I found an interesting article re what I said
no indictment
Experts: Conviction a long shot
By Mark Obmascik
Denver Post Staff Writer
Oct. 17, 1999 - In a murder case with 590 witness interviews, at least 1,058 pieces of evidence and the eyes of the world focused upon it, the JonBenet Ramsey grand jurors faced one critical choice, legal experts say.
It was penmanship vs. panties.
The most damaging information against any one suspect was the handwriting analysis that concluded JonBenet's mother, Patsy Ramsey, may have written the ransom note found in the family's Boulder home.
But the most powerful evidence pointing to a killer outside the Ramsey family was a stain of body fluid inside the dead girl's panties. The stain carried DNA that police can't link to anyone.
That single piece of unexplained genetic material - combined with other evidence raising the possibility that an intruder murdered the 6-year-old girl - may have convinced Boulder County prosecutors they didn't have sufficient evidence to file charges, criminal-law experts who closely followed the case said.
"You've got a perfect recipe here for an acquittal souffle,'' said Scott Robinson, a top local criminal-defense lawyer. "I don't think Clarence Darrow himself could have kept a jury out more than a half-hour with the Ramsey case as we know it.''
Lawyers say there's one big caveat with all of their Ramsey analysis: Public knowledge of the crime is limited.
Much supposed evidence in the murder has been leaked by anonymous sources; there's no independent way to verify if the leaked information is true, or subject to different interpretations, until the case goes to trial.
It also is unknown whether law enforcement has other major evidence, uncovered in a $2 million, 34-month investigation, that still hasn't been disclosed to the public.
This makes interpreting the JonBeneÚt Ramsey murder probe like playing chess without knowing if you have all the pieces - or all the rules.
Still, several leading local lawyers were willing last week to analyze the case, assuming for this article that the evidence they're discussing has been portrayed accurately by the sources who leaked information to the news media.
The consensus was that much evidence tilted against Patsy Ramsey, but there was enough other information to raise reasonable doubt against a conviction.
Of the four lawyers interviewed - all of whom closely tracked the case for the news media - none expressed confidence that they personally could win a murder conviction based on the evidence disclosed so far.
"You wind up feeling that it looks like someone in the Ramsey house had something to do with it, but you can't figure out who,'' said Christopher Mueller, who teaches evidence law at the University of Colorado Law School. "If the evidence is what the newspapers say it is, I don't think it's a winnable case.''
John and Patsy Ramsey have said they believe their daughter was murdered by an unidentified intruder, but that Boulder police officials have focused recklessly on the Ramsey family.
After veteran homicide detective Lou Smit quit the case last fall and proclaimed the family was innocent, John Ramsey publicly released a letter in September 1998 saying Boulder police officials "decided they had solved this case on the very first day by reaching the incredible conclusion that because the parents were in the house, they must have done it . . . You have wasted almost two years trying to prove your original theory.
"Meanwhile, my family knows a vicious child killer still walks your streets.''
On Friday, Smit said, "I think the evidence points at an intruder, but I am not commenting on any evidence in this.''
The 1998 Ramsey letter highlighted one of the most significant pieces of evidence in the family's defense. Addressing JonBeneÚt's killer, Ramsey wrote, "We have been told that the authorities have your DNA.''
Law-enforcement sources confirmed the girl was found with "foreign'' DNA in her panties and under her fingernails. The DNA reportedly did not match genetic material collected from dozens of Ramsey family members and friends.
The scramble to trace that genetic material may have been why the grand jury temporarily halted work this past summer, lawyers said. In May, police started collecting more DNA samples from people who may have touched JonBeneÚt in the days before her murder.
Law-enforcement sources said the extra genetic material was collected to eliminate as many potential suspects as possible.
Other evidence pointing toward some outside intruder includes an unidentified pubic hair found on the blanket wrapping JonBeneÚt's body; a Hi-Tec hiking-boot print discovered near the body that hasn't been matched to any family or friends; a broken window in the basement where JonBeneÚt's body was found; and an unidentified palm print on a door by the girl's body.
Though there can be alternate explanations for all this evidence - the unknown DNA could be picked up by a first-grader who plays hard or swaps clothes with other kids, the hair could be from a maid, the boot and palm prints could have been left long ago by a house repairman, the window reportedly was broken earlier by John Ramsey when he locked himself out of the house - they all can be combined to form an effective defense for any accused Ramsey family member.
"You certainly can line up this evidence to say that an outsider did it,'' said Mueller, the CU law professor who has taught lawyers for 25 years. "As long as you can't figure out where the DNA came from, you've got some very important evidence for the defense.''
Frank Jamison, a 28-year University of Denver Law School professor who teaches evidence law, said the unidentified DNA is a major challenge for murder investigators.
"They've been put in the position right now of trying to clear everyone else in the world. It's hard going,'' Jamison said.
One other important factor in the Ramsey's favor: There is no evidence of any child abuse in the family. Many friends and former nannies have lauded the Ramseys as good parents. And John Ramsey's two children from his first marriage, John Andrew Ramsey and Melinda Ramsey-Long, have publicly praised their father's parenting skills.
However, there is much crime information that points to the Ramsey family, lawyers said.
JonBeneÚt's body was found inside a house with "very, very little evidence of a break-in,'' Jamison said.
Can a random intruder really sneak into a locked house, capture a 45-pound girl, possibly sexually molest her, split her skull with an 8.5-inch crack, strangle her with a garrote made from a paintbrush that was stored inside the house, wipe off her vagina, find a notepad and pen, write a practice ransom note, write a final three-page ransom note and then escape - all without ever waking John Ramsey, Patsy Ramsey or JonBeneÚt's r older brother Burke? It's true that the layout of the Ramseys' nearly 7,000square-foot house may have made screams hard to hear. The parents' bedroom was on the third floor, bedrooms for JonBeneÚt and Burke were on opposite ends of the second floor, and the girl's body was found in the basement.
At the same time, though, the 25-room house is so large it's hard to imagine a first-time visitor successfully navigating so many rooms, hallways and stairways in the middle of the night, while carrying a 6year-old girl, without incident.
If the murder looks like an inside job, then key evidence points to Patsy Ramsey, attorneys said.
The most damaging physical evidence against the mother is the rambling ransom note.
Handwriting experts at the Colorado Bureau of Investigation ruled out John Ramsey as the note's author, but they couldn't do the same for Patsy. After comparing one Patsy handwriting sample to the ransom note, Chet Ubowski of CBI concluded, "This handwriting showed indications that the writer was Patsy Ramsey.''
Still, handwriting analysis can make for dicey testimony in court. In the Oklahoma City bomb trial of Terry Nichols, U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch scaled back prosecution attempts to include much handwriting analysis after defense lawyers called it "junk science.''
Prosecutors "ought to think twice about whether you're going to offer these conclusions'' about handwriting in court, the judge said, adding that there is "no academy of training for these people.''
Other physical evidence pointing to the Ramsey mother includes fiber found on the duct tape that covered the dead girl's mouth. The fiber matched a sweater Patsy wore Christmas night - the day before her daughter's body was found, law-enforcement sources said. She turned the sweater over to police more than a year later.
And the paintbrush handle used in the garrote that helped strangle JonBeneÚt came from Patsy's art set.
The fibers could have been picked up when John Ramsey found his daughter's lifeless body, ripped the tape off her mouth in an attempt to revive her, and then dropped the adhesive onto the floor, where the stray fiber may have become attached. A random intruder also could have chanced upon Patsy's art set and taken the paintbrush.
But one outside attorney, former Denver prosecutor Craig Silverman, focused on the mother's psyche at the time.
"Whoever did this crime was clearly disturbed,'' Silverman said. "(Patsy) was recovering from cancer, had the pressures of a family vacation, the pressures of a family Christmas, the pressure of turning 40 in a few days.'' Noting that the ransom note, paintbrush and sweater fiber evidence also pointed to the mother, Silverman said, "None of these things alone are smoking guns, but it's the totality of it.''
Of the four JonBeneÚt legal experts questioned, Silverman was the most hawkish about chances of prosecution. Asked if he thought he could win a conviction, Silverman said: "I don't know. I think it would be a close case. It would depend on how good a witness John and Patsy would be.'' Jamison, the DU law professor, said, "I think it would be almost an impossibility to win.''
Mueller, the CU law professor, said, "I don't think anyone would win a prosecution of the case.'' And Robinson, the defense lawyer who described the facts presented so far on the Ramsey case as an "acquittal souffle,'' said the case may never close.
Though Boulder police officers have been denounced widely for poor crime-scene management - they let John Ramsey search his home alone for his daughter, let him move the body from the basement room, let family friends clean the kitchen and possibly scour away evidence, and failed to immediately separate the parents for interviews to check for contradictions - the investigatory mistakes may not have made much of a difference, Robinson said.
"I am critical of what the police did,'' Robinson said, "but when you've got that DNA stain and the untraced pubic hair, I'm hardpressed to see how the failure to secure the crime scene did it in.''
http://extras.denverpost.com/news/jon101799.htm
