[R]UTLAND — A judge has denied a motion by Donald Fell’s defense to withhold evidence from clothing found at a crime scene linked to the killing of Teresca King.
Fell is facing a retrial in the case. In his trial in 2005, the trace evidence was tied to a black cotton shirt belonging to Fell and to black cotton jeans belonging to Robert Lee. Both men were charged with carjacking King, a North Clarendon resident, to New York state and killing her in November 2000. Lee died in prison the following year.
In a hearing on evidence in late August, former FBI employee Sandra Koch discussed the agency’s methods of analyzing fiber evidence recovered from a crime scene. The defense has challenged Koch’s expert witness testimony from the 2005 trial and argues that forensic fiber analysis does not meet various scientific standards of reliability.
The so-called Daubert hearing allows a judge to dismiss testimony or evidence if it is based on methods or techniques not generally accepted within the scientific community.
According to U.S. District Judge Geoffrey Crawford, “The science of fiber analysis has important limitations … but the profession does not claim to be able to positively identify the precise source of a fiber.”
Crawford said the limitations are well known and that the defense would have ample opportunity to raise concerns during the upcoming retrial. Fell was convicted in 2005 and sentenced to death the following year. However, the outcome was overturned due to juror misconduct. The retrial is scheduled to begin in February.
Crawford has heard Daubert challenges to fingerprint evidence, the chief medical examiner’s explanation of the cause of death, and analysis of fibers recovered from the crime scene. The judge denied a request to hold an evidentiary hearing on the admissibility of DNA identification, saying the techniques are “long-established and were followed in this case by the FBI examiners.”
Koch said she identified two microscopically different types of black cotton fibers found in Vermont or New York. Before the carjacking, Fell and Lee allegedly stabbed Fell’s mother and her companion to death in their home in Rutland.
In Crawford’s order issued Thursday, he said it was not clear at the August hearing whether the evidence Koch examined was recovered from the New York crime scene or the Vermont crime scene. The government argues it came from Dover Plains, New York, where King’s body was found.
Koch also testified that she had been told Fell and Lee were wearing the same clothing at the time of their arrest several days later in Arkansas that they had been wearing at the time of the crime.
The government argued Koch’s conclusions are relevant “because they associate Fell and Lee with the crime scene, and corroborate Fell’s statements,” according to court documents.
At issue in the hearing was whether forensic analysis of fiber evidence meets the Daubert standard. According to Koch, several methods of microscopy are used to analyze fibers and in this case the FBI performed two of them: microscopy and microspectrophotometry. The first allows the examiner to distinguish between natural and synthetic fibers. The second provides more detailed information about the color of the sample by visually comparing the spectra of various fibers.
Crawford said there have been multiple rulings in favor of the admissibility of fiber evidence at trial. “Here, as in the case of fingerprint analysis,” he wrote, “the court is not writing on a blank slate.”
However, the defense argued that earlier cases did not take into consideration a 2009 National Research Council report titled “Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States.”
The NRC report raises some questions about the value of using mass-produced cotton fibers, which can be difficult to trace back to a particular source, as evidence. The report also argues that the reliability of fiber analysis has not been rigorously analyzed.
Crawford concluded that although fiber analysis does not provide quantitative or statistical information linking the fibers collected from the crime scene to Fell or Lee, it has “sufficient probative value to be presented to the jury.”
“It constitutes some evidence associating Fell with the crime scene in New York,” Crawford wrote.
