Computer forensics? Did the Dossett-Leath household have no computers in 2003 when the victim died?

Let’s assume this was a normal American family, living in a rather rural area where data services were limited to 52 Kb modems. OK. So no Internet searches to speak of. But did they not have a computer?

There are many barkless dogs in this case: no blood on clothes, no comprehensive search of the suspect’s dresser drawers to turn up the mysterious holster given to authorities by an angry and berieved step-daughter, no search of a running drier to find clothes that might have trace evidence, and no search for a will. Each of these lacunae are not evidence against anyone—they are investigative failures.

1 ) The defendant’s clothes were tested for blood and GSR and none was found. Yet the prosecution used it against her, claiming she should have embraced the corpse—thus disturbing the scene.

2) The police either did not search the dresser drawers for more guns, ammo, and paraphernalia (holsters) or the holster was not there until the step-daughter found it. Yet the prosecution used it against the defendant.

3) The police noticed the running drier but did not search it. It is as likely to have contained exculpatory evidence as to have contained incriminating evidence. For example, what if it contained the victim’s pajamas or underwear or the sheets that were on the bed when the defendant and her daughter left home in the morning—suggesting that the victim got out of bed, washed things, and then started the drier before becoming so despondent that he shot himself. Farfetched, I know, but unless the cops checked there is no way of knowing what that running drier really means. (Actually, the prosecution did use the victim’s nudity and the bed clothes against the defendant, suggesting she staged the scene. But what if that somewhat ritualistic “staging” was the victim’s doing?)

4) The police either did not search for the will initially or did not find it. Here’s another instance of what I, as a juror, would have wanted to know. Which was it? My personal experience is that attorneys tell people to keep a copy of the will in the house for use by first-responders in the event of sudden, unexpected death (along with a living will to instruct doctors). The idea is that if someone finds you unconscious or dead at home, your last wishes would be available to them. When the cops find a potential suicide, shouldn’t they look for a suicide note and a will? (In the Dossett-Leath case the failure to find a copy of the will was used against the defendant, even though that was also a fact that benefitted the angry step-daughter.)

4) And what about the computers? In the Neil Entwistle case, computer forensics was used to prove his wife did not commit suicide. In Florida recently a teenager (Scott Davis, Jr.) was exonerated of planting bombs when his computer was found to contain no incriminating searches for bomb info on the web. Why didn’t the cops try to find evidence that Mr. Leath had sought information about drugs or depression or suicide on the web, if there was a computer? Or what if there was a draft suicide note on the hard drive? (Maybe I’m uninformed about TN teenagers, but I can’t believe there was no computer in the house.)

To me this is a case of “abuses of science” number 4: “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” Oh yes it is—or at least it should be taken as such by the courts. “Absence of evidence is not evidence of anything—unless you have conducted an exhaustive search for evidence.”

Unless the cops search for “clean” evidence, and not only search for “dirty” evidence, it seems to me that crime-scene investigations are inherently flawed. Why shouldn’t the cops have to search for exculpatory evidence as well as incriminating evidence? What I mean is that in the early stages of an investigation, there should be no prime suspect. There should only be a search for the truth. Everyone should be suspect. In this case, I would have suspected many friends and family of the victim, including the step-daughter. And I would have suspected suicide was a possibility.

In his closing arguments the prosecutor said something to the effect that the defense was asking that no one be convicted of a crime in “Knox County” if the police investigation was sloppy. Huh?

• The state has an obligation to be careful when they propose to take away the liberty or life of a citizen.
• The state’s attorney has an obligation not to bring a case when the evidence is flimsy or incomplete—and especially in a case where his conflict of interest is so great that he has to recuse himself.