5.William Newhouse — Direct/Cross/Redirect/Recross

WILLIAM NEWHOUSE: In general terms, uh, we're asked to examine physical evidence that's been recovered in the course of some kind of a criminal investigation, answer questions about that evidence, whether or not it's pertinent to the investigation, and then, of course, report about those examinations in our findings.

A little more specifically, as a firearms and toolmark examiner, most of the physical evidence that I examine is going to be related to the firing of a gun. So I'm going to be looking at guns, of course, I'll examine bullets, cartridge casings. I do gunpowder residue examinations and -- and studies, uh, just trying to answer questions about how that evidence relates to that particular criminal investigation.

WILLIAM NEWHOUSE: Um, I accepted a position with the California Department of Justice in the Sacramento Laboratory in August of 1972. Didn't really get acquainted with firearms and toolmarks immediately. I was trained in a couple of other areas of the laboratory, um, until about 19 -- I think the fall of 1973, when I took a -- a course, taught by one of the examiners there in the laboratory, that dealt with kind of the history of firearms and toolmark identification, and how it related to criminal justice.

And then in the fall of -- of 1974, I went through the training program that they had in place in the Sacramento Laboratory at that time for firearms and toolmark examiners. It was a two-and-a-half or three-month program as I recall. Um, I completed that successfully, and in January of 1975, was asked to take, um, a course that dealt with the theory of identification, um, how is it we can look ata bullet, or a cartridge casing, or any kind of toolmark, and really answer questions about what tool or what weapon caused the markings that we observed on those items.

Uh, completed that course successfully. I think the next week I was over in San Mateo Crime -- Crime Laboratory on another three-day course that dealt with ammunition problems and automatic weapons.

And then having completed that series of courses in May of 1975, I was assigned to the firearms and toolmark section of the Sacramento Laboratory. And until I left there, I was responsible for most of the firearms and oth -- and toolmark case work that left that laboratory. There were other examiners that could do that kind of work, and did. I worked in there full time until I left there and went to, um, the Montana State Crime Laboratory in -- I think it was January, 1981.

WILLIAM NEWHOUSE: Um, there were probably, anytime there, three or four other examiners -- um, we called -- they're called criminalists in California -- uh, who were trained and capable of doing firearms cases.

Uh, most of them did not do those full time. They did them as they encountered them in their work in other kinds of disciplines in the laboratory. Uh, but I was the -- for that period, the single examiner who worked full time in the -- in the, uh, fire -- firearms and toolmark section.

WILLIAM NEWHOUSE: Um, there are couple of things that we can do. Uh, in terms of formal courses, while I was in Montana, um, I had the opportunity to go to the FBI Academy. I took and completed a week-long course there that dealt with specialized techniques in firearms identification.

Um, beyond that, a -- attending the -- the -- the AFTE, or the -- the Association of Firearms and Toolmark Examiners meetings. Uh, those are training seminars. A lot of it, of course -- Most of it is papers and research being presented to those of us who attend. And I've gotten to do that of and on over the years as well.

WILLIAM NEWHOUSE: Um, well, as I said, I'm examining evidence that's been recovered in -- in -- in investigations or crimes that involve the shooting of a firearm. Clearly, I'm going to be involved with firearms, be examining firearms. I'm test-firing them in the laboratory, uh, determining whether they function or don't function, or whether they've been altered.

Additionally, we recover bullets and cartridge casings, um, from scenes, from autopsies, and there is always the question, when we have a gun recovered, of whether that bullet or the cartridge casing, if it's recovered, have been fired from the particular gun that was recovered.

In those cases where we might not have a gun recovered, I answer other questions. Was there only one gun involved in this shooting? Was there more than one gun involved in this shooting? Those questions are all answered by examinations of the bullets and cartridge casings, and, where possible, the test-firing of the weapon in the laboratory.

Finally, the other area of -- of firearms and toolmarks that I'm involved in, is involved with gunpowder residues, answering questions about distances, where I can, uh, between a victim and the muzzle of the weapon when it was fired.

WILLIAM NEWHOUSE: Um, if you're going to fire a gun, you have to load the cartridge into the weapon, and the cartridge is designed for the particular weapon in which it's going to be fired.

Usually a cartridge consists of, say, four components. One of them is going to be the projectile or the -- or the bullet. Um, sometimes it's called a slug.

Uh, one component will be the cartridge casing, in which the bullet is mounted.

Another component is the gunpowder. When the cartridge fires, it's the gunpowder inside the cartridge that explodes, and that's what forces the bullet out of the barrel of the weapon, and, of course, down range and in the direction that the weapon is pointed.

The last component, the most modern ammunition, is going to be something called a primer. And this is just a -- another compound, not dissimilar to gunpowder, but chemically different. That is, very shock sensitive. And that when struck by a part of the gun designed to strike the cartridge, will cause the -- the primer to explode, set the gunpowder on fire, essentially cause that to explode, and then we have a gun firing.

WILLIAM NEWHOUSE: Well, you're going to -- going to have to load the cartridge in one manner or another into the -- a particular part of the weapon. Uh, you're going to have to cock the weapon, or arm it, and this is all defined by how that weapon is designed.

And then, to actually fire the cartridge, assuming the gun's working properly, you have to generally pull the trigger. And pulling that trigger causes a part of the gun to strike the cartridge and causes the cartridge, then, to explode and the bullet to be fired.

WILLIAM NEWHOUSE: Once you fired your cartridge, you now have -- and the bullet's on its way -- you have left in the gun the cartridge casing. What happens to the cartridge casing after you fired the gun is -- is determined by how that weapon is designed.

In a semi-automatic weapon, whether a handgun, or a rifle, or a shotgun, that cartridge casing is going to be extracted and ejected from the weapon. Out of the weapon and onto the ground.

Um, if it's a revolver, certain other kinds of handguns, the cartridge may stay -- cartridge casing may remain in the weapon, and then you may have to actually extract it from the weapon manually.

WILLIAM NEWHOUSE: Yeah. Um, if you look down the barrel of -- of any modern weapon, with the exception of a shotgun, uh, what you'll notice is that there are grooves in the barrel. And we're talking about the inside of the barrel, and the barrel of the weapon is just a tube, and inside that barrel, they -- they've -- in the manufacture of the barrel, they've put these grooves in there.

You probably also notice that they are twisted as you look down there. We call those grooves, of course, "grooves". We call the areas between the grooves in the barrel, lands. That's l-a-n-d-s. I'm not sure where the term ever came from and never heard a really good story for it.

When I'm looking at bullets, what I see are land and groove impressions, but they're created by contact between the bullet and the inside of the barrel of that weapon.

WILLIAM NEWHOUSE: Well, what makes it possible, ultimately, is the manufacturing process used to create the -- the barrel of the gun, um, in the case of a bullet, or other parts of the weapon that come into contact with the cartridge casing.

Uh, if I'm asked to determine whether a bullet was fired from a particular gun, the way I'm going to do that, eventually, is by putting a test-fired bullet, one I fired in the laboratory from that gun, and one that I know has been marked only by the barrel of that gun, I'm going to put that bullet under the microscope, I'm going to examine those test-fired bullets, and what I'm going to look for are patterns of scratches, or what we call in the -- in the field are stria. These are engravings on the side of the bullet that are created by microscopic defects inside the barrel of the weapon.

When the bullet passes through that barrel, it's coming into contact with those defects and they're leaving patterns of scratches or stria on the surface of the bullet. I have to be able to determine or -- or do -- or con -- conclude that, in fact, all the test-fired bullets that I'm seeing from that gun are creating the same pattern of markings.

Having done that, I then know what to look for on the bullet that's been recovered in a crime, and maybe a bullet that's been recovered in a autopsy, or may have been taken out of a tree in a shooting. But I'm going to look at that bullet. I'm going to look for those same patterns of stria on the surface of that bullet, and if I see those patterns, if I can be assured with my examination the patterns I do see are the kind of thing I expect to see on any bullet fired from that specific gun, then I can conclude that the bullet that was recovered in the shooting was fired from that particular gun. Until I see these patterns, and I see them reproducing, I can't come to any conclusion at all about that.

WILLIAM NEWHOUSE: Um, well, the first thing that I did with Exhibit 129, um, because I knew I was going to test-fire the weapon, was to -- to give it an examination, uh, checking the function of the weapon, checking the condition of the gun, uh, documenting and writing down information about the weapon, the serial number, manufacturer, and so on.

Uh, and I wanted to make sure that the gun was working, first of all, and, secondly, I wanted to make sure that it was safe to -- to fire the weapon, because I knew this was something I wanted to do, and because I'm going to want bullets and cartridge casings that I know have been fired in this gun.

So having completed that series of examinations, the next thing I did was to obtain those test fires to determine what ammunition to fire in the weapon, fire it in the laboratory, and then recover the cartridge casings and bullets.

WILLIAM NEWHOUSE: Um, this weapon loads cartridges -- or you load cartridges in it, in a tube on the -- just a sec, it's stuck -- on the bottom of the barrel. That's this tube right here. Uh, you drop the cartridges in this slot here, and then put the tube back in the -- in position.

And then to actually fire this weapon, had it ammunition in it, I'd pull this back. This is called a bolt. Let it drop. That action pushes the cartridge into this part of the weapon, called the chamber. It also cocks the weapon. That means if I pull the trigger now, it would fire, assuming I had a cartridge in there.

This, by the way, for those of you that aren't familiar with weapons, is the barrel of the gun. I described to some -- in some detail what that is. So to fire the weapon, I pull the trigger, that click you heard was the snap of the -- the striker, or the firing pin in this weapon, and had there been a cartridge in it, it would have fired at that moment.

WILLIAM NEWHOUSE: Item Fk -- Um, the first thing I do with these items is to examine them microscopically. Um, I want to define and determine what I can about the kind of gun that fired this, based on the characteristics of the bullet that remained.

Uh, for example, I can look at a bullet and determine the caliber of the bullet. Uh, in this case, I can look at this bullet and tell you that this is a .22 caliber bullet. I know because -- be -- because of my familiarity with guns, that then it had to have been fired from a gun that's a .22 caliber gun. And that means that the -- the bore diameter of that barrel has to be .22 inches, approximately.

There are other class characteristics or other design features of the gun in which a bullet is fired that are transferred to that bullet. And the other one of those that I was able to look at, and is present on -- on this bullet, at least in part, were the land and groove impressions. The bullet's in very bad condition. I examined it. Uh, some of the land and groove impressions on this had been obliterated, um, by its contact with something hard, or passage through something hard.

But, nonetheless, with Item FK, um, I was able to determine that there are eight remaining land and groove impressions on this bullet in Exhibit 114, and that they had what I would call a right-hand twist. That is, the gun from which they were fired, those -- those grooves in that barrel were twisted clockwise when they were created.

So after I've examined this bullet, I know it was fired from something manufactured with -- in a .22 caliber, and it was fired from a gun whose barrel had 16 land and groove impressions. There were 8 remaining. There were 16 originally. And I can determine that from the 8 that remained on that -- that bullet.

WILLIAM NEWHOUSE: Um, to me it looked like a bullet, but I'm used to looking at bullets that have -- that have struck things, that have been -- been broken up into pieces or smashed up. Uh, it may not look like a bullet to somebody who's not familiar with them. Uh, it does have the characteristics of a bullet. It's lead. That's fairly easy to determine. And it's -- it's coated with a copper coating, and that's what they do with -- in particular, with .22 caliber bullets.

So I was satisfied, after my microscopic examination, that that's exactly what I had, was a .22 caliber bullet.

WILLIAM NEWHOUSE: Um, I was limited in my conclusions to what I could tell based on the class characteristics that are there. All I can say about, uh, this Item 114, is that it's a .22 caliber bullet, that it was fired from a gun manufactured with 16 lands and grooves, and a right-hand twist in the barrel of the gun.

I cannot be specific of what -- about what gun that was. For example, whether, specifically, it was fired from this particular rifle. Because of those microscopic markings that I've described as having been scratched in the surface of bullets by barrels, are not present there anymore. They've been obliterated by its -- its contact, or passage through, with whatever it struck.

WILLIAM NEWHOUSE: Well, Exhibit 113 is a second bullet. Again, I went through the same examination process. In this case, again, I'm able to determine that it's a--a .22 caliber bullet. Uh, in this case, I have 11 of the 16 original land and groove impressions that were transferred to this bullet when it was fired from the gun from which it was fired.

Um, I also, uh -- didn't mention on the other bullet -- but I also weighed the bullet, which can be helpful in -- in determining the caliber and so on.

Um, and, additionally, on this bullet, on Exhibit 113, I do have the microscopic detail, the stria and scratches on the surface of the bullet, that I can relate back to a particular weapon. I can compare it to test fires from a particular weapon.

WILLIAM NEWHOUSE: Um, when I examined the test fires from this rifle, um, I'm sorry, Exhibit 129, um, when I looked at those bullets under the microscope, I found that I was seeing patterns of scratches or stria reproducing on each of the test fires. There's always differences, not all there on every bullet test-fired from that rifle, but I was able to determine that I could expect to see certain patterns of these markings.

More importantly, when I put Exhibit 113 under the microscope and compared it directly to my test fires, I was able to demonstrate that I had the same patterns on the test fires that I had on this bullet in Exhibit 113.

And, in fact, it was enough markings that I was able to determine that I had more agreement in these kinds of stria, and these patterns of stria, than I ever would expect to see from two bullets that were not fired from the same gun. We have to be able to satisfy that kind of -- of correlation that we expect to see in bullets not fired from guns, same gun.

The fact of the matter was, in this case, the patterns, the amount of agreement and correlation that I see, and saw, on this bullet, when I compared it to test fires, was enough for me to be able to conclude that it had been fired from this Marlin rifle, and could have been fired in none other.

WILLIAM NEWHOUSE: Well, Exhibit 134 is a report that I wrote, uh, describing the evidence I looked at and the findings or conclusions to which I came. Uh, this report is dated February 21 of 2006, and, in particular, it describes the examination and comparison of the cartridge casings that I looked at and related to or determined were fired in that rifle in Exhibit 129.

The other report, Exhibit 135, is dated May 10 of 2006. This is the description of the bullets that I looked at, uh, in Exhibits 113 and 114, uh, and describes my findings with regard to whether they were or were not fired from the rifle in 129.