Heller was listening attentively. He liked the challenge of finding precedents and writing opinions that would lead to a new body of law.
“What has changed this possibility, Ms. Cooper?”
“The work of two forensic biologists at our own lab, Your Honor. Scientists named Caragine and Mitchell, who will testify at the trial.”
“Only if they pass muster at a Frye,” Segal interjected.
These two young women would blow Willie Buskins out of the water, I was convinced, having spent hours with them in their offices, trying to understand their painstaking work. The scientists in the 290-million-dollar lab that opened in Manhattan in 2007-the largest government forensics lab in the country-had analyzed more than forty-three thousand items for DNA results in the last year alone. The work of that department had been cutting-edge since its inception, and now had taken another dramatic leap forward thanks to Caragine and Mitchell.
“What’s the FST, Ms. Cooper?” Heller asked.
“It’s an algorithm for a software program-”
“Judge, how can you let a jury hear this kind of evidence?” Segal said, flinging his arms to both sides. “I don’t even know how to explain to my client what an algorithm is.”
“On your feet when you’re addressing me, Mr. Segal. And it seems to me that should Mr. Buskins decide to wake up and join us at these proceedings, I’d be happy to tell him that the scientists’ fancy word is simply a procedure for solving a problem in a finite number of steps.”
Heller lifted the gavel and slammed it down with such force that it sounded like a cannon had been fired in the courtroom. Buskins still didn’t pick up his head until Eric Segal poked him in the ribs.
“Go on, Ms. Cooper.”
“This new program can analyze a DNA mixture-it has analyzed the evidence submitted in Mr. Buskins’s case-and determine the probability that it includes the defendant’s profile.”
“So you’re talking statistical probabilities here?”
“Yes, sir. A year ago, before FST was developed, the lab comparison would have yielded no result. The People could not have gone forward with a prosecution. Now we can deliver a likelihood-”
Segal pushed back and stood up. “You can’t convict someone on a likelihood, Your Honor.”
“Let her finish.”
“A likelihood that Mr. Buskins’s DNA is in the mixture recovered-when compared to the DNA of random people. If it were a low value in the mixture, then we might not be able to establish the defendant as the source, whereas a higher value could certainly include him as a donor.”
Willie Buskins hadn’t used a knife to threaten the fourteen-year-old girl who was the victim of the rape behind Taft Houses. He had wrapped one of his powerful arms around her neck to drag her off her bicycle, using the pink two-wheeler with purple tasseled handlebars to make his escape, leaving her curled up behind the garbage Dumpster in which he’d dropped her clothing. Although he had not ejaculated during the attack-leaving none of the more traditional DNA source of a rape suspect in seminal fluid-he had left trace evidence on the handlebar of the child’s bike. On the right side, there was a low likelihood of Buskins’s DNA in the mixture, but the left one suggested that he was the donor of the skin cells-985,000 times more likely to be so than the DNA of four random people tested in comparison.
Buskins had been granted bail, despite his criminal history and my loud objections, because the fourteen-year-old-who had been snatched from behind, after dark-had been unable to be certain of her identification of the attacker.
“Look, Judge, even if you believe in this voodoo, it’s not generally accepted by the scientific community. It’s only used at the New York City lab.”
“Is that true, Ms. Cooper?”
“Not at this point, Your Honor. OCME has conducted more than half a million test runs in the last two years, and now the protocol has been approved by the New York State Commission on Forensic Science, so it has in fact gained use in labs across the country.”
When Willie Buskins muttered, “Bullshit,” I knew it was exactly what Eric Segal would have liked to say to the judge, too. Fortunately, Heller hadn’t heard the thug.
“All right. Let’s mark this for hearing and trial on the Monday following the July 4th holiday, shall we? Will you both be available?”
“Yes, sir,” I said, and Segal nodded in agreement.
I waited until he escorted his client out of the courtroom before I made my way down the aisle and into the long corridor on the thirteenth floor.
Before I reached the elevator bank that led to the interior entrance to the New York County District Attorney’s Office, the men’s room door opened. Willie Buskins must have been waiting for me in there, stepping forward boldly to walk almost at my side as I passed by.
I picked up my pace and turned to the row of elevators, headed for the first open door, not caring whether it was going up or down.
“Just seein’ how fast I could make you move, Ms. Cooper,” Buskins said, holding the heavy doors open while I pressed the button to close them, laughing so hard that the gold jackets on his two front teeth-the ones his victim had described-were exposed to me. “Don’t you play dirty with me at that trial. I’ve had mines, Ms. Cooper. Mess with me and I’ll see that you get yours.”
FOUR
I was standing at Laura Wilkie’s desk, in the cubicle in front of my office. She had been my secretary since I had taken over the unit, and was as loyal as any person with whom I’d ever worked.
“I understand the Boss wants to see me, but I’d like you to take this down first.” I dictated to her exactly what Buskins had said and done in the courtroom, and the behavior that followed.
“You’ve got to do something about this, Alex. Want me to send a copy to Judge Heller?”
“No. Just get one up to the DA’s squad, for their threat file. I’m sure Buskins is all mouth and not about to do anything stupid before trial, but his words did rattle me and I’d like to have it all on record.”
“Will do.”
“And put through assignments, please, for doctors Caragine and Mitchell, for a Frye hearing on July 8th.”
“Got it.”
“Nothing from Mike or Mercer?”
“All quiet.”
The phone messages and requests from assistants in the Special Victims Unit to meet with me would wait another hour.
“I’m off to brief Battaglia.”
Paul Battaglia had been Manhattan’s elected district attorney for six terms-twenty-five years-and was the only person most voters remembered in that role. He had grown the legal staff to more than five hundred lawyers during his long tenure and was responsible for many innovations in crime fighting. He never tried to micromanage his supervisors, but he had an unquenchable desire to be the first to know every important fact in a case or on a matter of personnel.
The gatekeeper to his office was my good friend Rose Malone-a superb executive assistant whose discretion, memory for detail about almost everything that had transpired under her watch, and great good looks made her the DA’s most valuable asset.
“It’s your lucky day,” Rose said with a smile. “He’s in a particularly upbeat mood. Whoever he met with at breakfast gave him a box of Cuban cigars. You can go right in.”
Battaglia was sitting at the head of the conference table, flanked by Pat McKinney, chief of the trial division. Although my relationship with McKinney had been a rough one for many years, he’d been unusually gracious to me since we’d worked together on a major international scandal earlier in the spring.
“Good mor-”
Battaglia’s elbows rested on the arms of his chair, his fingers templed below his chin, with a fat cigar stuck in the middle of his mouth.
“Practically midday, Alex. I’m having lunch with the commissioner, and I don’t have a damn clue about what happened in the Park last night.”