Since there are for the most part two sides to each and every story, it is helpful to learn both sides of the story before making up one's mind on what to believe. The truth can often be found in what was not said, just as much as in what was said. In fact, a story can have its whole meaning changed if the listener is only told what the story teller didn't say!
On April 22nd, 2005, Federal District Court Judge Marilyn Huff denied my Writ Petition for Habeas Corpus. Part of her ruling concerned testing on a T-shirt that was found near the scene of the murders that I did not commit but for which I was convicted. On the question of the T-shirt, she ruled as follows: Her court had conducted EDTA testing and DNA testing on the T-shirt and that testing refuted the petitioner's claim of tampering.
However, at the same time, the court had also concluded that EDTA testing is not scientific and must be excluded pursuant to the Daubert standard (that is, the standard set by the United States Supreme Court concerning the admissibility of scientific evidence in court).
So on the one hand she says that I can't prove tampering, and on the other hand she says that the tests used to prove I can't prove tampering don't meet the necessary standard.
The DNA tests she refers to took place in 2001, before we learned about the tampering and planting of evidence, which, in part, helped me to get a stay of execution in 2004. This Judge also would not grant me a hearing on the tampering and planting of evidence that we could prove: the planting of a lone blood stain and two cigarette butts.
So the state and its sidekick, the mainstream news media, with the help of this judge, go out and tell everyone who will listen that I did not prove that my blood was planted on that T-shirt by those good ole boys from the San Bernardino County Sheriff's department.
What they don't tell you is this very real fact: At no time during the so-called testing of this T-shirt did any of the defense experts, DNA or EDTA or stain-selection experts, or any other type of expert hired by my attorneys or my attorneys themselves examine, touch, look at, smell, come in contact with, establish protocols for, or even be allowed in the same building where that T-shirt was, essentially, being held hostage by the state.
Through the Judge, the state's experts-and it is the state whose actions were in question in this exercise-"did everything." They even broke the Judge's own protocol in order to establish one of their own, and the Judge went along with this. This is how they are now able to say that I could not prove tampering. They controlled the tests from start to finish, and got the kinds of results that they wanted! The state helped to deny my experts access to that T-shirt, and in doing so the state denied me the opportunity to have my experts have a say in what stains were to be tested, what kind of protocol would be used, or any other thing that would have helped my side to prove that their side did tamper with that shirt.
So they, like the Judge, used both hands: on the one hand, they, the state, denied my experts everything concerning that shirt, and on the other hand they said we failed to do what we claimed we would do. They say that we failed to establish protocols-after refusing us access to the evidence!
How can anyone prepare protocols for testing something they haven't seen? The state's expert saw that shirt, examined it, searched it, selected stains from it, did everything they wanted to it (again), and of course they did all this with permission from the Judge. All my attorneys and experts wanted was the same opportunity-no more, no less.
Considering the way these tests were carried out, can there be any surprise that the results of those tests turned out the way they did? Those tests weren't designed by the state to allow us to prove tampering. They were designed by the state to stop us from proving tampering! It wasn't in the state's best interest to have us prove tampering, not on that shirt, not on that blood, and not on those cigarette butts.
Of course none of this appeared in the mainstream press, which seems to think that "reporting" means cutting and pasting paragraphs from prosecution press release. But whether they print it or not, there are two side to every story, and you have just read the second side!
In Struggle From Death Row
At San Quentin Prison
Kevin Cooper