I say tomayto and you say tomahto

Forensic science has become a crucial part of our culture today. Turn on a TV set during prime time hours on any night of the week and some kind of crime drama is on. I like to call it Crime Time. NCIS and CSI programs permeate the airwaves where blood evidence, trace evidence and DNA play crucial roles in every plot. In real life, Dr. Lawrence Kobilinsky is a forensic scientist and a member of Casey Anthony’s defense team. While we watch fictional accounts, real forensic detective work is rarely as exciting and foolproof as it’s portrayed on television. Neither is it as speedy, since most of the story lines are wrapped up in an hour, more like 43 minutes, not counting commercials.

Kobilinsky is Professor of Criminal Justice and Biochemistry at The Graduate Center and John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and Senior Adviser to the President at John Jay. Of the highly popular TV programs, he said, “It’s not as you see it on television. It’s very good entertainment and I enjoy watching it, but they make significant mistakes. They do it because they need to make crime solving more glamorous.”

One thing is certain: There is nothing glamorous about Caylee Anthony’s death and each side, the prosecution and defense, takes different approaches toward a real life crime and it is serious business. After the Orange County medical examiner, Jan Garavaglia, AKA Dr. G, determined Caylee’s death was a homicide, evidence took on a half full, half empty theme. One team cried murder and the other boldly decreed no proof of that!

Larry Kobilinsky joined the defense team in September, before Caylee’s remains were discovered in a densely wooded lot on Suburban Drive in Orlando. “To Mr. Baez, I think he as a good defense attorney [and he] is entitled to know what the science says. I don’t make things black/white, white/black, but I have to give him the best that science can offer,” he said then. He dismissed the medical examiner’s report concluding that Caylee’s death was a homicide.

“It is not clear how the child died, and we don’t know how the child died, we can’t determine whether or not it was a homicide,” he told WKMG-Channel 6 reporter, Tony Pipitone. Kobilinsky said there was no evidence of drugs found in the toddler’s remains, but did acknowledge that because only bone and hair samples remain, exposure to drugs cannot be ruled out. What remains clear are the words of Dr. G stating that duct tape over Caylee’s mouth and nose, including the hair, was placed there before decomposition. That leaves open two doors; that the child suffocated or it was put there soon after death. Either way, it looks like a murder and forensic analysis will be extremely crucial to the jury. For sure, photographic and x-ray images will have an impact on those 12 people and both camps are keenly aware of that.

Clearly, the duct tape more than suggests suffocation but it does not prove it. “I’ve been very critical of forensic procedures that are more art than science,” Kobilinsky said. “There is no clear protocol or system for the examiner who must make the call… it mostly comes down to feeling, opinion, and experience.”

On Monday morning’s NBC Today Show, a segment focused on how seemingly equal experts draw different conclusions from the medical examiner’s autopsy report. Two different experts, Dr. Werner Spitz, a defense pathologist, and Dr. Cyril Wecht, a forensic pathologist, were asked about the report.

“There is nothing that I know that puts the lid on this, that tells you that there was a murder here. Everything, as far as I know, is in question,” claimed Dr. Spitz.

After examining the report, Dr. Wecht speculated that the child suffered if she suffocated. Suffocation “would be the most likely way in which you would expect an infant, a young child, to be murdered,” he said. “It’s easily accomplished, obviously, and would leave no telltale marks.”

There are several key elements that will play crucial roles in scientific testimony at the trial, at least from the defense team.  They will stress that there is no DNA evidence and unless any other evidence is forthcoming, no fingerprints linking Casey Anthony to any of the duct tape. Of the duct tape, Kobilinsky noted that the state will claim it indicates a homicide, but “that is not necessarily the case. If, for example, the child died as the result of accidental trauma and then, subsequently, for whatever reason, somebody took the child and did whatever was done involving plastic bags and duct tape.”

What about the missing hyoid bone? Dr. G would have examined it for signs of strangulation and ruled on it, but the bone in a toddler could be so soft it wouldn’t break in strangulation, so could a true determination have been made? If Caylee’s mouth opened soon after death, which is normal when jaw muscles relax, it wouldn’t have been a pretty sight and that could explain a postmortem application of duct tape.

This is but a mere sample of what is in store come trial time, which will likely be at least a year from now. What this evidence seems to portend right now are signs that can really be broken into separate camps. It’s almost like arguing that a tomato is a fruit. No! It’s a vegetable! No, it’s a fruit! No, it’s a vegetable! According to U.S. tariff laws, a tomato is a vegetable, and from a culinary point of view, it is a vegetable, but due to the scientific definition of a fruit, the tomato remains a fruit.

In the end, the judge will have to call upon the wisdom of Solomon and the power of Moses to part the abundant sea of information so the jury can walk a cut and dried path between two sides awash in powerful waves of forensic evidence. In the meantime, our garden is swimming in overripe tomatoes, just waiting to be plucked – fruits or vegetables, take your pick.