The government filed their response brief 5 days prior to its due date.
http://www.crimearchives.net/1979_ma...v-response.pdf
IMO, it places the FBI's microscopic hair report and the claims leveled by the defense in their proper context. The highlights include...
- The FBI's critique of Paul Stombaugh consisted of 6 lines from 301 pages of Stombaugh's trial testimony
- Contrary to assertions by the defense, the FBI report found no errors in Stombaugh's lab reports
- Bernie Segal attempted to use CID hair/fiber expert Dillard Browning to discredit Stombaugh's hair/fiber analysis in this case, but that strategy backfired
- Browning testified at trial that there are limitations when attempting to source hair exemplars under a microscope, yet Segal did not ask Stombaugh about these limitations
- Judge Dupree qualified Stombaugh as an expert in hair, fiber, fabric impressions, and fabric damage analysis
- Dupree then left it up to the jury to decide whether Stombaugh's testimony was credible and/or reliable
- The government presented the Pajama Top Theory in its totality
- This included the 4th Circuit Court's decision that the Pajama Top Theory was credible and contained probative force
- The government pointed out that the defense did not depose Michael Malone or Robert Fram to testify at the 2012 evidentiary hearing
- The microscopic analysis of the 3 hairs contained in the FBI report were superseded by DNA tests completed in 2006
- The government asserts that the, "hairs do not undermine proof of MacDonald's guilt, and therefore they do not entitle him to relief."
- The government adds that, "MacDonald is exaggerating the import of the OIG report and the FBI review as to this case."
- In the conclusions section of his 7/24/14 decision, Judge Fox "scarcely" mentions the results of hair comparisons
- The FBI report "drew no conclusions as to the materiality" of Stombaugh's erroneous statements at trial
- The FBI report doesn't alter the government's thorough destruction of Jimmy Britt's claims at the 2012 evidentiary hearing
http://www.macdonaldcasefacts.com