”…and this was turning out to be one of those mornings.

  Newlan settled on one of his all-time favorites from his younger years, the now legendary local Boston band, Aerosmith; they were the first act the teenaged Newlan ever saw live in concert; a high energy affair at the old Boston Garden which still resonated in his memory banks and comforted him as he mentally geared himself up to face another long day of unpleasant future recollections at the courthouse.

  With his music selection picked out for the day, Newlan hit the highway and cranked the volume knob as high as it could go without producing a buzzing in his speaker’s sub woofers.

  “There’s only one way to play Aerosmith…and that’s LOUD,” mouthed Newlan to the hot woman in the BMW idling next to him on the now gridlocked highway.

  Newlan squirmed nervously in his bucket seat as the traffic crawled along, and apparently his only means of sanity were the vibrant strains of Aerosmith kicking out the jams.

  Seeing as how he had nothing better to do, Newlan lit up another joint and drifted back in time to his first ever rock & roll concert; the sweet smell of reefer that engulfed the building; the intensity of the crowd; the sight of fifteen thousand cigarette lighters flashing as one during the encore of Aerosmith’s hit song, “Dream On”. And as if on cue, Steven Tyler’s high-pitched voice came blaring out from his vehicle’s stereo speakers, singing the tune’s familiar refrain.

  “So true…so true…the past really does disappear in the blink of an eye” droned Newlan, and by the time the song had reached its dreamy, climactic chorus, he was happily singing along and pumping his fists in the air like a madman, while at the same time agreeing with Steven Tyler that the Lord truly doth work in mysterious ways.

  When Newlan ultimately arrived at the courthouse, he was so charged up by the upbeat vibes of the Aerosmith CD that he had to calm himself down with one last clandestine hit off the half-smoked joint, as well as administering the obligatory drops of Visine, along with a few blasts of breath spray, before making his way towards the gate where the security guard let him in and informed him that, as usual, he was the first juror to arrive for the day.

  And so once again Newlan found himself sitting alone in the waiting area, absentmindedly browsing through his Rolling Stone magazines, until shortly thereafter the other early bird in their crew, Patty, the retired homemaker, made her way into the room.

  “How are you holding up?” asked the thoughtful Patty.

  “Oh I’m hanging in there,” casually replied Newlan, trying to sound as nonchalant as he possibly could. He didn’t want to needlessly worry Patty with the truth about how much the trial was getting to him after only a few days, so he figured a harmless little white lie was an excusable transgression.

  “Are you sure? I’m a bit concerned about you,” added Patty who had evidently seen right through Newlan’s fibbing.

  “That’s funny, I was thinking the same thing about you,” replied Newlan with a weak smile.

  “Oh, don’t worry about me…I’m a tough old broad,” laughed Patty. “But seriously, you look like you’re extremely worn down.”

  “OK, I admit I haven’t been sleeping well. I just can’t seem to put the trial out of my mind. I’ll be reading a book or watching TV, and all of a sudden I’m thinking about the red car, I’m thinking about Fred Miller and his co-workers, I’m thinking about Breslin locked up in jail, I’m thinking about…”

  Newlan’s voiced cracked, and he stopped himself short just as he was about to say, “I’m thinking about Marianne.”

  And even though Newlan never finished his sentence, Patty still sensed the distress in his facial expression, so she put her arm around him and softly crooned; “It’s alright Frank, we’re going to get through this.”

  But little did Patty know that Newlan would soon have a lot more issues in his life to wade through besides the John Breslin murder trial.

  Meanwhile, Newlan was languidly thinking to himself; “why the hell was I gonna mention Marianne? She has nothing to do with this. Man, I must be losing it.”

  Patty could plainly see that Newlan wasn’t quite with it this morning so she deftly changed the subject and inquired about his family; and upon learning that Newlan’s parents were deceased, Patty opened up her heart about her own husband, who had died of colon cancer within the last year, which in turn caused Newlan to become even more choked up than he already was.

  As much as Newlan held a fondness for Patty, on this day he was happy when the other jurors began to drift in, and the conversation meandered off in another direction.

  Upon his arrival, Mark the lanky young juror took a seat next to Newlan, and since they were both employed in the high tech field, it was only natural that they would continue the shop-talk discussion that they had begun the other day.

  Newlan was genuinely enjoying his conversation with Mark, and when Yong, the pretty Korean juror, showed an interest in their nerdy colloquy, Newlan took a
liking to her as well.

  “If this keeps up, it’s gonna make it all that much harder for me to feud with these people once deliberations start,” silently reasoned Newlan regarding his good-natured side.

  Eventually the remaining jurors made their way into the waiting room, with the wheelchair-bound Dan, who was struggling to keep up with his court-appointed schedule, pulling up the rear.

  Although the trial was a burden for Dan (at least in so far as the daily commuting aspect of his routine anyway), he had otherwise come to terms with his disability years ago. But nevertheless, Newlan still felt badly for him just the same. He figured that it must have been tough enough being handicapped, but then to put the poor guy out of his element and force him to sit through weeks of jury duty was just flat-out cruel and unfair.

  “Well, on the plus side, Dan seems to be making some friends,” speculated Newlan as he quietly observed the varied cliques which were already beginning to develop amongst many of the jurors. The factions were built mostly along gender lines, but there were also a couple of non-gender specific friendships that appeared to be flourishing, such as between Pam, the freelance web designer in seat number 9, and Stan, the software salesman in seat number 14.

  The casual discourse continued more-or-less nonstop until at around 9 AM Billy arrived to chauffer the jurors up to their 6th floor deliberation room…and while they were waiting for the elevator, he explained that the elderly Court Officer, Donny, was going to be out for the day because he had to accompany his wife to the hospital for her cancer treatments.

  “Oh the poor man,” fretted the genuinely concerned Patty, who still hadn’t fully recovered from her own husband’s death. The pain was in fact so raw that she felt the need to make everyone aware of her suffering during the roundabout expedition up to their home-away-from-home.

  With his escort services completed for the morning, Billy dropped the jurors off at the foot of their deliberation room door, and Newlan attentively took note of how each and every juror bolted for the same seats that they had occupied yesterday…and thus an unspoken seating arrangement was being formed.

  At this stage of the trial, Newlan, who enjoyed playing the part of the unconventional oddball who sticks out like a sore thumb, had been jumping from seat to seat, once or twice a day, and for the most part he had been sitting apart from the main table. But today he decided to throw a wrench into the seating plan by pulling up a chair at the far end of the large conference room table. And much to his surprise, Yong and Mark took his lead and switched their seats so that they were situated on either side of him, and Annie the spunky HR clerk, set up shop across from him as well.

  Newlan had been wondering whether his colleagues might keep their distance from him, since in his deluded mind, it seemed obvious that he was the black sheep of the group. But on the other hand, he realized that the main conference table, sizable though it may have been, wasn’t spacious enough to leave very much real estate in between each juror, so he figured that someone had to sit adjacent to him, whether they liked it or not.

  As it turns out, Newlan’s colleagues did respect him, despite his paranoid beliefs to the contrary. But regardless of his nagging doubts, within a few days he had conformed to this newly configured seating arrangement; forever abandoning his position away from the primary table.

  It may have taken a while, but Newlan was finally beginning to accept the fact that he was going to be there for the duration, so it made no sense being antisocial, and as much as he resisted it, he was actually beginning to develop an affinity for some of the jurors.

  However, even though Newlan had deserted the outer-fringes, Mike the car salesman and Ron the banker, continued to stake their claim to the smaller table in the corner of the room, and there they remained for the rest of the trial. They were far from reclusive, but of the two, Ron was the more talkative gent, joining in on conversations with the main table whenever something interesting or controversial came up, while Mike on the other hand, like Newlan, was more the quiet type who preferred to observe the situation and keep his thoughts to himself. As a whole, neither Mike nor Newlan were completely standoffish, but for the most part they were more inclined to listen rather than to speak. Although in regards to Newlan, you could amend the last statement by saying that he preferred to listen, at the very least, until Jane blurted out something irritating which got under his skin.

  In any event, now that everyone was comfortably seated, the jurors continued to familiarize themselves with one another until, after the usual lengthy delay, Billy returned to retrieve them and he led the way as they paraded into courtroom.

  Newlan couldn’t help but notice the lack of enthusiasm being shown by his fellow jurors, he himself included, on this fine sunny morning, and he couldn’t help but laugh at the image of their sorry asses filing into the jury box as if it were they who were being measured up for punishment.

  Judge Gershwin kicked off the session by once again praising the jurors, and of course inquiring as to whether anyone had discussed or researched the trial in any way, shape or form. Newlan kept his head down during this exchange, not daring to look the astute judge in the eye for fear that she might somehow possess the power to see right through him and ascertain that he had indeed been investigating the trial on the internet.

  Of course, Judge Gershwin had no such powers, and as such, once she got the dissemination of protocol out of the way, it was time for the first witness of the day, Medical Examiner Dr. Richard Levinson.

  Levinson was a short, pudgy, crumpled mess of a man, and he had a morbid habit of smiling like Count Dracula as he answered queries regarding the deceased who were placed under his jurisdiction.

  But be that as it may, guided by Assistant District Attorney Elaina Lyons’ leading questions, Dr. Levinson described in detail how the body of Fred Miller was transported to the Medical Examiner’s office in Boston on the morning of January 14th, 2006, and he went into even greater detail when she had him discuss his subsequent autopsy.

  Newlan, for one, didn’t understand the purpose of some of DA Lyons’ tactics. No one was questioning the fact that Fred Miller had been murdered, and yet the jurors had to listen to detail after detail after detail from Dr. Levinson as he expounded upon his dissection of the poor dead man’s body. The dissertation also included close-up photos of the raw, reddish entrance wound that dotted Miller’s left cheek and the equally disturbing exit wound that scarred the right side of his neck, all taken as he lay on what looked to be a cold steel slab of an autopsy table. And when you added it all up, the affect on the jurors was chilling to say the least.

  Nevertheless, the jurors did learn that Fred Miller was relatively healthy (other than the fact that he had a bullet hole in his head). They learned that Miller was 6’ 1” and that he weighed 205 lbs. They learned that Miller’s stomach was empty at the time of his death. They learned that there were no soot or burn marks permeating the cheek wound, which apparently suggested that the murder weapon was not fired at point blank range; although according to Dr. Levinson, it was possible that the gun still could have been fired from a relatively close distance. And finally the jurors learned that Miller died within minutes or possibly even seconds after the bullet tore through his face and shredded apart his spinal cord.

  However, there was one thorny detail that the jurors didn’t learn from Dr. Levinson’s testimony thus far, and Defense Attorney R. J. Gleason was intent on ensuring that they were made aware of this minor oversight.

  “Dr. Levinson did you find any traces of legal or illegal substances in Mr. Miller’s bloodstream?” wondered Gleason, and not surprisingly, DA Lyons shot out of her seat faster than the speeding bullet that killed Fred Miller and shouted out her concerns.

  “Objection you honor, Mr. Gleason insists on putting the victim on trial.”

  And although Judge Gershwin tended to agree with DA Lyons’ hypothesis, she was none too happy that the district attorney had made he
r feelings known in front of the impressionable jury.

  “I’ll see council at sidebar,” ordered the suddenly impatient judge, and then in a stern tone she added, “Immediately.”

  As was the case more often than not, the sidebar conversation went on for several minutes, and although the parties spoke in whispers, specifically so that the jurors couldn’t make out what they were saying, it was quite obvious from their hand motions and their body language that the discussion between the judge and the lawyers was exaggeratingly animated and equally heated.

  While the sidebar raged on, Newlan focused his gaze in Dr. Levinson’s direction, and he noticed that “Dr. Frankenstein”, as he dubbed him, was twiddling his thumbs and mumbling to himself.

  Newlan also happened to catch sight of Natalie eyeballing the eccentric doctor as well, and in a bonding gesture, he turned towards her and whispered, “Is this guy creepy or what?”

  And for once, they were both in agreement. As far as Newlan was concerned, Dr. Levinson had been around one too many dead bodies, and as a result his sanity may have been suffering a bit.

  Per usual, when the sidebar reached a crescendo as of yet unseen by the jurors, they were asked to leave the courtroom.

  “A break on our first witness, and we made record time,” exclaimed Stan back in the deliberation room.

  “I’m so embarrassed…I started crying again when DA Lyons pulled out more of those awful pictures,” moaned Jane. However, she was unanimously assured by each and every one of the female jurors that they were close to tears as well, which aided greatly in the easing of her discomfort.

  But crying episodes aside, before long, the jurors were marched back into the courtroom where they were forced to listen to Dr. Levinson admit that traces of cocaine and marijuana, along with ibuprofen, were indeed found in Fred Miller’s blood system.

  Even Gleason himself wasn’t totally convinced as to whether Fred Miller’s drug use had any relevance to the case, but nonetheless he strongly believed that the jurors should be aware of Miller’s lifestyle, as well as his mental state at the time of the murder, and he was quite satisfied with his little victory.

  Meanwhile, back in the gallery, an incensed Cam Miller had had just about enough of Gleason’s insinuations, and he was poised to add another name to the list of people he’d prefer to see dead, while at the same time Newlan was silently proclaiming, “jeez this Fred Miller dude is really starting to remind me of myself, and it’s getting kind of freaky. Man, you can’t make this shit up.”

  Clearly, the emotions that were blowing like the wind from every corner of the courtroom were beginning to heat up. But a minor diversion such as the revelations of Miller’s drug use wasn’t about to prevent DA Lyons from calling her next witness, Ms. Jessica Bias, a Chemist from the Massachusetts State Police Crime Lab Unit, to the stand.

  Ms. Bias was a short, slender blonde woman, roughly 30 years of age; although, she maintained an appearance that, whether intended or not, made her look quite younger.

  Newlan fastidiously observed Bias’s mannerisms as she approached the witness stand, and based on her youthful appearance, he never would have guessed that she was a forensic chemist who had worked over 100 crime scenes in her four year tenure with the State Police.

  In Newlan’s opinion, Bias could easily have passed for a college student, and he even noticed that her pearly white teeth were lined with shiny braces, which only served to further heighten the coed image she portrayed so effortlessly.

  On top of that, Newlan’s fondness for petite women was making it difficult for him to concentrate on what Bias was actually saying. He barely realized it, but he was paying much more attention to Bias’s physical appearance than he was to her actual testimony, and at one point he found himself fantasizing about her as she spoke. But luckily he quickly caught himself and snapped back into focus, while at the same time marveling at what a dirty old man he was becoming.

  Newlan was having a hard time believing that this bubbly young lady, who was prone to fits of nervous giggling, and who wore a broad smile on her face as she testified, was chronicling her role in the investigation of a gruesome murder, when she looked like she belonged in a college sorority.

  And yet Ms. Bias testified very capably as to how she evaluated the crime scene for the presence of blood and swabbed Fred Miller’s vehicle looking for potential traces of DNA.

  “Ms. Bias could you please list the items that you and your colleagues seized from the crime scene for possible testing at a later date?” matter-of-factly requested DA Lyons.

  However, as Bias attempted to respond to this particular inquiry, she became flustered, and she was forced to admit that she hadn’t had a chance to review her report which was written over two years ago, and as such, she was a bit hazy on some of the details.

  “Ms. Bias is your present memory currently exhausted as to the items that were seized at the Fred Miller crime scene?” countered Lyons.

  When Bias responded in the affirmative, Lyons approached and handed Bias the report which she had authored back in 2006.

  After briefly skimming through her notes, Bias looked up and indicated that she had completed her review of the report, which prompted DA Lyons to ask, in the best monotone she could muster; “Ms. Bias is your present memory currently refreshed as to the items that were seized at the Fred Miller crime scene?”

  “Present memory exhausted…present memory refreshed…what’s with all this legalese? Why can’t she just say, ‘did you forget’…’do you now remember’?” groused Newlan. And although his complaints were silently uttered, his sentiments weren’t lost on his colleagues either. In fact, as Lyons continued to make use of these same juridical phrases, over and over again, throughout the course of the trial, the jurors took to inventing their own inside jokes which revolved around how their “memories were exhausted”.

  The perceptive Newlan was also beginning to notice a distinct pattern to DA Lyons’ vocal intonations; she tended to go into a soft, lifeless tone whenever she wished to slip something past the jurors, and on the flip side she would roll out her patented outraged reaction whenever she introduced something that she wanted to stick in their minds.

  So in keeping with strategy, as soon as Ms. Jessica Bias had completed listing off the items that were seized from the crime scene, such as the shell casing, a handful of cotton swabs dabbed in the unidentified blood droppings which were found on the ground of the garage, and a collection of stains and smudges from various areas of Miller’s automobile, DA Lyons quietly announced, “no further questions your honor.”

  For his part, Gleason had read Bias’s report, and although he had no major complaints regarding her work in general, he was a wee bit puzzled as to the lack of testing that was performed on the seized evidence, and he was determined to get to the bottom of it. As far as he was concerned, as a whole, some of the investigators work was rather sloppy, or even worse, downright negligent.

  Gleason started off cautiously, asking Bias a few general questions concerning the basic concepts of DNA, and the resultant lecture had Newlan reminiscing back to his high school Biology class.

  Once the preliminaries were out of the way, Gleason had Bias explain how DNA, most likely in the form of skin cells, might be transferred onto a gun cartridge during the process of loading a weapon, and how DNA could be captured off a window or a door handle of an automobile.

  Bias went one to disclose that if an adequate DNA sample were procured, then it was possible to compare the sample against a known person of interest and to identify whether the genetic markers of the two specimens matched; and furthermore the accuracy of the match could be guaranteed with a 99.9% rate of certainty.

  And so with the scientific portion of his interrogation completed, Gleason bore down into the crux of his cross-examination of one Ms. Jessica Bias.

  “Ms. Bias, when you take evidence from a crime scene, isn’t it typically with the intent of doing further tes
ting on the items back at the State Police Crime lab?”

  “Yes we typically take the evidence back to the lab, and then determine what testing, if any, is to be done on each piece of evidence.”

  “And what factors go into making this determination?” wondered Gleason.

  “Well, we usually have a team meeting, and we discuss the probability of whether the testing will turn up any additional information, and we also take into account what the significance of the evidence might be,” explained Bias.

  “Aren’t there other factors involved as well Ms. Bias?” pressed on Gleason.

  “Yes, much of the testing is expensive, and there is always a backlog of evidence that needs to be tested for other cases, so we have to be very judicious with our recommendations for further testing, if that’s what you’re getting at,” replied Bias.

  “Yes Ms. Bias, that’s exactly what I’m getting at. Didn’t you state in your report that you suggested that the blood splattering on the ground outside of Mr. Miller’s automobile in the garage be tested?” inquired Gleason in a somewhat agitated tone.

  But Bias was unperturbed. She calmly glanced back at the renowned defense attorney with her puppy dog eyes and her little girl smile, and cheerfully answered; “Yes I did sir. But it was determined that the samplings were contaminated, and thus not suitable for further testing.”

  “And didn’t you suggest that the cigarette butt found at the scene of the crime be tested as well,” continued Gleason, who was, at the very least, scoring points with Newlan for his preparation and tenacity.

  “Yes I did,” admitted a jittery Bias, and all the while her smile was slowly being erased with every passing question from the wily Gleason.

  DA Lyons hadn’t even mentioned the cigarette butt, and Bias was hoping that it wouldn’t come up. But unfortunately for her however, Gleason had other ideas.

  “And was the cigarette tested?”

  “No it was not. We later determined that the cigarette butt was too old to have any relevance to the case.”

  “Ms. Bias could you please tell the jurors what happened to the cigarette butt in question,” coolly requested Gleason in a confident tone, which seemed to indicate that he already knew what the response to his solicitation was going to be before he even asked.

  And once again Bias fidgeted in her seat as she was forced to admit a slipup by her team of well-trained professionals.

  “That particular item was either lost or destroyed,” divulged Bias in a low-key tone.

  “So are you telling us that the chain of custody was broken, and that an important piece of evidence is no longer available?” demanded a livid Gleason.

  “Mr. Gleason, I would respectfully disagree with your characterization of the cigarette butt as being an important piece of evidence,” offered an equally combative Bias, and it was becoming obvious to the jurors that Gleason’s accusations were bringing out the fight in her.

  “Ms. Bias, we heard yesterday from Officer Torrez of the Newton Police Department, and he told us that the cigarette butt was ‘smoldering’ when it was discovered at the scene of the crime…those were his exact words,” reminded Gleason.

  “Well, upon further examination by the crime lab, it appears that Officer Torrez’s observation turned out to be inaccurate,” replied Bias as she absentmindedly twirled her shoulder-length blonde hair.

  As Bias’s testimony trudged on, Gleason was becoming more and more annoyed with her, and it showed in his voice.

  “Ms. Bias, didn’t you suggest that the driver’s side door handle of Mr. Miller’s vehicle be tested for DNA?” challenged Gleason.

  “Yes I did,” replied Bias.

  “And didn’t you suggest that the driver’s side window of Mr. Miller’s vehicle be tested for DNA?” added Gleason, and again Bias replied, “Yes I did.”

  “And to you knowledge was any of this testing ever done?” continued Gleason.

  “No sir it was not,” politely replied Bias.

  “Now Ms. Bias, you later became aware of a pair of gloves that were removed from an automobile belonging to a Mr. Samuel Fox isn’t that true?” asked Gleason as he veered his cross-examination off in a related tangent.

  “Yes sir,” replied Bias.

  “And didn’t you suggest that Mr. Fox’s gloves be tested for DNA?” followed up Gleason.

  “Yes sir I did,” whispered Bias.

  “And to the best of your knowledge were Mr. Fox’s gloves ever tested?” demanded Gleason.

  “No sir they were not,” admitted Bias.

  At this point, Newlan observed that Bias was close to tears, and he jotted down as much into his notepad:

  Ms. Bias is beginning to take on the look of a lost little girl.

  “Ms. Bias, isn’t it true that if a person fires a weapon, gunpowder residue might settle on that person’s clothing and hands…and by extension on that person’s gloves if he or she was wearing gloves?”

  “Yes that’s true.”

  “And isn’t it also true that if a bullet is fired into a victim at close range, it’s possible for blood to get splattered back onto the perpetrator’s clothing and gloves?”

  “Well, it would depend on a lot of factors, but yes blood spatter contamination is a possibility,” admitted Bias.

  “And yet, for some reason Mr. Fox’s gloves were never tested for DNA evidence, were they?” asked Gleason with a perplexed look lining his face. And in return Bias frowned and muttered, “I’m afraid not sir.”

  And then, as if in a show of protest, Gleason shook his head vigorously as he made his way back to the defense table, and he disgustedly announced; “No further questions your honor.”

  However, after impatiently heeding Gleason’s assault on Ms. Jessica Bias, DA Lyons had worked up quite a dander of her own, and she was itching to rebut the nonsense that he was putting forth to the jurors.

  Lyons paced back and forth by the jury box a few times before requesting; “Ms. Bias could you expound upon your thought process when you make suggestions for the crime lab.”

  “Well, I usually sort through all of the evidence first, and I jot down various notes regarding items that might warrant further testing…and then I include those suggestions in my report. However, when I feel that an item should absolutely be tested, I will make a formal recommendation to that affect,” explained Bias whose cheerful demeanor had suddenly returned.

  “And Ms. Bias, if an individual were to be wearing gloves when he or she grasped the door handle of an automobile, would that person be likely to leave behind any DNA evidence,” wondered Lyons. And Bias confidently replied, “It’s possible, but highly unlikely.”

  “No further questions your honor,” announced Lyons, and as she lobbed the ball back to Gleason’s side of the court, she dearly hoped that the all too common defense ploy of claiming shoddy police work wasn’t going to confuse the jury.

  But Lyons’ concerns aside, Gleason was more than ready to return her serve; he wasn’t buying this ludicrous dribble of “suggestions vs. recommendations” and if necessary he was prepared to make quite a scene.

  Like a chameleon, Gleason face had slowly transformed into a bright shade of beet red, and he was obviously angry as he asked; “Ms. Bias could you please explain to the jurors how you would characterize a recommendation, and how that differs from a suggestion?”

  Bias shot Gleason a puzzled look, as if she was being quizzed by a professor, but she gave it the old college try and did the best she could at outlining what in her mind were the subtle differences between a recommendation and a suggestion.

  However, Gleason was having none of it, and as he approached Judge Gershwin, he was wearing a rather mischievous smile.

  “Your honor while the prosecution was rebutting the witness, I took the opportunity to look up the words Suggest and Recommend in my pocket dictionary, and this is what it states;”

  “Suggest: 1. bring to mind 2. imply 3. recommend as a po
ssibility”

  “Recommend: 1. advise 2. propose 3. suggest as fit or worthy”

  “Your honor, I would respectfully like to suggest, no pun intended, that these two words are interchangeable…and further I would like to introduce my pocket dictionary, with the words in question highlighted, as the next exhibit.”

  “Objection…relevancy,” shrieked a perturbed Lyons. But alas, Judge Gershwin just shook her head slightly, and with a sour look of distaste etched upon her face, she weakly announced, “He may have it.”

  Assistant Clerk Dan Dente then took the booklet from Gleason, and he almost laughed out loud as he proclaimed, “Pocket dictionary entered as the next exhibit.”

  Dente had been at his job a long time, and he never ceased to be amazed by some of the colorful antics that the lawyers he had had the pleasure to come across often resorted to, and Gleason was right up there with the best of them in that regard.

  With the proceedings moving along at a snail’s pace, it was already lunch hour by the time Ms. Jessica Bias had completed her testimony, and the slow crawl didn’t go unnoticed by the jurors either. As they picked at their sandwiches back in the deliberation room, Jim sarcastically commented, “Only two witnesses all morning…we’re making great progress.”

  And then there was Jane of course, who responded in typical Jane fashion, or at least that was Newlan’s impression anyway.

  “Well for God’s sake, if Gleason didn’t spend half the morning haggling over the hair-splitting differences between a suggestion and a recommendation, then maybe we’d be further along. At this rate, we won’t have a verdict until Labor Day,” complained Jane, and most of the jurors chuckled and nodded in agreement. But naturally, the contrarian Newlan just couldn’t resist opening his big mouth.

  “I thought Gleason’s questions were more than relevant. Why the hell didn’t they test some of that evidence?”

  The lunchtime mood became very subdued following Newlan’s food-for-thought directive, and he was positive that some of the resultant whispers were being aimed his way. But regardless of whether his colleagues were secretly talking about him, or whether it was just his paranoia creeping in again, he mumbled loud enough for everyone to hear; “he’s not guilty yet…not by a long-shot.”

  And with that public pronouncement, Newlan reinforced in his own mind that there still wasn’t a single shred of evidence presented by DA Lyons which even remotely incriminated Breslin. He realized that, strictly speaking, he wasn’t supposed to be commenting on the case, but he was tired of listening to the muffled, forbidden conversations which were coming from every corner of the room, so he wasn’t about to fret over his own indiscretions.

  Meanwhile Ron, who sensed that the feverish tension in the room was beginning to build up again, successfully altered the course of the subject matter by blurting out an observation of his own.

  “Was it just me…or did Bias look like a little kid up there on the stand?” wondered Ron, and once again, all of the jurors, including Newlan this time, hooted in agreement. And just like that, before you could say boo, any hostility that may have existed between them seemed to dissipate, and they were back to being one big, happy, if slightly dysfunctional, family.

  Unfortunately however, this back and forth schism, one minute collegial, the next minute discordant, would continue throughout the remainder of the trial, usually egged on by some perceived slight in the mind of Mr. Frank Newlan.

  After lunch, the jurors heard from Ms. Beth Malinkowski, who just so happened to be a DNA expert from the Massachusetts State Police Crime Lab Unit.

  Malinkowski explained that while Jessica Bias along with other members of the lab team were responsible for collecting the evidence from the crime scene, she was the person who was responsible for doing the actual DNA testing on any items that were deemed noteworthy.

  DA Lyons made sure to have Malinkowski state her qualifications, including the fact that she had analyzed over 1,000 DNA samples, and that she had recently passed a four hour proficiency exam.

  Newlan was duly impressed by Ms. Malinkowski’s qualifications, but he was even more impressed by her long blonde hair and leggy figure. Although her appearance didn’t feature the youthfulness of Jessica Bias’s pubescent countenance, Ms. Malinkowski was also rather on the gorgeous side, and in Newlan’s mind she didn’t fit the mold of a criminal investigator either.

  Newlan expected the crime scene specialists to be your stereotypical crotchety old guys in long trench coats, like the actors you’d see portraying this role in a TV movie. However, the unmistakable reality of the situation, namely that Bias and Malinkowski were both beautiful young women, wasn’t so much the issue, as was the fact that, in Newlan’s mind, this dynamic duo of feminine authority appeared to be just out of college. And as such, they couldn’t possibly possess the skills or experience necessary (not to mention the stomach) to be employed in this line of work.

  With this observation in mind, Newlan turned to Natalie and whispered, “I must be getting old because these cops look like kids to me.”

  Natalie presented Newlan with a stern smirk, but she didn’t say a word, while at the same time he returned her gaze and thought to himself; “and you’re not looking too bad yourself…for an Ice Princess that is.”

  And although Newlan’s jokester side tended to veer towards hyperbole, he was usually a good judge of character. But nevertheless, his first impressions of Natalie were totally off base. Natalie was in fact quite the amiable person. But, much like Newlan, her demeanor was somewhat shy and reserved until she became comfortable around new acquaintances. And furthermore, he was also dead wrong regarding his assumption that she didn’t care for him. In fact, had he been more observant, he would have noticed that Natalie was looking his way from time to time, and “checking him out” with much admiration.

  Natalie lauded Newlan’s chutzpah as far as his ability to disagree with a room full of strangers, regardless of the fact that he was typically outnumbered by a wide margin. And what’s more, she was beginning to think that she might require his support before all was said and done. She fully realized that she herself was quite timid, and that if the rest of the jurors continued to gravitate down their current path, she wasn’t sure whether she was going to be able to muster up the will to stand up to them; for, although she kept her opinions close to the vest, and despite her outward appearances, she also remained unconvinced of John Breslin’s guilt, and in Newlan she saw possibly her only ally on the entire jury.

  Natalie had also heard the faint whispers coming from some of her colleagues, who were already poised to lock up Breslin and throw away the key, and she was thankful that at least one other person still hadn’t made up his mind yet.

  “Just my luck, Frank will end up getting picked as an alternate, and I’ll be on my own,” privately feared Natalie. But for now, like all of the jurors, she was just trying to make it through to the end of the trial without coming down with a stress-induced nervous breakdown.

  Meanwhile, the majority of Malinkowski’s testimony under direct examination from DA Lyons revolved around the testing that was done on the one bullet shell casing which was found at the Miller murder scene.

  Malinkowski claimed that the spent shell contained an insufficient DNA sample, and thus it could not be accurately tested.

  For his part, Newlan, in turn, immediately thought back to Gleason’s opening statement, where he stated that there was DNA fragment found on the bullet casing which didn’t match Sammy the Fox’s DNA.

  “What’s up with that?” silently wondered Newlan, and he would certainly find out what was up with that in short order.

  When it was Gleason’s turn to cross-examine the witness, he had only one question to ask; “Ms. Malinkowski was there anyone else present during your analysis of the DNA fragment that was found on the shell casing?”

  “Yes, along with the crime lab personnel, there was a Dr. Carlisle present, representin
g the defense,” replied Malinkowski.

  And although Gleason cut his interrogation short, without so much as a hint of an explanation, Newlan reasoned that he must have wanted Dr. Carlisle’s name broadcast in front of the jury because he planned to call him as a defense witness, and so he scribbled down the following comments into his notepad:

  Gleason obviously disputes the test results of the DNA fragment that was found on the shell casing.

  I’m Look forward to hearing Dr. Carlisle’s testimony when the defense presents its case.

  Meanwhile, the next witness to testify was another employee from the Massachusetts State Police Crime Lab, Sergeant David Hill.

  Sergeant Hill’s area of expertise was ballistics, and DA Lyons politely asked him to explain the difference between a semi-automatic pistol and a revolver.

  “Generally, semi-automatics are magazine fed pistols, whereas revolvers are cylinder fed weapons. To the untrained eye, both guns look about the same, black or silver, usually with an external hammer. However, a semi-automatic has no wheel in the center of the weapon which would signify a revolver. The cylinder wheel of a revolver also results in a heavier, bulkier pistol, which in turn makes it more difficult to conceal. There are also differences in how the weapons are loaded and unloaded, but in a case such as this one, it is probably irrelevant given the fact that it appears only one round of ammunition was fired,” expounded Hill.

  “Now Sergeant Hill what can you tell us about the ballistics evidence that was found at the Fred Miller murder scene,” continued Lyons.

  “I would say that it was your standard 9 millimeter ammunition fired from a 38 caliber weapon,” replied Hill with authority.

  Next on the agenda, DA Lyons wanted to know what types of tests were performed on the bullet, and Hill went on to describe in great detail how he measured the grooves of the projectile using standard procedures, as well as cutting-edge imaging technology.

  After extensive questioning from Lyons, it became clear to all in attendance that Sergeant Hill was quite qualified in the area of examining spent bullets. But in the end he had to admit that without a weapon to compare the projectile to, he really had no way of providing any further details.

  Newlan himself never had the least bit of interest in the right-to-bear-arms mentality of the NRA crowd, but he found Sergeant Hill’s testimony to be quite fascinating just the same. And when Gleason was given his turn at interrogating Hill, he was hoping that the expert witness might educate the jurors further on the subject of how grooves are produced on a spent bullet casing.

  “Grooves in a gun’s barrel will impart a spin to the projectile which produces an increase in accuracy and range. And a side benefit to the grooves is that they can be used to identify a weapon. Bullets fired from a rifled weapon acquire a distinct signature of grooves, scratches, and indentations which are unique to the weapon used,” expertly answered Hill.

  “Couldn’t these grooves also be described as a ballistic fingerprint?” added Gleason.

  “Yes, that would be an accurate description,” replied an agreeable Hill.

  “Now Sergeant Hill, isn’t it also true that there is a computer network in place which is capable of comparing the grooves from a spent projectile against the grooves of millions of weapons that have been identified and kept on file in a national database; a database that has been set up specifically for this purpose?” continued Gleason.

  “Yes sir, that is true,” confirmed Hill.

  “And was the projectile from the Fred Miller murder scene entered into this computer system,” asked Gleason.

  “Yes it was,” affirmed Hill.

  “And what where the results of the search?” politely demanded Gleason.

  “No matches to any known weapons were found sir,” weakly replied Hill.

  “No further questions your honor,” exclaimed Gleason in a confident tone.

  Judge Gershwin then called for another break which led to some interesting discussions back in the deliberation room.

  The usually restrained Natalie started off the conversation with a puzzling observation.

  “I could have sworn that, in his opening statement, Gleason mentioned something about a speck of unidentified DNA that was found on the shell casing. But today we heard that there was no testable DNA on the shell.”

  A number of jurors also picked up on this discrepancy, which led the cynical Newlan to snidely remark; “alrighty then, I guess we’ve been paying attention after all.”

  “Well, that makes me feel better,” replied Jane in a sarcastic tone, and she immediately added, “What makes you think we haven’t been paying attention?”

  “Oh, it’s nothing. I guess I just got the feeling that some of you may have already made up your minds that Breslin is guilty based solely on DA Lyons’ opening statement, before we even heard any evidence,” confessed Newlan.

  A handful of Newlan’s colleagues appeared to be offended by his remarks. But surprisingly, he reckoned that he eyeballed just as many nods of agreement. And furthermore, the confrontation-averse Newlan was even more surprised at himself for having the brass to bring the observation up for discussion in the first place.

  Newlan’s wisecrack, however inadvertent, apparently precipitated the atmosphere in the jury room to become a wee bit testy again, and this time it was Mark who took the initiative to change the conversational subject matter before things got out of hand.

  “What did everyone think about all of that ‘pistol and bullet’ testimony? It was like a lesson in Weapons 101. But I must admit it was pretty interesting…and I’m not really a gun person.”

  “Yeah, I guess there’s a whole other world out there. But I’m glad I’m not part of it,” lamented Newlan, as he reflected on the sorry state of planet Earth.

  “I get petrified just thinking about it,” added the usually feisty Annie, and most of the jurors agreed with her. But not to be outdone, Mike, who was typically even more reticent than Natalie, chimed in with his own two cents worth of opinionated commentary on the subject of bullet-launching weapons.

  “I guess you people lead sheltered lives,” decided Mike in a non-judgmental tone.

  Meanwhile, Yong, who appeared to take offense at the insinuations of Mike’s critique, demonstratively added her own exaltations, and in her slight oriental accent she declared; “I don’t associate with people who own guns.”

  “Relax folks. You might be surprised to know that many of your friends and neighbors own guns. I own a gun…and I’m not ashamed to admit it,” sternly replied Mike. And then, peering directly at Yong, the transplanted citizen, he added; “It’s our right as Americans.”

  Things were beginning to get rather heated in the deliberation room again for sure, but luckily the court session resumed before any further animosity had a chance to form amongst the jurors. For the most part, they respected each other, but it was clear to Newlan that the semi-retired Judge DeMarco wasn’t exaggerating when he proclaimed in his juror orientation speech that “people from all walks of life serve as jurors.”

  “Ah, I miss those innocent days when I was still just a prospective juror, paying half-a-mind to Judge DeMarco as he rambled on and on about the Justice System, while at the same time secretly trying to score with Gloria Moorhead,” sighed Newlan to himself as he once again took his seat at the far end of the jury box.

  The last witness of the day’s session was State Trooper Gina Callahan, yet another crime scene specialist who was also employed by the Massachusetts State Police Crime Lab. Fortunately for the easily distracted Newlan, Troop Callahan didn’t share the fetching appearance of her colleagues, the aforementioned Ms. Bias and Ms. Malinkowski, and as such, he was fully focused as the action resumed.

  With DA Lyons’ guidance, Trooper Callahan explained how it was her responsibility to collect and document evidence, take photos and video, and process the crime scene for fingerprints, tire tracks, bullet casings, and anyth
ing else that might possibly be relevant to the crime.

  As Callahan’s testimony forged on, the jurors learned that she worked in conjunction with the chemists, the ballistics experts, and the fingerprint experts, while at the same time they also received a comprehensive education on the subject of latent fingerprints, which in layman’s terms are fingerprints that are invisible to the naked eye.

  Regarding the Fred Miller murder case specifically, the jurors were informed by Trooper Callahan that Miller’s automobile was dusted for prints, and then carefully towed to the Newton Police Station garage, where she concluded that the only fingerprint which might be identifiable was found on the front windshield of the vehicle. However, it was later determined that even that particular fingerprint was of insufficient quantity and quality, and thus no further fingerprint analysis was ever performed on Fred Miller’s Nissan Maxima.

  As one might expect, renowned Defense Attorney R. J. Gleason was so utterly mortified by Callahan’s conclusions that it looked for all the world as if he were about to blow a gasket, and with a raised voice he asked; “Trooper Callahan are you telling these jurors that there wasn’t one fingerprint on Mr. Miller’s automobile that was worthy of further testing, when we’ve heard from numerous witnesses who testified that they placed their hands on his vehicle on the morning of the murder?”

  “Yes sir…sometimes incidental contact leaves a smudge or a partial print, but none were found that were of a sufficient enough quantity or quality which would have allowed us to compare it to a known fingerprint,” patiently explained Callahan.

  Gleason’s face was glistening even brighter that it had been when he interrogated Jessica Bias, and as he trudged back to the defense table, he shook his head and angrily announced, “No further questions your honor.”

  By now it was quarter to five in the evening, so Judge Gershwin dismissed the exhausted jurors for the day, and as always she reminded them not to discuss the case with anyone.

  Newlan, for one, was so totally run-down that he contemplated cancelling his dinner plans with his sister Rose. However, he hated the thought of turning down a home-cooked meal, and so he called upon an untapped energy-reserve from somewhere deep within the reservoir of his circulatory system (and he also made a brief detour to pick up a case of beer) before heading out on his way. And from there, he hit the highway north towards his sister’s house, looking forward to some hearty snacks, and hopefully another Celtics victory on the road to their 17th championship.

  And yet despite his high hopes for the evening (or maybe because of them), as the melancholic Newlan put more and more miles between himself and the courthouse, he wished that he could somehow just keep on going and never look back. But, of course, he had to look back. He always looked back. And since he was well aware of the fact that he couldn’t easily just run away from his problems, he did the next best thing; he cranked up the stereo and sparked up a joint.

  The Aerosmith CD, which Newlan brought along specifically for the ride to the courthouse, had already played through, so he switched over to the FM radio just in time to catch folksinger Jonathan Edwards’ raucous hit song from the 70’s, “Shanty” which he took to be a good sign for the evening, and he enthusiastically sang along to the tune’s partying theme as he rocked on down the highway with visions of comfort food in the kitchen and spirits in the fridge clogging up his head; for surely the depressing situation in his life at the moment called for him…to get a good old-fashioned buzz…going on.