1-20-05

   Murder is often described as the “ultimate crime.” The fear of meeting death at the hands of another is as primal as is the fear of fire or drowning. Murder investigations are the most complex, sensitive and labor intensive investigations conducted by any law enforcement agency. No other type of case generates the same amount of public interest; no other type of case can dominate the media; no other type of case can elevate ordinary people to the level of national recognition as can murder investigations; and no other type of case can subject the law enforcement community to the scrutiny of the public, media and the judiciary.

Each year hundreds of fiction and non-fiction books are published about murderers, their victims and the investigations that seek to bring them to justice. Every year scores of motion pictures and television programs dramatize the dynamics of murder investigations, court cases, and incarceration. In many cases, these programs, motion pictures and books are wildly inaccurate, and seemingly value entertainment over fact.

Sheriff Leroy Baca is offering visitors to this website a glimpse inside the world of “L.A. Murders.” With more than 1,000 murders committed each year in Los Angeles County, the odds are good that at some time almost every citizen will be touched, in some way, by a murder investigation. If you have ever known a murder victim, or have been a witness to a murder, or have been contacted by detectives seeking leads, or have been delayed on the freeway due to “police activity”, your life has been changed by an act of violence.

As part of this website, the Sheriff will permit you to look on the other side of the yellow crime scene tape, by way of a series of narratives, an “Anatomy of a Murder Investigation.”

The Initial Report

Most murders are reported to law enforcement by ordinary people, many of whom have had little, if any, prior contact with law enforcement. Many of our citizens have discovered dead bodies on their streets, in their front yards, in cars parked near their businesses and on recreational outings in our local mountains and deserts. Should you be so unfortunate to make such a discovery, the following narrative will tell you what to expect.

Most people contact law enforcement by telephone. Depending on the agency involved, the call may be answered by a sworn peace officer, or a civilian dispatcher. Although the caller may be frightened or emotional, the officer/civilian taking the call will attempt to obtain a great deal of information from the caller, and the call will in all probability be digitally recorded.

It is common for citizens reporting an emergency by telephone to become frustrated or angry at the questions asked of them, but those employees have been trained to elicit detailed information that will dictate the type of law enforcement resources assigned to the incident. In some instances, several calls involving the same incident will be received by the law enforcement agency at the same time, and the complaint lines may be temporarily busy.

Every caller will be asked to provide their name, address and telephone number; and depending on the incident, the caller may be asked to stay on the line until patrol units arrive on scene.

In larger agencies, such as the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, the Los Angeles Police Department, and the Pasadena or Long Beach Police Departments, the dispatcher may not recognize local landmarks such as, “...the drug store on Main Street,” and so every effort should be made to provide an exact address of the incident.

If the caller has information regarding a suspect or vehicle description, or direction of travel, the dispatcher will insure that the information is transmitted to responding units while the caller is still on the telephone.

It is important to remember that “911" calls made from regular (hard-wire) telephones will be routed to the local law enforcement agency; but “911" calls made from cellular telephones, regardless of the location of the caller, will be routed to the California Highway Patrol; this could result in the caller being transferred to the appropriate law enforcement agency.

If you find yourself in the position of having to notify law enforcement of a murder, or any emergency, please bear in mind that your assistance is vital to the immediate response and subsequent investigation.

The Uniformed Response

The uniformed deputies and police officers on patrol in the various communities of Los Angeles County are by definition, “first responders” to any emergency situation, including the report of a murder. Their responsibilities are many, and in almost every case they will be called upon to make decisions in a matter of seconds, that the courts may take years to resolve.

In almost every case several police units will be dispatched to the report of a murder, and in most cases a field supervisor (sergeant or corporal) will also respond. The officers will have a great deal to consider as they drive to the scene. In addition to the information provided by the caller, they will be coordinating their response “tactically” to insure that they will be in a position to respond to any eventuality. In many cases, killers have remained at the scene, and have either barricaded themselves in a residence or business, or have attempted to blend in with the crowd.

As they approach the scene, the patrol units will have their own safety, and the safety of the public as their primary concern. As might be expected, their response will be aggressive, and depending on the circumstances they encounter, they will deal with perceived threats to their safety, or contamination of the crime scene in a direct manner.

When the patrol units arrive on scene, several things will take place simultaneously. One or more deputies or officers will examine the victim to determine if he/she exhibits any sign of life. The preservation of life takes precedence over all other crime scene activities, and every effort will be made, with the assistance of fire department paramedics, to evacuate any victim who exhibits a heartbeat, pulse or respiration.

Other deputies or officers will establish a “perimeter” or “containment,” which may involve the blocking of streets, removal of non-law enforcement personnel from the scene, and stringing yellow crime scene tape in such a way to protect any evidence which may be present. This activity very often is misunderstood by the public, who may find themselves unable to leave their homes, or unable to drive their automobiles into their garages, or experience similar inconveniences, sometimes for a period of several hours. In certain circumstances, such as a sexual murder inside a structure, it is not uncommon to maintain the crime scene for several days.

The officers establishing the perimeter take no joy in inconveniencing the public; however they have a vital job to perform in protecting the crime scene. Every person who enters or leaves a crime scene changes that scene in some way, often unwittingly, and that presents a major risk to the integrity of the investigation. Every law enforcement officer or fire fighter who has entered or left the scene must account for his/her reason for being there, and must report their observations and activities. It is not unusual for emergency services personnel who have been at a murder scene to be compelled to provide fingerprints, shoe prints or samples of their DNA.

The addition or obliteration of tire tracks, or expended shell casings either stepped on, or run over, or moved, can seriously hamper the effectiveness of the investigation. Something as seemingly insignificant as the presence of a single hair may prove to be vital evidence. A single automobile, permitted to leave or enter a crime scene before its location has been photographed, may alter the scene and permit a killer to escape prosecution.

Citizens who find themselves separated from their homes, or who are unable to move their automobiles, are encouraged to contact one of the uniformed personnel and explain the circumstances. Law enforcement personnel will arrange to escort residents in or out of their homes, or permit vehicles to be moved, as soon as such movement can be accomplished without compromising the investigation.

Law enforcement officers and fire department personnel who respond to the scene of a murder in which the victim's body is found out of doors are discouraged from covering the body with any object, including a blanket or sheet. Although this sometimes results in criticism by the public, there is a sound reason for not doing so. The placement of a sheet or other object over the victim can destroy “trace evidence” in the form of hairs, fibers, blood or other biological evidence. Additionally, later in court, such a placement will provide a defense attorney the opportunity to assert that the trace evidence in fact came from the sheet or blanket, not from the killer.

Deputy Sheriffs and police officers are aware of the anguish that is experienced by the family and friends of a murder victim whose body must remain uncovered. Some agencies have developed “body shields,” which can be erected to mask the victim from public view.

Once the crime scene has been properly secured, uniformed personnel will seek out members of the public who may have witnessed all or part of the incident. People remaining at the scene will be contacted, and a canvass of surrounding residences and businesses will be conducted.

Potential witnesses who are located, will be asked to identify themselves, and a preliminary statement may be taken. In many cases witnesses will be requested to accompany an officer to the Sheriff's or police station to await further questioning by detectives. The decision to respond to the station must be voluntary on the part of each witness. If a witness declines to go to a law enforcement facility, he will be contacted by detectives at his residence or place of employment.

Every resident of Los Angeles County is painfully aware of the chaos that occurs when a freeway is closed, even for a brief period of time. Drivers who find themselves in a traffic jam often find, by listening to traffic reports on their radios, that the traffic condition is the result of “police activity.” That media term almost always describes a murder investigation, law enforcement-involved shooting or the termination of a pursuit. In each of these cases, it is the actions of the suspect, not law enforcement, which has made the freeway closure a necessity.

The fact of the matter is, that when the murder case comes to trial in 2-3 years, no defense attorney, no judge, and no jury will accept the explanation of, “We wanted to open the freeway” as a reason for a superficial and hurried crime scene investigation. Certainly, no victim's family wants to hear that the killer was acquitted because, in their haste to open the freeway, law enforcement investigators missed or improperly collected vital evidence.

Uniformed officers play a vital role in the investigation of a murder. Only they can provide detectives with information relating to what occurred at the scene between the time of the initial report and arrival of investigators. Very often it is uniformed officers, acting on information from witnesses, who locate, identify and apprehend the killer.

 

The Investigators

Once the uniformed officers have determined that a murder has been committed, they will continue to contain the crime scene and request that Homicide investigators be dispatched. While the process for notifying detectives (the terms “investigator” and “detective” are synonymous) differs from agency to agency, there are many areas of commonality.

Every law enforcement agency staffs a detective unit, and the number of detectives assigned to that unit generally reflects the overall size of the agency. The larger agencies have detectives assigned specifically to conduct death investigations; other agencies may group the case assignments into Robbery/Homicide, Crimes Against Persons, or Serious Crimes units.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Homicide Bureau, which is staffed by approximately 100 detectives, is headquartered in the City of Commerce . These detectives conduct death investigations throughout the County. Murders occurring in the unincorporated areas of the County, or in any of the Department's 41 contract cities are automatically assigned to the Homicide Bureau. Complex murder investigations can take years, and thousands of hours of investigative time to complete, and they can completely exhaust the resources of many police departments. For those reasons, any independent municipality in Los Angeles County may request the Sheriff's Homicide Bureau to investigate murders and/or officer-involved shootings that occur within their city limits. This assistance is provided by the Sheriff, without cost to the city making the request.

The Los Angeles Police Department has a “Homicide Table,” at each of its geographical police divisions. The number of detectives assigned to these “tables” varies with each division. Additionally, the LAPD maintains a Robbery-Homicide Division (RHD), which is often prefaced by the term “elite” in the media. RHD is charged with conducting long-term, complex, or high-profile murder investigations. There are relatively few investigators assigned to this division, and their caseload is purposely maintained at a low level.

Neither philosophy is necessarily better than the other, and it is largely a case of which system integrates with the organizational structure of the remainder of the department.

In as much as the majority of murders occur during the late evening, or early morning hours, the on-call detectives will usually respond to the crime scene from their homes. Depending on the distances traveled, their response time to the scene will vary, but most detectives will be on-scene within an hour of being dispatched. For most law enforcement agencies, the initial detective response to a reported murder will be two detectives and a supervisor. Of course the number of detectives assigned can be increased, if more resources are required.

The responding detectives will very often communicate with one another by cellular telephones as they drive to the crime scenes. Their discussions will involve the facts of the case, as they know them, the type of forensic support that may be required, and legal issues. Every Homicide investigator conducts each investigation with the thought that they will apprehend the killer(s) and take the case through trial. During the entire investigation detectives will try to anticipate the tactics by which a defense attorney will attack their case.

One of the decisions that the detectives will be considering is whether or not a search warrant will be needed to process the crime scene, if it is indoors or on private property. The U.S. Supreme Court, in a case known as “Mincey vs. Arizona ” placed significant restrictions on warrant-less crime scene investigations. Virtually every investigative technique available to investigators has been challenged in court, and compliance with the resultant rulings may delay the investigation by hours, if not longer. When the detectives arrive at the crime scene, they will meet with the uniformed officers who conducted the original investigation. The detectives will begin to take detailed and extensive hand written notes on every aspect of the investigation, everything they are told, every pertinent detail of the scene, every person interviewed, and every piece of evidence collected - throughout the entire investigation. These notes will eventually be refined to written reports, which along with other documentation will comprise the investigative file. Even the most basic murder investigation can easily involve several hundred pages of documentation. The documentation of complex cases can number into the tens of thousands of pages.

The detectives will be met at the crime scene by crime lab personnel, usually a photographer and a fingerprint technician. Once the investigators have surveyed the scene, they will direct the activities of the crime lab personnel. Crime scene photographs make up approximately 90% of the exhibits introduced in court, and the typical crime scene may involve more than 100 photographs.

Depending on the circumstances, the investigators may request additional crime lab personnel, or specialized equipment, to be sent to the scene. These criminalists may be required to locate and collect biological evidence, and other forms of evidence as varied as spent projectiles, tire tracks or hair fibers.

The crime lab professionals who respond to crime scenes have been dramatically portrayed on television on such shows as “CSI.” While some of the techniques shown on TV are actually used in crime scene investigations, others are the products of the television writers' creativity. The real CSI scientists are dedicated and hard working, but they are seldom sworn law enforcement officers, and they do not conduct interviews nor make arrests.

Once the victim's remains can be removed from the crime scene without contaminating or destroying other evidence, the Medical Examiner's Office is requested to dispatch a Coroner's investigator. If the victim has been pronounced dead at a hospital, the Medical Examiner's Office will dispatch an investigator within 24-48 hours.

When the Coroner's investigator arrives on-scene, he will conduct a brief interview with the detectives in order to record facts relating to the death, and he will examine the body. During the course of the examination, the presence of traumatic injuries is documented, and the Coroner's investigator will take custody of all of the victim's personal effects.

The Coroner's investigator may elect to determine the victim's liver temperature (which may help to determine the time of death), remove hair and fingernail samples (for DNA analysis) or swab the victim's hands for gunshot residue (GSR).

Efforts will be made to identify the victim by way of family members, who may have remained at the scene. In many cases, the victim's identity cannot be readily determined, and authorities must rely on fingerprints to do so. If a victim has been previously arrested, or has been in the military, or has held a job requiring him to be fingerprinted, the identification can usually be made within 12 hours. Once the Coroner's investigator has completed his on-scene tasks, the victim will be removed to the Forensic Science Center , within the Medical Examiner's Office in downtown Los Angeles .

Under California Law, the Coroner or Medical Examiner has sole jurisdiction over the victim's body, and is responsible for ascribing the Cause and Mode of Death.

It is the policy of the Medical Examiner in Los Angeles County , that no member of the victim's family may view or visit the body until such time that an autopsy has been performed, and the body is released to a mortuary. This normally occurs within 3-5 days of the death.

Once the detectives have completed their investigation of the crime scene, or have processed it sufficiently to permit one or more of the investigators to attend to other tasks, witnesses will be contacted and interviewed. Witnesses who have agreed to wait at a Sheriff's or police station will receive the first priority. The interviews may be recorded digitally or on audio tape. Witnesses should be encouraged by the enactment of a new California law that requires the courts, law enforcement agencies and the District Attorneys' offices throughout the state to maintain the name, address, date of birth and place of employment of each witness as confidential information.

Once the crime scene and investigation has been completed, and the initial interviews of the witnesses have been concluded, the work of the detectives has just begun.

 

The Crime Lab

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department maintains a crime lab that processes evidence for every law enforcement agency in the County, except the Los Angeles Police Department, which maintains its own crime lab. In the last decade there have been dramatic advances in forensic science, particularly in the areas of DNA and fingerprint identification. Both labs are divided into various sections, each responsible for conducting different kinds of forensic analysis.

Unfortunately, due to budgetary constraints, law enforcement has not kept pace with the advances in forensic science. Both of the labs have been historically under funded, and equipment and personnel shortages have existed for years. This has resulted in huge backlogs of work, and it is a fact that evidence relating to many classifications of crimes - other than murder - is never tested. Even in murder cases, not every piece of evidence is analyzed, nor is every examination that should be performed as a matter of routine actually conducted.

Although evidence collected in murder cases receives priority, long delays still exist. It is not uncommon for DNA evidence to remain untested for 10-12 months, and it is a fact that some killers, who should have been identified and arrested through advanced forensic evidence, remain free to kill again.

There are plans to build a new lab, which will combine the resources of both departments on the campus of California State University Los Angeles, but even a new facility, will not solve the shortage of qualified criminalists. Many forensic examinations require a long time to complete, and the equipment and personnel to conduct the analysis are expensive.

It is a sad fact that a murderer who kills in a jurisdiction with a lower murder rate than Los Angeles County , has a higher likelihood of his arrest being the result of forensic analysis.

During the course of a murder investigation, detectives will be in frequent contact with the crime lab, often lobbying to have their cases placed at the top of the pile. Prosecutors from the District Attorney's Office are sometimes frustrated, when they learn that in spite of what may be best for a case, some tests will not be conducted due to the shortage of time and money.

Every element of the court system, including the judiciary, the prosecutors and the defense bar, must share some of the responsibility for the backlog of work at the crime labs. Many citizens are sadly familiar with the experience of sitting outside of a courtroom, waiting to testify; or of being told to go home and return another day. The same applies to detectives and criminalists, who waste thousands of hours a year waiting in court houses, when their talents are needed on the streets and in the lab.

 

The Investigation

Most television shows don't come close to accurately portraying a murder investigation, an understandable lapse since images of hours of unending paperwork and computer searches do not make for compelling television viewing. Murder investigations are never closed; there is no Statute of Limitations on murder in California , and many cases require several years, or longer, to acquire sufficient evidence to file charges against the person responsible.

One of the detectives' tasks is to attend the post mortem examination (autopsy) of the victim, which is conducted at the Coroner's Office. Investigators and forensic pathologists must distance their feelings for the victim as a human being, and concentrate on obtaining the evidence that may be present on or in the remains.

Homicide investigators, perhaps more than any other detectives, must be “people” oriented. The stock in trade of a homicide investigator is his or her ability to obtain information, and become a practitioner of the art of persuasion. A detective must be able persuade a reluctant witness, many of whom have legitimate or conspiratorial reasons to be so, to provide information and appear in court to testify. Effective investigators sometimes form associations with witnesses and/or the families of the victims which may last for years.

Most investigators have a great deal of experience before being assigned to a Homicide unit; in the Sheriff's Department an investigators are usually half-way through their careers before they can qualify for the assignment. Every day of that experience is called upon when an investigator faces a suspect in an interview room, knowing that he may have only one chance to obtain an admission or confession from the suspect.

An effective Homicide investigator must have the ability to establish rapport with the suspect (if at all possible), no matter how vile the crime nor how repugnant the suspect. No “Oscars” are awarded for these performances, yet it is acting at its highest form. In spite of what is depicted by fiction writers, in books, in movies, or television, the restrictions of the Miranda Decision (Constitutional Rights) is not a huge impediment to Homicide investigators in most cases. The state of the law is that NO Miranda admonition is required to be given before questioning any adult suspect who is NOT in custody. Many investigators, by way of the rapport they have established, have obtained statements from suspects who have been advised by their lawyers to refuse to talk. Of course there are cases, especially when the suspect has a prior record of arrest, when no amount of persuasion will be successful.

The Miranda Decision, perhaps more than any other legislation, has been the subject of more legal interpretation and challenge. Homicide detectives must be completely familiar with the “case law” involving Miranda issues. Even when they do everything “by the book” investigators may find themselves engaged in vigorous attacks by the defense in court.

In most law enforcement agencies there are no limits placed on Homicide detectives in terms of the manner in which they conduct their investigations, and innovative thinking is encouraged. Detectives become familiar with dealing with the media, often holding press conferences soliciting the assistance of the public. Homicide investigators become masters of finding people who do not want to be found. Computers have greatly enhanced the ability to find people and correlate information. The investigator who is not comfortable with information technology is as outdated as a chalk outlined body at a crime scene.

Detectives will write enough reports during their careers to fill a very large room. The ability to write effectively is an absolute necessity, as is the ability to communicate verbally with people in all walks of life, and of every culture.

In spite of all the scientific advances that have taken place, and all of the options afforded by way of informational databases, very often the solving of a case is the result of “old fashion police work.” Detectives still must wear out shoe leather, pursuing leads that often lead to dead-ends, knocking on doors, interviewing and re-interviewing witnesses, never accepting any statement at face value, seeking to corroborate every statement from every person, delving deep into the personal lives of victims, witnesses and suspects and asking the hard questions. Every Homicide detective has cases that wake him or her up at night, cases that have caused him to miss birthdays, anniversaries and holidays, or cancel vacations trying to solve. The worst are the cases in which the suspect is known, but insufficient evidence exists to convict him. When detectives talk among themselves, more often than not, it is not their successes they speak of, but the others . . . the cases in which the “devil” is still out there.

The National Institute of Justice has established that the maximum number of cases per year that an investigator should be assigned, in order to be highly effective, is 8. It is not uncommon for investigators in both the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and Los Angeles Police Department, to be assigned twice and even three times that number.

 

The District Attorney

In California, as in most states, the District Attorney's office has the responsibility for filing felony charges in a criminal case, and prosecuting the defendant in a court of law. District attorneys are elected officials, and in all but the smallest counties, deputy district attorneys actually file the cases and represent the People of the State of California in trial. The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office is staffed by more than 1000 deputy district attorneys.

Once Homicide investigators have amassed sufficient evidence that they believe will establish the guilt of a defendant in court, they confer with a “filing deputy” from the District Attorney's office who reviews the case. If the filing deputy agrees with the sufficiency of the evidence, he or she decides specifically what charges should be filed. In California , a person responsible for the unlawful killing of a human being may be charged with a variety of offenses ranging from Involuntary Manslaughter to First Degree Murder, With Special Circumstances. In high-profile or complex cases, it is not unusual for supervisory deputy district attorneys, at various levels, to become involved in the decision making process.

Most Homicide investigators would prefer not to arrest a suspect until charges have been filed by the district attorney's office, and a warrant of arrest has been issued. There are many occasions, however, when investigators do not have the luxury of time, especially when the suspect has been arrested by uniformed officers, or presents a threat to flee the state, or represents a significant threat to public safety.

In California , once a suspect has been arrested, he must be brought into court for arraignment within specified times. For example, a suspect who is arrested on a Monday, must appear in court for arraignment not later than the following Wednesday at 4:00 p.m. This puts tremendous stress on the investigators, who may have been working around the clock on the case, and who have not had the opportunity to prepare even one report, let alone amass all of the information required for filing the case.

In cases in which the filing deputy district attorney does not agree that sufficient evidence exists to establish the guilt of a defendant “beyond a reasonable doubt and a moral certainty,” he may elect to “reject” the case. Some cases are rejected with a request for additional investigation, while others are rejected outright.

In some instances considerable discussion about the strength of the evidence, or the reliability of witnesses in a particular case, are the subject of lengthy discussion, or even debate, between the investigators and the deputy district attorney considering the case for filing. In some cases the opinion of the investigators prevail, and in others it does not.

The filing deputy district attorney is rarely the prosecutor assigned to try the case. Ideally the same prosecutor who represents the People at the preliminary hearing, will also try the case in Superior Court, however this is not always the case. Homicide detectives will work “hand in glove” with the assigned prosecutor to prepare the case for trial. It is the cooperative effort between the investigating law enforcement agency and the prosecutor's office that sets California law enforcement apart from many jurisdictions in the country.

 

The Courts

To many observers, the California court system represents a mind-numbing marathon of delays, meaningless hearings and incomprehensible rulings. Many law enforcement officers share that belief. That being said, it is a fact that without the strict protocol and procedures, the courts in this state, due to the sheer volume of cases with which they must deal on a daily basis, would be rapidly overwhelmed.

When a defendant is charged with murder in this state, his first court appearance is the “arraignment.” At that hearing, which lasts but a few minutes, the defendant is advised of the charges against him, and if he cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for him by the Court. He will be asked to enter a plea of “guilty” or “not guilty”; however, even if the defendant has confessed to the murder, and wishes to plead guilty, the judge will not permit him to do so at the arraignment.

The next court proceeding confronting the defendant is the “preliminary hearing,” which normally takes place, in a murder case, within several months of the arraignment. During the preliminary hearing the burden of proof is on the prosecution to present sufficient evidence to the presiding judge (no jury is present) that he or she is convinced that the defendant should be, “held to answer” or “bound over” for trial in Superior Court.

The prosecution normally presents a “bare-bones” case during the preliminary hearing, since the judge will not rule on the defendant's guilt or innocence, but only if sufficient evidence has been presented to order the defendant to trial. Witnesses may be called upon to testify during the preliminary hearing, or in some cases, the prosecutor may elect to have the law enforcement officers who interviewed the witnesses testify in their behalf, with “hearsay” testimony, which is permitted under Proposition 115.

The defense will frequently object to the introduction of “hearsay” admitted under Proposition 115, but the judge will usually permit the testimony to stand. The prosecutor will often attempt to speed-up the hearing by seeking to have the defense “stipulate” to some expert testimony. Briefly stated, the defense is asked to stipulate (agree) that if a medical examiner, or crime lab criminalist, or other expert, were to be called upon to testify at the preliminary hearing, he or she would testify as to the conclusions set forth in their written reports. In the stipulation, it is mutually agreed that the stipulation is for the purpose of the preliminary hearing only. Most of the time the defense will agree to the stipulation, however there is a disturbing trend developing in which certain defense attorneys refuse to enter into the stipulation, and compel the expert to appear in court. This is one reason why an increasing number of criminalists find themselves sitting outside a courtroom for hours on end, instead of analyzing evidence at the crime lab.

If a defendant has been held to answer at the preliminary hearing, he will be ordered to appear for arraignment in Superior Court. At that hearing, the defendant is again advised of the charges against him, and he is again required to enter a plea. In rare cases, a defendant, with the concurrence of his attorney, may enter a plea of guilty at this hearing.

It is important to realize that after and between each of the hearings described above, many additional hearings may be scheduled. Those hearings may be for the purposes of bail setting, or hearing motions to reduce the amount of bail, motions to exclude certain evidence, motions to order evidence to be analyzed by defense experts, motions for “live line-ups,” and a myriad of other reasons. One of the most frequent hearings to be held involves issues of “discovery.” In California , there is supposed to be a system of mutual discovery in which both the prosecution and the defense exchange all of the documents, reports, photographs, audio recordings, and other material associated with the case. It is a very common defense tactic to allege that the prosecution is withholding “discovery” material, although should that actually occur, the judge would have the option of excluding the evidence from trial. In spite of laws to the contrary, the defense bar has discovered very effective methods to avoid disclosing much of value to the prosecution.

While preparing for trial, the defense will often seek to interview the prosecution's witnesses. In years past, the defense would have full access to the names, addresses and telephone numbers of the witnesses, but as has been previously stated, that is no longer the case. However, Homicide investigators are obliged to notify the witnesses that the defense wishes to speak with them. Investigators will neither encourage nor discourage the witnesses from meeting with the defense. It is up to each witness to make that decision for themselves.

During trial preparation it is common for the deputy district attorney prosecuting the case to also want to meet with the witnesses. It is often said that no lawyer wants to ask a question of a witness, without already being aware of what the reply will be.

There is nothing conspiratorial about the prosecutor's request, and it is entirely legal. The Homicide investigators and the prosecutor ask nothing more of the witness except that their testimony be truthful.

The time lapse between the defendant's Superior Court arraignment and trial may be several years. There may be cases in which witnesses have questions, or are subjected to threats and intimidation by friends and supporters of the accused. The Homicide detectives and/or the deputy district attorney assigned to the case should be contacted immediately should this occur. There are many methods that can be utilized to remove the threats and safeguard the witnesses.

As the day of trial draws near, it is not uncommon for witnesses to become increasingly nervous. These are natural feelings, and a certain amount of nervousness is felt even by veteran detectives and prosecutors. Most witnesses who testify find that the experience is much like a visit to a dentist, the anxiety leading up to the event is much worse than the actual experience.

The courtroom is the final arena, no matter how extensive the investigation, nor how compelling the evidence, all is for naught if the case cannot be presented persuasively to a jury. The burden of the prosecution is huge, since a unanimous finding of guilt by the jury is required for conviction. The defense on the other hand, must only create a “reasonable doubt,” in the mind of but one juror, to cause a hung-jury and a mistrial.

Everyone is aware of murder cases that have resulted in conviction, and some of which have resulted in the defendant being acquitted. The finality of the jury's verdict closes the book on cases which may have involved the participation of hundreds of people, police officers, witnesses, criminalists, forensic pathologists, lawyers, court clerical staff, judges, court reporters, and many more. Each case involves thousands of decisions, both by the defense and the prosecution. With the advantage of hindsight some are better than others, but all were made with the end goal of securing justice, from their particular perspective.

There has never been a perfect investigation, nor a perfect prosecution, nor a perfect defense, nor a perfect trial. The persons most critical of those decisions are those who made them. Every Homicide investigator, every lawyer and every judge reviews past cases, and often relives them in their minds.

The American Criminal Justice System is not perfect, and those involved in the investigative effort, the prosecution and the defense, are aware of the shortcomings of the system. Everyone involved would change the system in some way if they had the power to do so.

As imperfect as the system is, it has endured for more than 200 years. The law is a living thing, constantly changing, constantly challenged, and yet reassuring in its permanence. The United States is a Country of laws, and no other nation on earth holds its criminal justice system up to constant public scrutiny. Our laws are transparent, anyone can see them, research their origin, examine their revision, and publicly support or oppose their application. These are the freedoms guaranteed by the ultimate law book, The Constitution of the United States of America.