The state’s DNA analyst has testified many times. If your first real challenge comes when they’re on the stand, you’ve already lost the exchange. Good DNA cross-examination preparation happens before trial, not during it.
Building the Cross Before Trial
I prepare the DNA side of your case with you. I go through the lab’s discovery — bench notes, electropherograms, validation records, the material the state would rather you skim. I build your cross so every question has a purpose and the analyst has nowhere clean to go. And I prepare your direct so your own expert lands with the jury.
Say Jill is the state’s analyst. On paper she’s unshakable. Then the cross walks her through her own lab’s contamination logs, the samples she reran until the number came out right, and the notes she didn’t mention on direct. The picture changes in front of the jury. None of that happens by accident. It happens because we found it in discovery weeks earlier and built a line of questions she can’t step around.
Good DNA cross-examination preparation isn’t aggression for its own sake. It’s a sequence. Each question closes a door until the only honest answer helps your client. I map that sequence with you, question by question, and I prepare you for how the analyst will try to wriggle loose — because I’ve watched them try, and I’ve done the wriggling from the witness chair myself.
Discovery Is Where Cases Are Won
The report is the state’s conclusion. The discovery is the record behind it, and it’s usually where the case actually turns. Validation studies, calibration records, the analyst’s prior testimony, the lab’s error history — I know what to request and what it means when it arrives. What the state hands over quietly is often the strongest thing you have. Thorough DNA cross-examination preparation starts with knowing exactly what to ask for.
I also help you frame the additional discovery requests that pry loose what the initial packet leaves out. A short, precise motion at the right moment can open the file that changes the case. Getting there takes someone who knows what a DNA lab keeps and where.
Trial Support When You Need It
You get a case strategy for the DNA evidence, a cross built on the lab’s own record, and, when it helps, my attendance at trial to assist with responsive cross of the state’s expert in real time. When the analyst says something on direct that opens a door, you’ll have someone at counsel table who hears it and knows how to walk through it. I’ve done this work across Louisiana cases and as amicus for the LACDL in the Court of Appeal.
Bring Me In Early
The earlier I’m in, the more we can do with what the lab handed over. Tell me the jurisdiction, the lab, and your trial date, and we’ll build the DNA strategy together. Until labs are held to the standard, no result is safe.