Lonnie Franklin, Jr.
Photo Credit: Pool Camera, Nick Ut, AP
The previous post on this case can be found HERE.
November 9, 2015
After five and a half days of excruciatingly detailed testimony from defense and prosecution DNA experts, the defense motion to present third party culpability evidence in the trial of Lonnie Franklin, Jr., aka “Grim Sleeper” has been denied. It cannot be presented in the guilt or penalty phase of the trial.
The defense contended that DNA alleles belonging to another convicted serial killer, Chester Turner, as well as several other identified individuals, were found in either one of two complex DNA mixtures.
The prosecution argued that the analysis of DNA mixtures by defense expert Dr. Lawrence Sowers, did not meet the accepted scientific standards withing the forensic DNA analysis community.
Judge Kathleen Kennedy ruled that, “... the statistics that were utilized by Dr. Sowars, woefully failed to reach the [level of] general acceptance of the scientific community in DNA analysis.”
The next pretrial hearing is November 16, 2015. Jury selection is slated to start December 15, 2015. Voir dire is tentatively scheduled for January 4, 2016.
I will have a more detailed synopsis of the hearing and who testified sometime in the near future.
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4 comments:
LOL! I made a comment today on the previous post about the subjectivity of analyzing mixtures of DNA. Obviously, there weren't enough alleles to reach acceptable standards.
That simplifies the case a great deal with these dubious results out of the case.
It's not that there were not enough alleles. There were too many alleles.
One mixture was at a minimum, eight people or more. When you have that many alleles, you can't tell which alleles go with which profile. The probability numbers you get are basically meaningless, such as, it's one in four probability that anyone's DNA is in there.
Thanks for the clarification.
Lonnie Franklin looks evil! I am so glad that he has been caught. I hope he's convicted on every count that is against him. Moreover, I pray the victims' families can get some measure of justice and peace for their losses.
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