Latest / The Epstein Chronicles / Tyler Robinson Preliminary Hearing Transcripts (Day 2 Part 13) (9/25/26)
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: What's up everyone and welcome back to the program. In
- 0:03Speaker 1: this episode, we're going to dive right back in to
- 0:05Speaker 1: day two of the Tyler Robinson prelim hearing. And to
- 0:09Speaker 1: do that, we pick back up with the defense questioning Ms. Baker.
- 0:14Speaker 1: Question okay, and does it contain a statement that support
- 0:17Speaker 1: for inclusion is an examiner's conclusion that there's evidentiary support
- 0:22Speaker 1: for the inclusion of a known individual as a possible
- 0:25Speaker 1: contributor to the DNA typing results obtained from an evidentiary sample? Answer.
- 0:31Speaker 1: I believe it does. Yes. Question. And did you follow
- 0:33Speaker 1: that procedure in the case? Answer. Yes, I did. Question.
- 0:36Speaker 1: All right. Does the same policy state at page four?
- 0:40Speaker 1: Fourth down. One more. No. Next one. Does the policy
- 0:43Speaker 1: state an examiner shall not assert that a likelihood ratio
- 0:47Speaker 1: of any magnitude provides an absolute identification or a source
- 0:51Speaker 1: attribution of an individual to an evidentiary sample? Answer. That
- 0:55Speaker 1: is correct. Yes, it does state that. Question. and you
- 0:59Speaker 1: followed that procedure in this case, did you not? Answer, yes,
- 1:02Speaker 1: I did. Question, you're not implying that those numbers that
- 1:06Speaker 1: a previous witness quoted and are stated in your report
- 1:09Speaker 1: provides an absolute identification of Mr. Robinson or Mr. Twiggs? Answer, no,
- 1:14Speaker 1: I'm not. Question, okay, thank you. Can you take that down? Question,
- 1:18Speaker 1: are you also familiar with a concept called formal activity level? Answer, yes,
- 1:23Speaker 1: I am. Question, can you tell the court what that is? Answer,
- 1:27Speaker 1: formal activity level is determining an activity that causes DNA
- 1:31Speaker 1: to be left behind on an object. Question, and does
- 1:34Speaker 1: your laboratory have a policy about whether you can express
- 1:37Speaker 1: opinions about formal activity level? Answer, we do have a policy,
- 1:41Speaker 1: and I cannot give an opinion as far as activity
- 1:44Speaker 1: level goes. Question, and why is that? Answer, that is
- 1:49Speaker 1: because DNA can be left behind on an object. for
- 1:52Speaker 1: numerous different reasons. So just because DNA is on an
- 1:55Speaker 1: item doesn't necessarily mean that an individual touched it or
- 1:59Speaker 1: utilized that item. So because of that, we do not
- 2:02Speaker 1: opine on what activity may have occurred. Question, and consistent
- 2:06Speaker 1: with that policy, you can't tell if you interpret a
- 2:10Speaker 1: piece of DNA as being present on an item. You
- 2:13Speaker 1: can't tell when that DNA was deposited, correct? Answer, I
- 2:17Speaker 1: cannot give an exact time, but there are some situations...
- 2:22Speaker 1: If a piece of evidence has been buried for a
- 2:24Speaker 1: long time or is in a river for a long time,
- 2:27Speaker 1: it would be my expectation, based on my experience, that
- 2:30Speaker 1: I probably won't get DNA off an item that's been
- 2:33Speaker 1: buried for 10 years, for example. However, I cannot give
- 2:37Speaker 1: exact timing as to when the DNA was deposited on
- 2:41Speaker 1: an item. Question, and I was talking more about a
- 2:45Speaker 1: situation where you can actually find DNA on an object,
- 2:48Speaker 1: be it a gun or anything else. You can't say
- 2:51Speaker 1: when the DNA was deposited, correct? Answer, that's correct. Question,
- 2:56Speaker 1: and how long in general does the DNA persist on
- 2:59Speaker 1: an item once you've made contact? How does DNA get
- 3:02Speaker 1: deposited on an item in general? Answer, in general, DNA
- 3:06Speaker 1: can be deposited a few different ways, by a body fluid,
- 3:09Speaker 1: such as saliva, blood, or skin cells. So touching an
- 3:13Speaker 1: item or wearing an item, DNA could be deposited. Once
- 3:17Speaker 1: DNA is on an item, if it's subjected to ideal conditions,
- 3:21Speaker 1: It's out of heat and high UV. It's not subjected
- 3:24Speaker 1: to any kind of cleaning or chemicals. It can persist
- 3:26Speaker 1: on an item rather indefinitely. It can degrade solely over time,
- 3:31Speaker 1: but we've certainly worked items of evidence that are 40
- 3:34Speaker 1: or 50 years old, and we've been able to recover DNA. Question. Now,
- 3:40Speaker 1: could you explain to the court the concept of degradation
- 3:42Speaker 1: of DNA samples, what that means, and what it suggests
- 3:45Speaker 1: with your testing? Answer. Sure. So degradation of DNA is
- 3:50Speaker 1: breaking up the DNA. So if you think that the DNA,
- 3:53Speaker 1: like a long rope, it's essentially taking that rope and
- 3:57Speaker 1: cutting it up into pieces. Seeing degradation in a sample
- 4:01Speaker 1: could lend me to believe that there may be that
- 4:03Speaker 1: the sample may be subjected to cleaning or high heat
- 4:07Speaker 1: or an extended period of time. So really, I can't
- 4:09Speaker 1: tell why an item is degraded. But looking at my data,
- 4:12Speaker 1: I can tell if that sample is potentially degraded or
- 4:15Speaker 1: broken down. Question, and two of the items that you
- 4:18Speaker 1: examined were referred to as item 7 and 8, correct? Answer,
- 4:22Speaker 1: that is correct, yes. Question, one was a towel and
- 4:25Speaker 1: one was a screwdriver. Answer, that is correct, yes. Question,
- 4:29Speaker 1: were both of those samples degraded to a certain extent? Answer,
- 4:34Speaker 1: may I refer to my notes? So item 8 was
- 4:37Speaker 1: the screwdriver from the perch. I would say that there
- 4:40Speaker 1: was some degradation as I look at my DNA peaks
- 4:43Speaker 1: or the DNA data. In an ideal world, If there's
- 4:46Speaker 1: no degradation, I would expect all the peaks to be
- 4:49Speaker 1: at the same height. Here, I see a ski slope
- 4:51Speaker 1: type effect, meaning that the data on the left is
- 4:55Speaker 1: a little bit taller than the data on the right.
- 4:58Speaker 1: As far as item 7, item 7 was the TAU.
- 5:01Speaker 1: There was a slight amount of degradation, but not as
- 5:03Speaker 1: much as item 8. Question okay, and what's the effect
- 5:08Speaker 1: or degradation on production of, first of all? What is alleles? Answer,
- 5:16Speaker 1: an allele is an individual's DNA type. So we inherit
- 5:20Speaker 1: half of our DNA from our mom and half our
- 5:22Speaker 1: DNA from our dad. If we're looking at something called
- 5:24Speaker 1: short tandem repeats or STRs, these are small segments of
- 5:29Speaker 1: DNA that repeat themselves over and over again. We all
- 5:32Speaker 1: have those same sections of DNA, but what might differ
- 5:36Speaker 1: amongst us is how many times it repeats. And that's
- 5:39Speaker 1: actually what we inherit from our parents. So for example,
- 5:43Speaker 1: At one particular location, my mom may give me 14
- 5:46Speaker 1: repeats and my dad may give me 15. So when
- 5:50Speaker 1: I'm looking at the DNA types, I would say that
- 5:52Speaker 1: I have two alleles at the location of 14 and
- 5:55Speaker 1: a 15. As far as degradation goes, it could cause
- 5:59Speaker 1: some of those alleles to do something called dropout, meaning
- 6:02Speaker 1: when I'm looking at the DNA chart or the DNA data,
- 6:06Speaker 1: I don't see information. I do not obtain numbers at
- 6:08Speaker 1: that particular section of DNA. Question number And is it
- 6:12Speaker 1: true that in the testing that you are doing in
- 6:14Speaker 1: this case, STR testing, what you are looking at is
- 6:18Speaker 1: the length of the, what I'll call, have you ever
- 6:20Speaker 1: heard of the boxcar analogy? Answer, I have, yes. Question,
- 6:25Speaker 1: tell the court what it is. Answer, so the boxcar
- 6:28Speaker 1: analogy is how many times that section of DNA repeats.
- 6:32Speaker 1: So that section is essentially letters. So for example, ACTG.
- 6:37Speaker 1: So you may have ACTG repeated 10 times or 12 times,
- 6:41Speaker 1: Each of those sections of ACTG would be considered one boxcar. Question,
- 6:46Speaker 1: and so when you're looking for alleles, you're essentially counting
- 6:49Speaker 1: the boxcars? Could be seven boxcars, and that person would
- 6:53Speaker 1: be a seven? Answer, that is correct, yes. Question, and
- 6:57Speaker 1: from the mom and from the dad, he may have
- 6:59Speaker 1: inherited ten boxcars? Answer, that is correct, yes. Question, and
- 7:03Speaker 1: so that person at that particular location would be a
- 7:06Speaker 1: seven and a ten? Answer, yes. Question, And what you're
- 7:11Speaker 1: doing in your testing is comparing those numbers to what
- 7:13Speaker 1: you get from a known sample to see if it match. Answer,
- 7:17Speaker 1: that is correct, yes. Question, is that true? Answer, yes. Question,
- 7:22Speaker 1: now is it true that your, you mentioned the A,
- 7:25Speaker 1: the C, the T, and the G, correct? Answer, correct, yes. Question,
- 7:29Speaker 1: is it true that you are not measuring the sequence
- 7:32Speaker 1: within the boxcars? You're just measuring the length of the boxcars. Answer,
- 7:36Speaker 1: that is correct. So the sequence would be equivalent to
- 7:39Speaker 1: the letters in a word. What I'm looking at is
- 7:42Speaker 1: the number of words versus the letters that make up
- 7:44Speaker 1: the word. Question, and we'll talk about this a little later,
- 7:49Speaker 1: but people can vary not only in the length of
- 7:52Speaker 1: the boxcar, but in the sequence within the boxcar, right? Answer,
- 7:56Speaker 1: that is correct, yes. Question, and what you're testing looks
- 8:01Speaker 1: at just the length? Answer, correct, yes. Question, okay. And
- 8:05Speaker 1: is it also true that you're looking across many different locations? Answer, yes.
- 8:11Speaker 1: So at the FBI laboratory, we use a kit called
- 8:14Speaker 1: Global Filer, and this is looking at 21 different locations
- 8:19Speaker 1: on a human's DNA, in addition to three sex-determining locations.
- 8:24Speaker 1: That lets me know if an individual is biologically a
- 8:27Speaker 1: male or a female. Question, as between two individuals, 99%
- 8:33Speaker 1: of their DNA is exactly the same, right? Answer, that
- 8:36Speaker 1: is correct. And that makes sense. We're all humans. We
- 8:39Speaker 1: all have arms, legs, and a head. Less than 1%
- 8:42Speaker 1: of our DNA is what? What differs amongst us with
- 8:47Speaker 1: the exception of identical twins? Question, but within the 1%,
- 8:51Speaker 1: you're looking at these length differences, correct? Answer, correct, yes. Question,
- 8:56Speaker 1: and you're looking at what you called short tandem repeats? Answer, yes. Question,
- 9:01Speaker 1: you said you looked at 25 locations? Answer, we're looking
- 9:05Speaker 1: at 21 locations. and three sex type determining, so 24 total. Question,
- 9:11Speaker 1: what are the sex determining? They're called locus, correct? Answer, correct.
- 9:15Speaker 1: So locus is the individual section of DNA. Question, all right.
- 9:20Speaker 1: And they typically have names or numbers associated with them, correct? Answer, yes,
- 9:24Speaker 1: they do. Question, so what are the sex determining loci? Answer,
- 9:29Speaker 1: so there's ameliogenin, and that lets me know if an
- 9:33Speaker 1: individual is male or female. And then there's two specific
- 9:36Speaker 1: male determining locations. One is Y-indel and one is DYS385.
- 9:44Speaker 1: Those just let me know that those are specific male individuals. Question, okay.
- 9:49Speaker 1: And then for the other locations you're looking at, you're
- 9:53Speaker 1: just looking for two types of each location. Is that correct? Answer, correct. Yes. Question,
- 9:58Speaker 1: for the samples that you're at, the 7A and the 8A,
- 10:02Speaker 1: did you get what was called a full profile? Would
- 10:05Speaker 1: be a full profile where you have all 23 locations present? Answer,
- 10:09Speaker 1: that is correct. A full profile means I have DNA
- 10:12Speaker 1: at every single location. It's above our threshold and I'm
- 10:15Speaker 1: seeing one or two pieces of information at each location.
- 10:19Speaker 1: From item 7, I did develop a full profile. Question
- 10:23Speaker 1: for item 8. You developed a full profile? Answer. Item
- 10:28Speaker 1: 8 was a partial profile, so I did not develop
- 10:31Speaker 1: DNA at every single location. Question. What that means in
- 10:35Speaker 1: your comparison is that you had certain information in the
- 10:38Speaker 1: question sample that for whatever reason doesn't appear, correct? Answer. Correct. Yes. Question.
- 10:44Speaker 1: So you can't make a comparison at those locations? Answer.
- 10:48Speaker 1: That is correct. Question, what makes it not appear at
- 10:51Speaker 1: certain locations? Answer, it could be there's degradation, so those
- 10:55Speaker 1: larger locations could be broken up so that it wasn't
- 10:58Speaker 1: detected during the DNA process. It could be a low-level
- 11:02Speaker 1: amount of cellular material to begin with, so if I
- 11:04Speaker 1: only have a few cells, I may not have enough
- 11:07Speaker 1: to detect at every single location. Question, and for the
- 11:11Speaker 1: 8-1 sample, did you measure Mr. Robinson and Mr. Twigg's
- 11:15Speaker 1: DNA at the 23 locations? Answer, for item 8, I
- 11:20Speaker 1: did not have a full profile. I did not have
- 11:22Speaker 1: data at all 23 locations to compare it to either Mr.
- 11:26Speaker 1: Robinson or Mr. Twiggs. Question, but you had full profiles
- 11:30Speaker 1: of Mr. Twiggs and for Mr. Robinson, right? Answer, for
- 11:34Speaker 1: their known sample, answer yes, question yes. Answer, yes. So
- 11:38Speaker 1: for their known sample, that was a sample that was
- 11:41Speaker 1: taken directly from those individuals and I did develop a
- 11:44Speaker 1: full DNA profile. Question, just to illustrate how it works,
- 11:49Speaker 1: is one of the loci that you looked at called
- 11:51Speaker 1: the DYS-391 loci? Answer, yes it is. Question, and what
- 11:56Speaker 1: type was Mr. Robinson at the loci? Answer, at that location, Mr.
- 12:00Speaker 1: Robinson was an 11. Question, I think you said you
- 12:04Speaker 1: inherit one from your mother, one from your father, but
- 12:07Speaker 1: when you say he's an 11, technically, what he's called
- 12:10Speaker 1: an 11-11, correct? Answer, DYS-391 is actually that male location.
- 12:16Speaker 1: So he, or anybody, would not have inherited anything from
- 12:20Speaker 1: their mother. At this location, I would only expect to
- 12:23Speaker 1: see one piece of information, and I did see an
- 12:26Speaker 1: 11 there. Question, and for the DS3 loci, what was
- 12:30Speaker 1: his type? Answer, his type was a 17. Question, for
- 12:35Speaker 1: that loci, you'd expect two types, correct? Answer, that is correct. Question,
- 12:40Speaker 1: and when you say he's a 17, do you mean
- 12:42Speaker 1: he's actually a 1717? Answer, that is correct. He inherited
- 12:46Speaker 1: 17 repeats on that location from mom and 17 from dad. Question,
- 12:51Speaker 1: other locations, for instance, the BWA, he's type 18 or 19, correct? Answer,
- 12:56Speaker 1: that is correct. Question, so you're looking at those and
- 13:01Speaker 1: what the machine produces or peaks, correct? Answer, correct, yes.
- 13:05Speaker 1: They're just spikes on a graph similar to spikes on
- 13:07Speaker 1: a heart monitor. Question, and you said for 8A, you
- 13:11Speaker 1: had certain locations where the test samples didn't have any results? Answer,
- 13:14Speaker 1: that is correct. Question, at the TPOC location, Mr. Robinson's
- 13:19Speaker 1: a type 8 or 9, correct? Answer, that is correct. Question, Mr.
- 13:24Speaker 1: Twiggs is a type 8 or 11? Answer, that is correct. Question,
- 13:29Speaker 1: but when you looked at sample 8A, it didn't have
- 13:32Speaker 1: any of those types? Answer, that is correct. So I
- 13:35Speaker 1: could not compare at that location. Question, are there certain
- 13:38Speaker 1: rules for when you exclude someone? In other words, when
- 13:41Speaker 1: you are comparing two samples, are there rules which say,
- 13:45Speaker 1: Here's where I would conclude that he could not possibly
- 13:48Speaker 1: have been contributing to this sample. Answer, yes. Question, your
- 13:52Speaker 1: field has a lot of literature written about it, correct? Answer,
- 13:55Speaker 1: that is correct, yes. Question, and you generally like to
- 13:59Speaker 1: keep up with that literature? Answer, I do, yes. Question,
- 14:03Speaker 1: across time, there have been several books, publications that attempt
- 14:06Speaker 1: to educate you and courts and lawyers on the technical
- 14:09Speaker 1: aspects of DNA testing, right? Answer, correct, yes. Question, One
- 14:14Speaker 1: of those books, the early one, DNA Technology and Forensic
- 14:17Speaker 1: Science by National Resource Council. Answer, I'm familiar with that, yes. Question,
- 14:24Speaker 1: that's an authoritative book. That was really one of the
- 14:27Speaker 1: first books on DNA testing. Answer, yes. Question, and then
- 14:31Speaker 1: by the same organization, National Resource Council, the Evaluation of
- 14:35Speaker 1: Forensic DNA Evidence. Answer, correct, yes. Question, published in 96.
- 14:40Speaker 1: Are you familiar with that as well? Answer, yes, I am. Question,
- 14:43Speaker 1: and then there's an author, I believe, who did his
- 14:46Speaker 1: research work at the FBI named Dr. John Butler. Yes,
- 14:50Speaker 1: I'm familiar with him, she answers. Question, you've studied his
- 14:53Speaker 1: work both in your training and your continuing education? Answer,
- 14:58Speaker 1: that is correct, yes. Question, he's got current textbooks on
- 15:02Speaker 1: the topic that we're talking about, right? Answer, I'm not
- 15:06Speaker 1: familiar with how many textbooks he has. I know he
- 15:08Speaker 1: has at least one. Question, fundamentals of forensic DNA typing? Answer, yes. Question,
- 15:15Speaker 1: familiar with that? Forensic DNA type methodology? Answer, yeah, I'm
- 15:20Speaker 1: familiar with that one as well. Question, and forensic DNA
- 15:23Speaker 1: typing interpretation? Answer, yes. Question, everybody in your field relies
- 15:29Speaker 1: on these publications and uses them as teaching tools? Answer, yeah,
- 15:34Speaker 1: I'd agree with that. Question, and then in addition to books,
- 15:37Speaker 1: there have been studies that have been done on particular topics, correct? Answer, yes. Question,
- 15:42Speaker 1: in this case, we're dealing with mixtures, correct? Answer, yes. Question,
- 15:47Speaker 1: and mixtures present certain challenges that are not present when
- 15:50Speaker 1: the samples are not mixed, correct? Answer, not necessarily. First,
- 15:55Speaker 1: to define a mixture, that simply means DNA from more
- 15:58Speaker 1: than one individual in a sample. So if I were
- 16:01Speaker 1: to take a sip from a coffee cup, and my
- 16:03Speaker 1: husband were also to take a sip, if I were
- 16:05Speaker 1: to swab that coffee cup, I'd get a mixture, his
- 16:08Speaker 1: DNA and my DNA together. As far as it being difficult,
- 16:12Speaker 1: You can have some mixtures where there's one contributor that
- 16:15Speaker 1: donates a lot of DNA and the second contributor donates
- 16:19Speaker 1: a little bit. For DNA interpretation, that is not challenging
- 16:22Speaker 1: for me. Where it can become challenging is if you
- 16:25Speaker 1: have four or five individuals within that sample all donating
- 16:29Speaker 1: roughly around the same amount. It may be challenging for
- 16:31Speaker 1: me to determine if a person is included or not. Question,
- 16:36Speaker 1: and you would also agree that the challenge exists in
- 16:38Speaker 1: situations where you have what you're called low quantities of DNA. Again,
- 16:44Speaker 1: that could be possible. I could have low quantities of
- 16:47Speaker 1: multiple individuals, which is simply just saying that I can't
- 16:50Speaker 1: determine which piece of DNA goes with which individual, so
- 16:54Speaker 1: that's possible. Question, what's a drop-in? Drop-in is where you
- 17:00Speaker 1: have an environmental DNA that's not inherent to the sample
- 17:03Speaker 1: that's detected during our DNA process. DNA testing is very sensitive,
- 17:08Speaker 1: so it could be that we have a peak that's detected,
- 17:12Speaker 1: like I said, from the environment. Question, and what is
- 17:16Speaker 1: a dropout? Answer, dropout is when you have an allele
- 17:20Speaker 1: that is not detected or a piece of DNA information
- 17:23Speaker 1: that is not detected. In the DNA chart, there is
- 17:25Speaker 1: no number associated with that particular location. Question, degradation can
- 17:31Speaker 1: cause dropout? Answer, yes. Question, so if you have a
- 17:35Speaker 1: person at a particular location, that's type 14 or 15,
- 17:39Speaker 1: And because of degradation, that 15 drops out. What you're
- 17:42Speaker 1: seeing on your chart is just 14, right? Answer, that's possible, yes. Question,
- 17:49Speaker 1: and that presents a certain challenge, does it? Not, because
- 17:52Speaker 1: if the 15 is not there, you could misinterpret that
- 17:55Speaker 1: as a 14-14, correct? Answer, not necessarily. We have thresholds.
- 18:00Speaker 1: We have something called the stochastic threshold. If that 14
- 18:04Speaker 1: above that stochastic threshold I'm confident based on our validation,
- 18:09Speaker 1: our testing, and my training that the DNA type, there
- 18:12Speaker 1: is only a 14. If that 14 falls below the
- 18:16Speaker 1: stochastic threshold, that could be an indication that there's another peak.
- 18:20Speaker 1: So when I'm interpreting, when I'm comparing, if that 14
- 18:24Speaker 1: is below threshold and someone's a 14, 15, I will
- 18:27Speaker 1: not automatically exclude them. Question, what is stochastic effects? And
- 18:32Speaker 1: at this, the prosecution jumps in. I'm going to object
- 18:36Speaker 1: at this point. I think we've gone beyond the scope
- 18:38Speaker 1: of prelim hearing. I think this is getting into 702
- 18:41Speaker 1: material that's not necessary for the probable cause determination. Judge Graff,
- 18:47Speaker 1: all right. And to that, the defense jumps back in.
- 18:50Speaker 1: I think it goes directly to the reliability of the
- 18:52Speaker 1: testing results that the state introduced. I think the court
- 18:57Speaker 1: has to understand limitations and potential sources of error in
- 19:01Speaker 1: order to assess whether these results are reliable. Judge Graff,
- 19:06Speaker 1: And in regard to this line of questioning, how far
- 19:08Speaker 1: are you going to go on this line of questioning? Answer.
- 19:12Speaker 1: I have one more question, and then I'm moving on.
- 19:16Speaker 1: Judge Graff. All right. Prosecution. Prosecution answers. I'll hold him
- 19:20Speaker 1: to that. The judge, Mr. Burt, so the objection is overruled.
- 19:24Speaker 1: You may proceed with that question. Defense. You can answer. Witness.
- 19:29Speaker 1: Can you repeat your question, please? Question. Tell the court
- 19:33Speaker 1: about stochastic effects. Answer. Stochastic effects when you have low-level
- 19:38Speaker 1: samples during the DNA copying process. Based on how the
- 19:43Speaker 1: DNA is copied, you could have alleles that are copied
- 19:46Speaker 1: better than other alleles. Question, on that topic I mentioned stochasticity. before.
- 19:50Speaker 1: One of the studies that you're familiar with is called
- 19:53Speaker 1: the PCAST report. Are you familiar with that report? Answer,
- 19:58Speaker 1: yes I am. Alright folks, we're going to wrap up
- 20:01Speaker 1: right here and in the next episode we're going to
- 20:03Speaker 1: pick up where we left off. All the information that
- 20:06Speaker 1: goes with this episode can be found in the description box.