Monday Hearings: Second Update

After taking a break to put citation information into Dr. Meier-Augenstein’s Powerpoint presentation, testimony is underway again. Before they resumed, however, TBV reports an exchange between Richard Young, Maurice Suh and the arbitration panel, where Young was objecting to Suh’s presentation style.

YOUNG: objection to style of presentation, for example, page 10, and page 15, which are just examples of what’s going on. Counsel is perfect free to ask opinions or show chromatograms. It is improper direct with text answer to a question, then ask the question, and then have him read off the slide. That’s not direct testimony. That’s whas 90% of this is about. If they want to ask him questions, fine, but they can’t have answers on screen before he answers.

SUH: presentation is by the Doctor; they are his words, not ours. All of these have previously been provided by the Doktor. The use of presentations has been done before, by Dr. Catlin. Throughout USADAs case they have done a summary, asking “are they reliable”, getting answers “yes”, and moving on.

It will be deeply helpful to the panel to understand how chromatograms are analyzed. Consistent with the expedited nature of arbitration, that USADA has always cited, we are trying to do this in that context. If this is cutoff, the panel will not have vital information about our argument.

YOUNG: there is comment that all this is provided to USADA. Doctor never filed a report. If you look at slide 58, this is conclusions to be drawn from mix cal acetate. He can be asked to look at chromatograms. We’re trying to address the fact his testimony is prepackaged in a slide show before the questions are asked.

[ silence, panel confers ]

[ it’s official: some of the press want to go home ]

CAMPBELL: time concern. Are you at the point you may not be able to put on your case?

SUH: it depends how many interruptions we have. We could get to closing if we were allowed to proceed.

BARNETT: we’re willing to give you 3-4 of our hours if that will help. We want the evidence in.

[ he says unconvincingly ]

SUH: that would help.

MCLAREN: you can show the graphs, but don’t show the conclusions until he gives them.

So, by the end of this exchange, Suh was able to continue, and USADA offered Team Landis extra time to put on their case. That’s an interesting ploy on Matthew Barnett’s part, to give Team Landis some extra time. But Team USADA is no doubt aware that there would be some extremely negative PR if Team Landis is unable to finish presenting their case. And Team USADA may also be quite confident in what the outcome is going to be.

But there’s also something else to consider. In the first witness the Landis defense put on, the USADA side did not conduct a lengthy cross examination. They may also be counting on not needing so much time when doing cross examinations of the upcoming witnesses. My guess, however, is that they’re going to need a bit of time with Dr. Meier-Augenstein, because his testimony is sound and looking very effective right now. So USADA will need to take some time to try and poke holes in it.

There’s a large amount of good stuff in Dr. Meier-Augenstein’s testimony for the technically minded. I’m going to stay away from quoting too much of it, and try to concentrate on some of the easier things:

q: that’s the one Dr. Brenna used to say the baseline was OK.
a: yes, I believe he’s wrong.

So, we’ve got dueling experts. Dr. Brenna testified for USADA and Dr. Meir-Augenstein for Team Landis. Just to give a sense of who these two men are, Tom Fine points out in a comment at TBV:

Both Brenna and Meier-Augenstein are very well-respected in the field. When someone asks for general references on stable isotope mass spectrometry, any reply is likely to include papers from both of these scientists.

They also know each other at least professionally, and have interacted in the past, with no obvious conflicts that I could find. One has to wonder how comfortable it is for them to be on opposite sides of the argument here.

Here’s another interesting exchange, that’s not too technical:

q: for A sample, explain what the last column is.
a: % differenct of relative retention times

[ this 5.7% to 6.7% ]

q: supposed to be within 1%.
a: yes. this is a huge difference. I have no confidence in the peak identification whatsoever.

q: isn’t 6% close enough to 1%
a: it’s 600% different than 1%

q: but you know?
a: no I don’t.

q: forget about the rule, you know, it’s kind of the right place.
a: It is not identified, proof positive. It misses the whole point of relative retention times.

Dr. Meier-Augenstein’s testimony appears to be taking apart a number of the arguments put forward by USADA over the last week. Just a few moments ago, Team Landis wrapped up their questioning and the panel broke for lunch. After the lunch break, USADA will begin their cross examination. Depending on how long that goes, and how long Dr. Amory’s testimony goes, we may not see USADA’s cross examination of Floyd Landis until tomorrow.