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9 Chapter Two A New Prosecutor  I certainly wasn’t a likely candidate for becoming involved in pioneering the introduction of DNA evidence in trials. I had done everything I could to avoid taking science courses in high school and college. Law school was an easy choice for me. My oldest brother, Peter, was one of the most respected criminal defense attorneys in San Diego. We talked about some of his cases, even when I was barely a teenager. When I saw my brother in action in court and listened to him describe the practice of criminal law, I was hooked. After getting my bachelor’s degree from the University of California at San Diego, I was accepted at the University of San Diego School of Law. With graduation in 1977 came looking for a job. Fortunately, I had worked as an intern law clerk with the judges of the San Diego Superior Court while still in law school, which helped me get hired by the court as a criminal research attorney to do the same work I had done as an intern—but now I got paid for it. I loved the rewarding nuts-and-bolts work: researching legal issues for judges, summarizing legal motions and applications for writs, and making recommendations to judges on how to rule in criminal cases. After a couple of years helping judges I was eager to start practicing criminal law. So I applied for a position with Defenders Incorporated, the largest local group representing criminal defendants who needed, but could not afford, legal representation. I was elated when I got the job. But my brother Peter offered muted congratulations: “Tell them you appreciate the offer but you want to be a prosecutor first.” Deputy district attorneys, as local prosecutors are called in California, usually try more cases than defense lawyers. It was the best way to acquire the experience required for R4400.indb 9 R4400.indb 9 8/24/07 11:46:13 AM 8/24/07 11:46:13 AM 10 Justice and Science defending clients accused of criminal offenses. So I took my brother’s advice and applied for a position in the district attorney’s office. One application later, then two, I couldn’t even get an interview. Unfortunately , there were applicants from the Harvards and Stanfords, so they had an edge. It took awhile, but I finally figured out that I had a leg up because of my work with judges hearing the district attorney’s most serious cases. Fortunately, I had become close to one of those judges, who knew that I had acquired substantial expertise in the complex sentencing laws that took effect in California’s courts just before I became a research attorney. That was enough to get me an invitation to become a deputy district attorney. I had to make a commitment to stay on the job for two years—more than enough time, I was convinced, to try some misdemeanor cases and learn how the system worked. Then I could leave and begin representing clients of my own. I started out in 1982 working in the family-support division. It involved civil law, rather than criminal law, but it was a start. I went after fathers who were failing to provide child support. Six months later I was assigned to another division. But I had learned something that would prove crucial to me when I began to practice criminal law. To prove paternity, it wasn’t enough in most cases for the mother to simply testify that the defendant was the father. Occasionally, the physical appearance of the child was enough corroboration when unique hair or skin color, for example, was shared by the child and the defendant. More commonly, blood testing was used to make comparisons. By the seventies the courts accepted scientific tests to compare blood types of a mother, a child, and a suspected father. Using ABO blood typing and the analysis of other protein markers in blood, one could statistically show the relationships of a mother, a child, and a defendant. For many years these tests were the best means of proof at our disposal—but they ultimately proved to be a narrow scientific window into a far more powerful way of determining biological relationships. One trial that showcased the gray areas in this technique involved, ironically , a heated factual dispute as to whether the suspected father-defendant had even had sexual relations with the mother. In a divorce agreement...

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