Procedural - Scordi-Bello Ruling

MR. ALESSI: Your honor, I am going to address the Trooper Paul aspect and then I'm going to address the Dr. Scordi-Bello aspect of Dr. Welcher. With regard to Trooper Paul, I would like to draw the court's attention to the following documents for the straightforward proposition that Dr. Welcher has not only reviewed, he has not only considered, but he has adopted. I went back and looked at the documents and the basis for this is as follows. Slides 22 and 23 do not just depict Trooper Joseph Paul himself. They show Trooper Paul conducting the CARS analysis on February 1st of 2022. Importantly, these slides highlight the mileage odometer of 12,665.

MR. ALESSI: And I respectfully request the court to anchor into that odometer reading because I'm going to show the path that that odometer reading takes through all of the documents. But I want to emphasize the start — the genesis of the odometer reading of 12,665 miles is with Trooper Paul as he conducted the CARS analysis on February 1st. Now, here's where Dr. Welcher comes in. Dr. Welcher then uses this key data point — odometer 12,665 — as the basis, the starting point for his determination of the locations and times for the events of January 29 of 2022. Dr.

MR. ALESSI: Welcher uses his scenario analysis of Miss Read's travels — and that's detailed on slides 24, 25, 26, 27, and 28 — to calculate and then deduct 36 miles from the odometer according to Trooper Paul on February 1st of 2022, to arrive at an odometer reading of 12,629, which obviously is different from the start, the anchor I talked about, of 12,665. So the assumed odometer of 12,629 — again based on Trooper Paul's CARS analysis in slides 22 and 23 — are then used as a tether, a connection to the events recorded by the VCH in the Lexus on the following slides: 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 35, and 36. I elucidate this and I explicate the slide numbers to show how many there are in Dr. Welcher's report that are rooted in the anchor point and then the change in the deduction of the odometer.

MR. ALESSI: So the events memorialized by Trooper Paul on February 1st, including the odometer reading, provide the foundation for Dr. Welcher's entire analysis of the VCH events — the entire analysis of Dr. Welcher's VCH events. That is the adoption aspect of what I started with. Two more points. In addition, Dr. Welcher testified on voir dire that the image on the left of slide 36, from his January 30th, 2025 presentation, came from a file marked "cars_j.paul." Now, he did contend that it wasn't the exact same image, but I want to go to this. In fact, the image on slide 36 is from the drone used by Trooper Paul. And the citation for that is page 4, item 11 of the CARS report. That's where the drones are from. Dr. Welcher didn't do any drone activity.

MR. ALESSI: He took the drone image that he had in his report — that was just a little bit different than the one I was showing him. It comes from page 4, item 11 of the CARS report, and I quote: "The crash scene was documented during the on-scene investigation by utilizing Alicia G-NS GPS mapping system and a DJI Mavic 2 UAS. This data was input to a computer-aided diagram program, which is IMS 360." Here's the key: "to produce a scale diagram of this collision." So the DJI Mavic is the CARS team drone. This image of Dr. Welcher's slide 36 is clearly and indisputably from the drone, and the only drone extant is the drone of Trooper Paul and the CARS team. Last point with regard to the Trooper Paul basis in adoption of Dr. Welcher. ADA Brennan asked Dr.

MR. ALESSI: Welcher on voir dire if the image from slide 36 actually came from the search team, which is simply not true. The search team — actually Lieutenant Tully with the search team — took about a dozen photos of the tail light in the snow in the dark around 6:00 p.m. on January 29th, 2022. Lieutenant O'Hara said that the search team never traveled back to the scene again. So there were very obviously no photos or images taken by the search team in the daylight from the drone. And I again refer to slides 22 and 23, where Dr. Welcher said it was more likely than not that it was Trooper Paul in those slides.

MR. ALESSI: But the point — whether Trooper Paul or not — is completely overwhelmed by what I just argued and presented as specific factual basis for a review, a consideration, and an adoption of the work of Trooper Paul. Unless your honor has any questions, I would now move on to Dr. Scordi-Bello. Dr. Scordi-Bello will be much shorter. Mr. Woll, do we have the slide of Dr. Scordi-Bello — that's at the end of the slide presentation with her name on it. If you just give the slide number, please.

MR. ALESSI: 131.

MR. ALESSI: So it is slide 131. I almost know it verbatim, your honor. So I will continue if Miss Gilman has the slide, or someone could turn it on. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, your honor. So with regard to slide 131 — and this again is a slide presentation of Dr. Welcher — so up at the very top — Dr. Welcher admitted that he not only reviewed the autopsy report, he admitted that he not only considered the autopsy report, he admitted that he adopted it — and I'm going to put "adopt" in quotes — to the extent that he used it in his slide presentation. And he actually, to show the depth of those three verbs, he's got in orange highlight under final diagnosis: multiple skull fractures, base of skull and calvarium. He testified obviously about the rear wounds of Mr. O'Keefe.

MR. ALESSI: He testified about how he believed those wounds came about, and he cited as corroboration the highlight of multiple skull fractures, base of skull and calvarium. It couldn't be any more obvious his rooting in this document and reliance upon it. Why else would he have it in his slide presentation? And he's got the name of Dr. Scordi-Bello. And frankly, your honor, he didn't fight that whatsoever in the questioning of him. Then you go to underneath: cause of death — blunt impact injuries of head and hypothermia. He essentially repeated that in his testimony. And then if we could, Mr. Woll, just go to the right.

MR. ALESSI: And so you've got highlighted: head skull fracture radiating from the right occipital skull and into the right parietal bone, right and left occipital fossae and bilateral anterior fossae and orbital plates. Again, the highlighting means something — he's adopting it. And lastly, the depiction of the skull here — I believe that's Dr. Welcher's handwriting. I believe that's his green — the "LR" — because I've never seen this green highlighting before. And it could also be Dr. Scordi-Bello's. That's another possibility. I'm not sure. But let's assume the most conservative — that it's Dr. Scordi-Bello's. The key part is he's got it in there and he is referencing it. So, your honor, the last point really for both of them, and I wanted to save this point because it applies to both.

MR. ALESSI: With regard to experts, the law is clear. So I think the easiest part to show what our position here is — is the adoption — and it's clearly shown. Adoption doesn't mean you have to agree with it. You just have to put your expert hands around it, wrestle with it, deal with it. And there is no rule of law that I'm aware of that says you can't question an expert witness unless it's something that the expert witness agrees with. If the expert witness has conceded it and considered it — and especially if they've rejected it — the easiest is obviously reviewed, considered, and adopted. But it's certainly permissible, and important to a defendant's constitutional right — Sixth Amendment to cross-examination — if an expert says or even infers: "I reject this."

MR. ALESSI: "I reject what Trooper Paul did" or "I reject what Dr. Scordi-Bello did." That is decision-making of an expert that the opposing attorney has a right to be able to test: "Why did you reject it? What was your thought process in rejecting it?" And that applies to both Trooper Paul and Dr. Scordi-Bello, because as I understand it, this witness, Dr. Welcher, says "I'm not relying upon Trooper Paul" — which is completely false based upon what I just showed — but even if he just rejects it, in addition to what he has done, we have the right to question and get answers as to why he did it. And the same with Dr. Scordi-Bello.

MR. ALESSI: Once he goes to this level, your honor, I believe it's a straightforward right — especially of a defendant in a criminal trial, and especially with the stakes and the charges this high — that we get to test it. What I think, lastly — my point here, your honor — the Commonwealth is doing is this: the Commonwealth knows Trooper Paul and Dr. Scordi-Bello are problematic for their theory and their narrative. Trooper Paul has got — if you work backwards from his key cycles — you end up with 11622, their key cycle that ends up being not in front of 34 Fairview Road, but ends up when the Lexus is in the possession of the state. That is the result of that, and that was something that was addressed square head-on in the first proceeding.

MR. ALESSI: We're not coming up with some fanciful ghost in the second trial. This was gone through extensively in the first proceeding, and I understand this is a new trial, but it goes to show it's not something coming out of the blue, et cetera. And with regard to Dr. Scordi-Bello, it was remarkable on redirect. I've never seen a prosecution essentially go after the opinions and conclusion of their own medical examiner when they basically said the medical examiner, "I can't call this a homicide. The manner of death is undetermined." And the medical examiner says, "I don't see any motor vehicle impact injuries." There couldn't be anything more apt, more probative than whether or not the injuries to the decedent are from a motor vehicle. Dr. Welcher himself is saying they are.

MR. ALESSI: That's the essence of his opinion. It's the essence of his test. We get to be able to, respectfully, your honor, say, "Well, wait a minute. You said you looked at the autopsy. You said this, you highlight it, but you're going against the medical examiner on whether there's motor vehicle injuries. The experts can't, your honor, cherry-pick and pick and choose from documents. They can't use it as a shield and a sword. They can't put up, for example, Dr. Scordi-Bello's autopsy report, cherry-pick things to benefit from them — and they did it on direct — and then all of a sudden on cross, when we want to go and test that, they say, 'Oh no, no, no, no, you can't do it.' Your honor, this whole argument is absurd and it's antithetical to the Sixth Amendment.

MR. ALESSI: And even if — and this is my last point — even if this were merely a civil case, this would be routine cross-examination against the expert on the stand. So, in conclusion, your honor, I respectfully request that Ms. Read and her team be allowed to exercise their constitutional right to cross-examination, the keystone of a defense in a criminal trial, cross-examination, and that they be able to take the shield that the prosecution is trying to put on us and be able to combat the sword that the prosecution has put forward with regard to trying to cherry-pick from this information, and that we get to proceed undaunted from all the serial objections yesterday that interrupted my cross-examination. Thank you, your honor.

MR. ALESSI: Your honor, with regard to Trooper Paul — Mr. Brennan did not address 80% of the slides that I addressed that showed the basis. When he talked about the picture, making it seem like the picture is the only thing we're relying upon — there are clearly other items. But even the picture, your honor, the purpose of the picture is it's got the odometer reading. That's why they took the picture and that's the tether. So, the photo is completely relevant. It's not who's in it. It's the fact that that's the odometer reading they're using. Next point — with regard to case law, Mr. Brennan presents none to go against the common sense law that has been there for years. The other thing, your honor, with regard to Mr.

MR. ALESSI: Brennan — he keeps trying to put my arguments into a credibility issue, like we're trying to attack the credibility of Trooper Paul. He says that we're trying to redo last trial. To the contrary, your honor, it's the Commonwealth that brought Trooper Paul into the second trial through Dr. Welcher and Dr. Welcher's reliance on all the work of Trooper Paul. They've brought it in here, and because of that, we get the right to cross-examine it. Last point — this is not about credibility. He keeps saying something that's not happening, that we're going to attack the credibility of Trooper Paul. What we want to do is say to Dr. Welcher, "You have brought up Trooper Paul. You have used his odometer reading. That odometer reading tethers through to Google.

MR. ALESSI: It tethers through everything you're doing. It's the foundation. But what you're ignoring, Dr. Welcher, are all the key cycle results that come from that odometer reading that you relied upon." Dr. Welcher himself can't cherry-pick — grab things that he needs from Trooper Paul to do his analysis, and then have the Commonwealth say, "But you can't go after that because it somehow has Trooper Paul's name on it." It's illogical, your honor, and it's incorrect under the law. Thank you.