Wednesday Hearings: Second Update

Wednesday morning’s Landis hearing finished up with testimony from Dr. J. Thomas Brenna, called by USADA as a rebuttal witness. As you might expect, Dr. Brenna did not agree with various parts of the testimony by Floyd Landis’ expert witnesses. Maurice Suh’s cross examination of Dr. Brenna has just begun.

From TBV’s summary, it looks like Suh is cutting directly to the chase, and going after various issues on which Brenna disagrees with the Landis experts. And it appears, from the first few questions, that Suh is going over the details, looking to show that the Landis experts were correct in their assessments of the data and the procedures. To make decisive points, Suh needs to get Brenna to admit that the protocols weren’t properly followed, and that the results aren’t what USADA says they are. Pressed for time, and needing to wrap up by the end of the day, Suh needs to cover as much ground as he can.

Team USADA, on the other hand, want to slow things down, and have already objected a few times, just to give Brenna some breathing room. It’s hard to say for certain, given that I’m not getting the video feed, but judging by Suh’s questions and Brenna’s answers, Brenna may be on a sinking ship.

One particular zinger that Suh gets in:

q: when you were being asked questions, you were misleading the panel?
a: I don’t believe i intended to?

Ouch. A bit later on, Suh asks about time differences.

q: you said in your lab you saw different times, and you see molecules come out at different times depending on the instruments.
a: yes.

q: do you see differences of as much as 4 or 5 minutes?
a: if were trying to match them closely, no; if we were setting them up in other ways, we might.

And then:

q: how much time would or woulud not concern you? substances through this tube would come out minutes apart if injected at the same time?
a: if not responsive, ask again. If you are referring to the distance from the GC to the IRMS, and two compounds entering at the same time no, it shouldn’t take 4 minutes.

Suh is getting Brenna on the details. He may have said things were hunky-dory in during questioning by Young, but Suh is getting at the details, showing that everything was far from hunky-dory with the results. The cross examination finishes with this exchange:

A: I don’t remember those words, I’ll clarify.

q: that’s enough. did you take any contemporaneous notes of the reprocessing?
a: I’m sure I took some.

q: do you have them here?
a: no.

q: did you refer to them before testifying herE?
a: i reviewed them at some point. they’re in new york. I cannot produce notes.

At the moment, Dr. Davis is being questioned by Maurice Suh. Here’s the exchange, as summarized by TBV:

q: did you hear Brenna’s testimony on linearity?
a: yes.

q: do you agree with him?
a: I think he missed my point?

q: was his description was correct?
a: i think he’s confused it with another instrument.

q: how?
a: the bellows is only used in a dual injection system; this continuous flow system uses a valve.

[ landis, head in hand ]

[ landis is starting to jiggle, first I’ve seen that all hearing ]

[ jacobs give evil grin to suh ]

q: explain.
a: as I mentioned that linearity is important, that there’s no difference for low or high concentrations. An example LNDD 341. here, gas pulses are injected. The results here; the number at the end shows the difference. Difference here is 0.4/mil. here in LNDD314.

[ brenna shakes head. ]

Linearity specs from MS manufacturers; says isoprime should be 0.3.

a: GV says you have a full range from 0.3/mil A number of the LNDD runs are out of spec; here is a chart I’ve made of the linearity runs we’ve been give. The first two are out of spec for the GVI instrument; using a slightly different measure. This is the basis of my argument the machine is out of spec. This is using the sample range, and failed the test. Using Ayotte’s word, “not fit for purpose”

What’s the word I’m looking for? Priceless! At the moment, there looks to be some negotiating over the order of closing arguments. This is it for the witnesses. I’ll be back later with a final update.