A Tale of Two DNA Experts

Dr. Brian Meehan, Lab Director of DNA Security Inc., followed Investigator Benjamin Himan as the second witness against Defendant Nifong. The essence of Dr. Meehan's testimony was, “I didn’t do anything wrong and you can’t prove I did.” Meehan admitted that while DNA from several unidentified men recovered from Crystal Mangum's panties and nether regions was disclosed to District Attorney Mike Nifong repeatedly, he neglected to include those findings in the report apparently used to secure the indictment of David Evans and later provided to each of the Hoax defendants as if it was a full and complete final report. When asked why he didn’t include it in his report, Meehan flippantly responded to the effect that he would have been more than happy to include it in his final report if Nifong ever asked for it. While Dr. Meehan did offer the condemning suggestion that for most investigators, unlike Nifong and his DPD lackeys, these findings would have been important, the beleaguered witness appeared, at times, to be performing “The Sidestep” as he danced around accepting responsibility for his role in the framing of innocent men.

An exasperated State Bar Judge Williamson asked the slippery Dr. Meehan:

"Does the fact that you find no DNA that matches the people who are on trial but you do find DNA of other unidentified people, knowing that you do find DNA of other unidentified people, if you're deciding, one, was a crime committed and two, was it committed by these defendants, does that fact have any bearing on your deciding in your own mind whether these three men did it?

After several attempts to deflect the question, Meehan eventually answered with a raised voice:

"If I were a juror and the only information I had was that one-line sentence that said there was DNA there, I would want to know that, I would want to know what the hell are you talking about there's DNA here? I would want to know what it is. I would want to know what this DNA is because this could be crucial to this case." N & O

SBI Agent Jennifer Leyn followed Dr. Meehan to the stand. In stark contrast to Dr. Meehan's evasive nervousness and petulant demeanor, Agent Leyn displayed a professional attitude while answering all questions directly. Agent Leyn testified to a March 30, 2006 phone conference with Defendant Nifong to discuss the results of DNA testing that belied the false accusations of Crystal Mangum. In that conference call, according to Agent Leyn, Defendant Nifong was informed that, since no semen was detected, the rape kit swabs would not be forwarded for STR testing.

In contrast to Dr Meehan’s practice of not keeping meeting notes, Agent Leyn read from two separate SBI employees' notes about the phone conference. More importantly, Agent Leyn contradicted Defendant Nifong's claim that the "interim" report produced by Dr. Meehan emulated the standard SBI report by noting that it was SBI policy to report all DNA profiles discovered by their testing.