Resurrection Walk

“Dr. Arslanian, let’s start with your educational background,” I said. “Can you tell the judge what degrees you have earned and from where?”

“Sure,” Arslanian said. “I have a bunch. I got my master’s in chemical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I then went down to New York and got a PhD in criminology at John Jay College, where I am currently an associate professor.”

“What about your undergraduate degree?”

“I have two of them too. I graduated from Harvard with a bachelor of science in engineering, and then I went down the road a bit and got a bachelor of music from Berklee College. I like to sing.”

I smiled. I wished at that moment that she were testifying in front of a jury. I knew from experience that they’d be eating out of her hand at this point. But Judge Coelho, almost thirty years on the bench, seemed less enamored. I moved on.

“And what about honorary degrees?” I asked. “Do you have any of those?”

“Oh, sure,” Arslanian said. “I have three of those so far. Let’s see... from the University of Florida — Go, Gators! — and from its cross-state rival Florida State in forensic sciences, and then another degree in forensic sciences from Fordham in New York.”

I flipped a page on my legal pad and asked the judge to approve Arslanian under rule 702 as an expert witness. She did so. Surprisingly, there was no objection from Morris.

“Okay, Dr. Arslanian,” I said. “For the record, you are being paid as an expert witness in this case, correct?”

“Yes, I charge a flat fee of three thousand dollars to review a case,” she said. “More if it requires any travel. And more if it requires giving testimony about my findings in court.”

“How did you come to review the evidence in this case?”

“Well, you hired me, plain and simple, to review the known evidence in the case.”

“Have I hired you in the past?”

“Yes, this was the sixth time you hired me over a span of sixteen years.”

“And what is the ethical standard that you hold yourself to when you review a case?”

“It’s simple: I call ’em like I see ’em. I review a case and let the chips fall where they may. If I think the evidence points to the guilt of your client, I won’t testify to anything but that.”

“You said that I hired you six times. Did you testify for the defense in all six of those cases?”

“I did not. In three of them my review led me to believe that the evidence pointed to your client as culpable. I reported this and my involvement in the case ended there.”

I flipped a page and checked on the judge to be sure she was listening to the witness. Many times — in state court, at least — I had noted that the judges appeared distracted during a witness’s testimony. Many judges thought that once they ascended to the bench, whether by appointment or election, they had the power and ability to multitask while hearing a case. They were up there writing opinions or reviewing submissions in other cases while presiding over my cases. One time a judge started snoring into his microphone while I was questioning a witness. The clerk had to wake him.

But none of this was true of Judge Coelho. She had turned in her seat and was looking directly at Arslanian as she testified. I continued.

“But here you are, Dr. Arslanian,” I said. “Can we take it by your testifying today that you believe that Lucinda Sanz is possibly innocent in the killing of her ex-husband?”

“It is not about guilt or innocence for me,” Arslanian said. “It’s about the forensics. Do they add up and point in the direction of the accused? That is the question. When I reviewed this case, the answer I came to was no.”

“Can you walk us through what made you arrive at that answer?”

“I can show you.”

I asked the judge’s permission for the doctor to project images from her digital re-creation of the crime onto the large screen on the wall opposite the jury box. Morris objected under rule 702(c), which requires expert testimony to be the product of “reliable principles and methods” of forensic investigation. This would apply to any sort of re-creation of a crime.

“Thank you, Mr. Morris,” Coelho said. “I am going to allow the witness to proceed with the demonstration and then I will make a ruling under seven-oh-two.”

Morris sat down and I saw him make an angry slash with a pen across the top page of his legal pad.

Arslanian connected her laptop to the courtroom AV equipment, and soon there was a table of contents for various versions of her presentation.

“So, from the investigative file, we know the State’s version of what happened,” she said. “What I’ve done here is produce a re-creation of the crime based on known parameters, such as body location, projectile trajectory, and witness statements. Take a look.”