Commonwealth v. Read — Trial ArchiveDaniel Wolfe — Direct
1,487 lines(Court in session at 09:04 a.m.)
(Defendant is present with counsel.)
(Jury in.)
JUDGE CANNONE: Good morning, Counsel. Good morning, Ms. Read. Good morning, jurors. So happy Friday. I do have to ask you those same three questions. Were you all able to follow the instructions and refrain from discussing this case with anyone since we left yesterday -- the day before? Everyone said yes or nodded affirmatively. Were you also able to follow the instructions and refrain from doing any independent research or investigation into the case? Every said yes or nodded affirmatively. Did anyone happen to see, hear, or read anything about this case since we left the other day? Everyone said no or shook their heads. Okay. I understand we have a witness this morning.
MR. JACKSON: We do, Your Honor. With the Court's permission.
JUDGE CANNONE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: We would ask to join us Dr. Dan Wolfe. DANIEL WOLFE, sworn
JUDGE CANNONE: Good morning.
DR. WOLFE: Good morning.
JUDGE CANNONE: So, sir, I'm going to try to keep the air conditioning on this morning, so I'm going to ask you to speak really loudly into that microphone, and Mr. Jackson, you do so as well, please.
MR. JACKSON: Of course, Your Honor.
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. JACKSON:
MR. JACKSON: Dr. Wolfe, could you please state your entire name and spell you last name for the jurors, please?
DR. WOLFE: Daniel Michael Wolfe. Last name spelled W-O-L-F-E.
MR. JACKSON: May I inquire, Your Honor?
JUDGE CANNONE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Dr. Wolfe, what do you do for a living, sir?
DR. WOLFE: I am the director of accident reconstruction at a company known as ARCCA, A-R-C-C-A.
MR. JACKSON: And I'm going to start right off the bat. Get a little comfortable with that microphone. It's adjustable. Pull it right close to your chin. It's really loud.
DR. WOLFE: Okay.
MR. JACKSON: Dr. Wolfe, you said you worked for ARCCA, A-R-C-C-A, what his ARCCA?
DR. WOLFE: ARCCA is a forensic consulting firm. We have a variety of disciplines: accident reconstruction, which is the group I'm a part of, biomechanics, failure analysis, and crash worthiness.
MR. JACKSON: And you said that your title again one more time?
DR. WOLFE: The director of the accident reconstruction team.
MR. JACKSON: And what sort of contracts does ARCCA normally engage in?
DR. WOLFE: So in addition to our forensic consulting work, we have -- going back in time, we've dealt with doing contracts with the Department of Defense where designed energy absorbing seats for MRAP vehicles. Mind resistant armor protected vehicles where these vehicles were going over explosive devices, and the energy from those explosions was going through the vehicle into the occupants. So ARCCA designed energy absorbing seats to help mitigate the injuries in that type of -- in those types of incidents. We also do work for the National Hockey League. I myself am a part of that work. It has to do with scanning and analyzing player pads. By we certainly do impact testing. It helps set guidelines for player safety.
MR. JACKSON: With regard to those MRAP vehicles, was that a contract for the Department of Defense for the United States government?
DR. WOLFE: Yes, sir.
MR. JACKSON: For the military?
DR. WOLFE: Correct.
MR. JACKSON: Is ARCCA both nationally and internationally recognized as a leader in accident reconstruction?
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: Sustained.
MR. JACKSON: Does ARCCA have a reputation -- well, let me ask it this way. Does ARCCA entertain or engage both domestic and international contracts and clientele?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: A the director of accident reconstruction, do you specialize in anything other than just accident reconstruction? Anything having to do with human factors?
DR. WOLFE: Yes. So my other specialties, in addition to accident reconstruction, are lighting and human factors.
MR. JACKSON: What is -- give us a 25 word overview of human factors. What is that?
DR. WOLFE: So to give you a good example of that is -- and again this is a case that I commonly see. But let's say you're driving down the road at night. It's an unlit roadway. You're relying on your vehicle headlights to see the roadway ahead, right. And you've got a pedestrian that is entering the roadway, and you want to have an understanding, based upon the lighting conditions, how much sky illumination there is, their clothing, right, when would a driver recognize that individual on the roadway. So that's where it starts from the vision aspect of human factors. Then we get into driver response, right. So the driver is presented with a hazard, so how do drivers particularly -- typically respond? What are their actions and how long does that take to avoid and initiate a reaction?
MR. JACKSON: That's human factors. Can you do the same thing and give us an explanation for accident reconstruction just in the broadest sense?
DR. WOLFE: I think a very simple definition of accident reconstruction is the application of physics and engineering science to collision events.
MR. JACKSON: What role did you take as the director of accident reconstruction at ARCCA as contracts come in or engagements come in?
DR. WOLFE: Well, my scope in cases can vary greatly. As I just mentioned, you know, I could have a case where I'm assessing the conspicuity of a pedestrian and a driver's response time. It could be a 50 car pileup on a highway and I'm trying to figure out a sequence of events. It could be a rearend collision where a seatback has failed in the vehicle and the occupant has sustained injuries, and we want to have an understanding of the crush, the damage, the forces. So, again, it can vary case to case.
MR. JACKSON: Do you engage in reconstruction or attempt to engage in reconstruction of all sorts of passenger vehicles and the question vehicles?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: What about motorcycles?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Bicycles?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Involving pedestrians and sometimes involving no pedestrians?
DR. WOLFE: Yes, I see all types of collisions.
MR. JACKSON: How many cases, if you have a number in mind, have you been a part of in terms of engaging in accident reconstruction broadly?
DR. WOLFE: That's something that I don't track, but I've been with the company now for over eight years. So at this point, if I had to estimate it's well over a thousand at this point.
MR. JACKSON: What education, training, and background do you have that allows you to perform the duties that you described in terms of accident reconstruction and human factor analysis?
DR. WOLFE: In terms -- are you looking for additional training?
MR. JACKSON: No, let's start with your education.
DR. WOLFE: Absolutely.
MR. JACKSON: I want education, training, and background, but we can do it in order.
DR. WOLFE: Okay. Yeah, so we'll go back to 2012. I received a bachelor of science in engineering from James Madison University along with a minor in mathematics. Some of my courses included physics, statics, dynamics, thermodynamics, food mechanics, your engineering sciences. Subsequent to that, I then went on to pursue my PhD in electrical and computer engineering with a concentration in electromagnetics and plutonics. Some of my coursework while doing my PhD included optoelectronics, semiconductor physics, basically how to guide light on semiconductor devices.
MR. JACKSON: Did you have a dissertation to get your PhD?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: What was the subject matter broadly of the dissertation?
DR. WOLFE: So my dissertation focused on a technology called smart glass. So you may have seen this technology where if you've seen a pane of glass that is transparent, somebody flips a switch and it goes opaque, that's a type of smart glass technology. So my PhD involved a new type of type of novel what we coined optofluidic smart glass. So we are using geometric structures that we've optically designed to create a very reflective surface or medium, if you will, and then through the introduction of various fluids, we can then modulate the amount of visible light in electromagnetic energy that is passing through or being reflected. So not just visible light, but also energy that you can't see. As part of that process, I ended up prototyping these structures with a 3D printer that was capable of printing 3D printable polymers. And as we kind of got towards the end of my work, we looked to how we could scale this up a larger scale. We ultimately ended up researching and doing tests with a material known as polymethyl acrylate which is PMMA or acrylic.
MR. JACKSON: What relevance does PMMA play in terms of this case?
DR. WOLFE: So with respect to this case, the outer lens and the clear plastic diffusers of the taillights on the Lexus are comprised entirely of polymethyl acrylate or that PMMA material.
MR. JACKSON: The same material that was the subject of your dissertation?
DR. WOLFE: Correct.
MR. JACKSON: What additional training and experience do you have as it relates to accident reconstruction beyond your BS and PhD?
MR. JACKSON: So certainly the eight years of work that I've had at ARCCA has certainly trained and taught me a lot over the eight years. Like I said, I've seen hundreds of collisions, all different types of accidents, but in addition to that, I've continued to take courses through Northwestern University in crash reconstruction, human factors in lighting, heavy vehicle forensics, heavy vehicle EDR downloads, Bosch data retrieval, and black box downloads, photogrammetry, so a number of continuing education.
MR. JACKSON: Are you accredited as a traffic accident reconstructionist?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: By whom?
DR. WOLFE: An organization known as ACTAR.
MR. JACKSON: Is that a nationally recognized organization?
DR. WOLFE: Yes, sir.
MR. JACKSON: What does that stand for, ACTAR?
DR. WOLFE: The Accreditation Commission for Traffic Accident Reconstructionists.
MR. JACKSON: Are you trained in photogrammetry?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: What is photogrammetry, generally?
DR. WOLFE: So photogrammetry is the science of extracting and measuring information in a photograph. So you don't actually have to physically inspect something to be able to get information about its measurements or where things are spatially. You can do that from a photograph alone.
MR. JACKSON: Is that an accepted methodology in the field of accident reconstruction to use photographs and/or videos without actually having been at the scene during the course of the crash?
DR. WOLFE: Absolutely. It's very common.
MR. JACKSON: You mentioned Bosch. What is the Bosch crash data retrieval analysis? What does that, generally?
DR. WOLFE: So generally, most modern vehicles on the roadway now have what's called an airbag control module or known more known commonly as a black box which contains crash specific data from a collision.
MR. JACKSON: Are you a member of any professional societies?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Can you describe those for us, please?
DR. WOLFE: So I'm a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers, the National Association for Professional Reconstruction Specialists, the Illuminating Engineering Society, and the Optical Society of America.
MR. JACKSON: Is it fair to say that you've authored a number of peer reviewed papers in the field of physics and/or accident reconstruction?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Can you describe that for us?
DR. WOLFE: So my most recent publication of the field of accident reconstruction deals with vehicle control history records. Publications prior to that were focused primarily on my dissertation and PhD work.
MR. JACKSON: I think you testified that you have dealt with probably over a thousand different types of cases. Are you able to estimate of those thousand different types of cases dealing with accident reconstruction, how many of those, what percentage of those, have involved pedestrians?
DR. WOLFE: I don't know if I can give a percentage. I would certainly save it's the majority of my casework. As I mentioned earlier, given one of my specialties being in human factors and lighting, there's a direct correlation between time of day and pedestrian collisions. We certainly see a rise as sky illumination drops and the illumination levels go down, we're having to rely on artificial light sources so given that occurrence happens in low illumination like a sources. So given that occurrence happens in nighttime hours in low illumination, like I said, I certainly see many pedestrian accidents.
MR. JACKSON: What types of pedestrian impacts have you been involved with in terms of your analysis or evaluations?
DR. WOLFE: All different types. Everything from pedestrians being run over, running into the side of vehicles, being hit by the front of a vehicle, a vehicle backing up in a parking lot into a pedestrian. So I've sent it from all sides of a vehicle.
MR. JACKSON: What is kinematics? Can you describe that or explain that phrase or term?
DR. WOLFE: I think a simple definition would just be the motion of an object or a body.
MR. JACKSON: Have you done any testing as it relates to kinematics and the interaction between pedestrians and motor vehicles?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: How many times have you engaged such an analysis?
DR. WOLFE: Numerous times. We frequently and routinely do testing at ARCCA.
MR. JACKSON: You mentioned ARCCA has several different disciplines within it. What are some of those different disciplines in addition to accident reconstruction?
DR. WOLFE: So as I mentioned, we have biomechanics and crashworthiness, and there's a few others. And I will note that it's very common in our casework that we will work together as a team. So to give you an example of that, you know, I mentioned earlier about, you know, that rearend collision, right. So let's just say we have a rearend crash, and there's crush and there's damage to the rear of the vehicle and the seatback failed which caused the driver to ramp up in the seat and ultimately hit their head on something and sustain an injury. So I myself, as a reconstructionist, will analyze the forces, the speeds, and the severity of the crash. The biomechanists will evaluate the mechanism for the injury based upon those crash forces. And the crashworthiness expert may analyze, okay, is there a better or stronger seat that may have held up in this crash.
MR. JACKSON: Is it normal for you as the director of accident reconstruction at ARCCA to work with others in the other disciplines that are housed under the umbrella of ARCCA?
DR. WOLFE: Absolutely, yes.
MR. JACKSON: It's that a normal process for you?
DR. WOLFE: Very common, yes.
MR. JACKSON: As a matter fact, it would probably be uncommon if you didn't do that, correct?
DR. WOLFE: Depending on the kind of case, but, yes, it certainly wouldn't be uncommon.
MR. JACKSON: Tell me about the testing that you've undertaken to determine forces that are at play in a given accident or an impact?
DR. WOLFE: Okay. So to give you a simple example of it is let's just say we have a sideswipe type collision where two vehicles sideswipe each other and a front bumper gets torn off or deflected essentially and there's some deformation to it. Right. We can do testing at ARCCA to determine how much force does it take to bend that material so that we get the deformation that we have. That would be a good example.
MR. JACKSON: Is there a specific type of is there varying types of testing that you've done and undertaken to determine the forces that would be, for instance in your example, in that swideswipe -- the forces at play in that sideswipe collision?
DR. WOLFE: Yeah, absolutely. It would have been -- again, as part of the test, we would be measuring the forces, we would be measuring the displacement, we'd be able to calculate acceleration and things of that nature from that test data.
MR. JACKSON: The tests that you undertake, are they generally accepted methodologies in the field of accident reconstruction?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: What are quasistatic tests?
DR. WOLFE: So a quasistatic tests would be like the example I just gave you where we basically the bumper would be stationary, right, and now we're pulling on it to determine how much force it takes to bend it. So that would be an example of a quasistatic test.
MR. JACKSON: So that test specifically is determining or attempting to determine the amount of force necessary to deform a bumper, for instance, in the way that it's seen after an impact?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Or any other body, correct?
DR. WOLFE: Correct.
MR. JACKSON: And on the human side, also there are forces at play, I'm assuming, in terms of injuries that are sustained by pedestrians in the accident reconstructions that you've done involving pedestrians?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Do you have experience in evaluating whether damage to a vehicle is consistent with a proposed scenario or set of facts?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Describe those circumstances for us? What are the circumstances in which you are trying to determine whether or not the damage fits a proposed scenario?
DR. WOLFE: So a case that commonly comes across my desk is we have two very different versions of how an accident unfolded according to party A and party B, right. And we have a set of evidence in terms of the damage to the vehicles, maybe some roadway evidence, right, so we can look at that objective evidence, utilize physics, maybe some calculations to determine whose version is most consistent based upon the damage and the roadway evidence?
MR. JACKSON: Is that an accepted methodology in the field of reconstruction?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: In other cases in which you've undertaken such an engagement, did you determine whether or not the physics or the physical evidence matches a particular scenario or is inconsistent with that scenario, have you been able to ultimately reach conclusions and opinions to a reasonable degree of scientific in this case?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Is that normally what you're seeking to ultimately come to an opinion or a conclusion about those scenarios or circumstances?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Are your opinions and your conclusions based on your education, your training, your background, and your experience that you explained to the jurors?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Is it also in furtherance of the scientific methodology that you employed in order to come to those opinions and conclusions?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: And are those generally accepted in the scientific and accident reconstruction community as a proper methodology to come to opinions and conclusions of that nature?
DR. WOLFE: Yes, sir.
MR. JACKSON: Have you been qualified in other courts to testify in the area of accident reconstruction?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Let's talk about how you began your work in this particular case. When you were initially retained in connection with this case, were you hired by the defense?
DR. WOLFE: No.
MR. JACKSON: Did you know who we were?
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: Sustained.
MR. JACKSON: Your Honor, may we approach?
JUDGE CANNONE: You can ask it differently, Mr. Jackson.
MR. JACKSON: Sure, sure.
MR. JACKSON: Were you hired by anybody affiliated with the defense?
DR. WOLFE: No.
MR. JACKSON: At that time, did you know any of the names of the defense?
DR. WOLFE: No.
MR. JACKSON: At the time that you were hired or engaged in this case, did you even know the name Karen Read?
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: Sustained.
MR. JACKSON: Did you know any of the names of any of the parties?
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: Sustained. I'll see you at sidebar.
MR. JACKSON: Sure.
(Sidebar commences:
JUDGE CANNONE: Good morning.
MR. BRENNAN: Unless they open the door, now it's going to require me to talk about the fact that the federal investigation has been closed, and I'm not sure why it's relevant. They've now hired them, and they've done studies on their behalf.
JUDGE CANNONE: So I don't want it -- I don't want that happening on either side. I don't want the door opened at all about the feds. You've made your point. I think we go on.
MR. JACKSON: Your Honor, I haven't made my point, and let me explain why. There was an enormous amount of speculation by sitting jurors at the last trial given the fact that we weren't able to tell the full truth about who hired ARCCA. They were hired by the federal government. They were hired by both the SDOJ as well as the FBI. We weren't allowed to say that. We've adopted that or we've accepted the Court's ruling. I will not say that. But it is important that they don't speculate that we have some other surrogate hire. Their bias is at issue. Their credibility is at issue. I expect that Mr. Brennan is going to attack their credibility, and, by the way if he does, that will open the door to us asking who actually did hire you, and did you come to your conclusions before you ever met us. That's all I want to get across.
JUDGE CANNONE: So if you think that would open the door, you have come to sidebar because I do not see that as opening the door.
MR. JACKSON: Of course. I will come to sidebar, but I do think there's a very, very good chance that Mr. Brennan's cross-examination is going to open that door. In the mean time, all I want to ask, and I'm going to ask a series of quick questions, did you know us, did we hire you, were you hired by a different institution, was it an insurance company, because that's what the jurors last year speculated. Oh, well it's not the defense --
JUDGE CANNONE: Do you have any problem --
MR. BRENNAN: I do.
JUDGE CANNONE: -- the insurance question?
MR. BRENNAN: I do. Basically, it's vouching for the credibility. It's self-endorsement.
JUDGE CANNONE: So that was the reason I stopped this. You have to wait until it's challenged. You've made your point. I'm going to stop this at this point.
MR. JACKSON: Okay. Your Honor, one other question. The last question I'd like to ask is were you hired by the Commonwealth.
MR. BRENNAN: We had no right to hire them because there was an order that we weren't supposed to contact them that we followed. So we weren't in a position to contact them. There was an agreement with the federal government we not contact them. So they tried that at the last trial. That is totally --
MR. JACKSON: Mr. Brennan is missing my point. When they were initially hired, they weren't hired by the Commonwealth or the defense. It was an independent entity, and that's the word I'm going to use. Independent entity.
MR. BRENNAN: It's again self-endorsement. It's vouching for his own credibility, and it's now going to open the door and raise the issue who hired them. I'm sure jurors have some familiarity, some of the jurors anyway.
JUDGE CANNONE: I'm ending this. You made your point. I'm ending this at this point.
end of sidebar.)
MR. JACKSON: When you were initially hired to look at the facts and circumstances of this case, did you do so independently, in other words, were you given a series of facts and a series of data and asked just look at these facts and look at these data and make a few determinations about accident reconstruction in this case?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: What were you asked to do specifically?
DR. WOLFE: It was to look at that evidence that we were provided and determine whether or not the damage to the vehicle was consistent with the injuries to Mr. John O'Keefe.
MR. JACKSON: At the time that you were asked to engage in this independent analysis, were you provided information or data?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Who at ARCCA was assigned to the team that would ultimately engage in this particular analysis?
DR. WOLFE: It was myself, Dr. Andrew Rentschler, and Scott Klein.
MR. JACKSON: Describe what the materials were that you were provided in your initial assessment of this case?
DR. WOLFE: Could I refer to my report?
JUDGE CANNONE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: With the Court's permission. A Would you like me just to go in order when the materials were reviewed?
MR. JACKSON: That would be fine.
DR. WOLFE: The Norfolk SBDU homicide death report, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Department of State Police crime scene report, OCME dispatch removal report, photographs of the incident location, videos of the incident location, photographs of the 2021 Lexus LX570, photographs of recovered evidence, crash data retrieval report from the 2021 Lexus LX570, report of autopsy, autopsy photographs, and there was a few other items there but those were generated internally.
MR. JACKSON: There were about 14 things that were listed in terms of categories of information that you were provided, that ARCCA was provided; is that right?
DR. WOLFE: A little less because like I said, some of those were internally generated, but, yes.
MR. JACKSON: Why were you provided that data? What's the reason why your -- it's important for you to get certain data as you begin your analysis?
DR. WOLFE: Well, we wanted understanding of or ultimately the entity that retained us wanted to have an understanding of what I guess the evidence that we would need to reconstruct this.
MR. JACKSON: Did you get enough information to engage in a fulsome analysis in accident reconstruction in terms of the initial request by the entity that hired you?
DR. WOLFE: Yes. In terms of our scope, yes, we had sufficient information.
MR. JACKSON: Were you able to review photographs of not only the Lexus involved, but John O'Keefe's body?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Did you use those photographs in furtherance of your analysis?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Did you use the reports detailing scenarios or possible scenarios in furtherance of your analysis?
DR. WOLFE: From what I recall, I don't believe any of the reports indicated any type of theory or understanding of how the accident occurred.
MR. JACKSON: Were you asked to determine whether or not certain scenarios could be possible?
DR. WOLFE: I don't recall them giving us any scenarios to evaluate. They essentially left it in our hands. Here's the evidence. What do you think happened?
MR. JACKSON: That was an open question, correct?
DR. WOLFE: Correct.
MR. JACKSON: All right. Did you engage in analysis that basically allowed you to think of any scenario?
DR. WOLFE: I think that's fair, yes.
MR. JACKSON: In your initial analysis, did you note the damage to the vehicle?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Describe the damage -- let's start with the vehicle. Describe the damage that you noted in furtherance of your analysis?
DR. WOLFE: The primary damage was to the right rear taillight on the corner panel section. The majority of the outer red lens was broken and shattered as well as some of the underlying components and diffusers that are underneath that outer layer as well as some damage to the back portion of the taillight car.
MR. JACKSON: Can I stop you right there? Describe when you say the outer lens material and some interior material as well as was damaged. Describe that in detail for us.
DR. WOLFE: So the outer lens is red, and it's about five millimeters in thickness, and it basically encompasses the majority of that corner panel taillight. And then there's a small segment that is clear that is for the turn signal indicator, which is yellow. Underneath that five millimeter thick red lens, there are additional diffusers that run along the bottom. There's two rows of those I believe, and then they also go up vertically on the side. And those are clear, and I think the thicknesses of those are about 3 millimeters.
MR. JACKSON: Is 5 millimeters of PMMC -- have I got that right? PMMA.
DR. WOLFE: You call it acrylic. That's the more common name.
MR. JACKSON: Easier for me. Is 5 millimeters of that acrylic, that outer lens material, is that considered thick or thin in terms of just sort of what we'd see on a taillight?
DR. WOLFE: I would describe it as a pretty thick piece of plastic. It's certainly by no means -- you can't -- if you had a segment of it and you tried to bend it, it's not going to bend.
MR. JACKSON: In addition to that outer taillight material, that acrylic, in terms of the information that you received, did the interior acrylic also have damage to it?
DR. WOLFE: Yes, those clear diffusers that again there was two rows of those, and they also went up vertically, those were shattered and broken as well.
MR. JACKSON: Was that important to you in your ultimate analysis?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Did you note any -- or did you note any superficial scratches or dents anywhere on the tailgate area or liftgate area?
DR. WOLFE: Yes. There was a dent and some paint chips, if you will, above the liftgate taillight assembly. So again next quarter to that corner panel taillight, there is another assembly that's on the liftgate, and there was a small dent and some paint chips at that area. There was also on the wraparound section of the bumper cover as it's going from the rear to the right side, there was some superficial scrapes in that area.
MR. JACKSON: Did you note any other damage or deformation to the Lexus, deformation in the taillight -- the liftgate, the bumper, anything like that?
DR. WOLFE: No.
MR. JACKSON: Is it common in the a human pedestrian collision that there is some sort of bumper deformation that's associated with a vehicle pedestrian incident?
DR. WOLFE: That can certainly occur if a pedestrian is a normal upright position, you can certainly get displacement of the bumper.
MR. JACKSON: Did you see any bumper or dent formation on the Lexus?
DR. WOLFE: No.
MR. JACKSON: Is it common -- is it more common that there's a panel displacement or deformation if the collision is above say 10 or 15 miles an hour?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: During your review of all the investigative materials, did you note any items of evidence that were recovered or claimed to have been recovered on the bumper itself?
DR. WOLFE: I recall there were two or three apparent glass fragments.
MR. JACKSON: What's the significance of that? Let me ask it differently --
COURT REPORTER: Mr. Jackson. Can you repeat that question for me, Mr. Jackson, please?
MR. JACKSON: May I try again?
JUDGE CANNONE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Is there a glass in the taillight assembly?
DR. WOLFE: No.
MR. JACKSON: Was there any shattered glass anywhere on the Lexus meaning panes of glass, the back window, corner panel windows, anything like that?
DR. WOLFE: No.
MR. JACKSON: Did you have any understanding at that time of what the Commonwealth's theory of the case was when you began your initial analysis?
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: Sustained.
MR. JACKSON: Did you have any indication of what the Massachusetts State Police theory of the case was based on the investigative reports that you reviewed?
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: Sustained.
MR. JACKSON: Did you determine whether or not that taillight housing material was consistent with an interaction with a pedestrian?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Specifically, did you perform the accident reconstruction to determine whether the damage to the Lexus was consistent with an interaction with John O'Keefe based on the injuries that you were aware of?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Did you evaluate whether the investigative theories regarding -- let me ask it a different way. Did you consider the possibility of Mr. O'Keefe's head striking the taillight?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Did you consider the possibility of Mr. O'Keefe's arm striking the taillight?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Did you entertain a possibility that Mr. O'Keefe's center of mass, his body, struck the taillight?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Before we get into the initial testing, were you able to come to opinions and conclusions concerning those things that I just mentioned?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Did you also entertain the possibility that a drinking glass could have damaged the taillight?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Were these the sort of things that were sort of left open to you to decide yourself?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Did you later provide all of those opinions and conclusions in the report to the entity that hired you?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Your understanding is that those reports were then later supplied to both sides here in this case?
DR. WOLFE: That was my understanding, yes.
MR. JACKSON: Did you testify about those initial testing opinions and conclusions at a proceeding last year?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Let's talk for a second about that initial testing that you have done in connection with this case. When approximately did you begin your testing, and I'm going to phrase it as your initial testing, the testing that you testified to about last year, when did you start that initial testing?
DR. WOLFE: From what I recall, it would've been late 2023 into early 2024.
MR. JACKSON: We'll talk about the drinking glass first. Did you become aware that there was a drinking glass that was found at the scene?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: And what was the testing that you sought to determine as it relates to the drinking glass and the taillight?
DR. WOLFE: So looking at the evidence, as I mentioned earlier, when we're looking at that corner panel taillight, we have an isolated region of damage, and looking at the additional evidence in terms of a broken drinking glass at the scene, we wanted to do testing to determine if a small object or projectile, such as the drinking glass, could adduce damage that was consistent with that that we saw on the subject Lexus.
MR. JACKSON: Were you able to reach an opinion and/or conclusion as it relates to whether or not there is a possibility that the drinking glass, or a drinking glass, would cause the type of damage that you saw on the Lexus?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Given everything else in your investigation, are you concluding that the glass was responsible for the taillight damage?
DR. WOLFE: No.
MR. JACKSON: However, you did seek to determine whether it was possible, correct?
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: Sustained.
MR. JACKSON: I'll ask it a different way, Your Honor.
MR. JACKSON: What testing did you -- do did you undertake in furtherance of that specific -- answering that specific question: Did the glass damage the taillight?
DR. WOLFE: Right. So we designed as pressurized cannon that was capable of firing the drinking glass into the taillight at various speeds. We aim for speeds of 30 and 40 miles an hour. Our achieved speeds were at 31 and 37 miles per hour, and we found that in the 37 mile per hour impact, and again, this is to emulate or simulate an individual throwing a drinking glass. The purpose of the cannon, if you will, was to be able to hone in on a speed precisely, and obviously aim for that target. So it just served as a means of getting that projectile to the taillight in a means that we could measure it. And what we observed in the 37 mile an hour test was that we got damage that was generally consistent with that of the subject taillight, and that there was a large portion of the outer lens that was shattered and fractured as well as the underlying clear plastic diffusers and chrome piece.
MR. JACKSON: Tell me a little bit about the methodology that you undertook, the scientific methodology in wielding that pneumanic cannon and aiming that glass directly at the taillight?
DR. WOLFE: Absolutely. So as I mentioned, it was a customized cannon, if you will. It had a barrel that was capable of fitting rocks or an old-fashioned drinking glass in it. And that's a glass that has a thinner sidewall if you will. I think the glass is about 3 inches in height or so maybe 3 and 1/2 inches with the bottom portion being solid glass or just a thick piece of glass. So we were able to design a kind of a holder for it, if you will. Almost -- you can really think of it as stuffing an actual cannon with a cannonball. So we literally would put the drinking glass in the cannon. There was pressurized vessel behind that that we would open up a valve rapidly, and when it was set to a certain pressure, that would determine the exit velocity that it would leave the barrel at. And we were able to aim that device into the taillight at those specified speeds to be able to determine what would the damage pattern be when we fired that glass?
MR. JACKSON: Were you able in the scientific experience to control your aim and trajectory?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Were you able to control for velocity, for exit speed with the glass?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Were you able to control or damage patterns as it pertained to both the glass as well as the taillight at which it was aimed?
DR. WOLFE: I don't know if we had control over that. Ultimately, physics takes over after that interaction occurs. I can't influence how that material is going to perform or how the glass is going to bring per se.
MR. JACKSON: It was a poor question on my part. Were you able or did you undertake to memorialize the damage pattern that you saw on the taillight and the glass as the glass was projected into the taillight?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Did you do that through photographs?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: High-speed video?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: And all of that was memorialized in your report?
DR. WOLFE: Correct.
MR. JACKSON: Your Honor, may I approach?
JUDGE CANNONE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: I'm handing you two photographs or two 8 and a half by 11 documents that contain two photographs each. Can you take a look at those two documents and tell me if you recognize those?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Does one -- you mentioned that one of the tests that you performed was at 37 miles an hour, correct?
DR. WOLFE: Correct.
MR. JACKSON: Did you mention the speed at which or the velocity of which the other test was done?
DR. WOLFE: If I didn't, it was 31 miles per hour.
MR. JACKSON: All right. So 31 and 37. Do you see those two documents in front of you?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Does one of them represent the 31 mile an hour test and the photographs associated with that?
DR. WOLFE: And an extracted frame from the high speed, yes.
MR. JACKSON: Okay. And does the other one represent the other test, the 37 mile an hour test?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: If we could take those one at a time.
MR. JACKSON: May I approach one more time?
JUDGE CANNONE: Okay.
MR. JACKSON: If I could ask that these be marked as next in order one at a time, 31 mile an hour test, and hand it to the court reporter, with the Court's permission.
JUDGE CANNONE: So there's no objection.
MR. BRENNAN: None. Thank you.
JUDGE CANNONE: Okay.
(Whereupon Exhibit No. 213, 31 Mile an Hour Test, was marked as an exhibit.)
MR. ALESSI: And the second document represents the 37 mile an hour test.
(Whereupon Exhibit No. 214, 37 Mile an Hour Test, was marked as an exhibit.)
MR. JACKSON: With the Court's permission, I'd like to present Exhibit 213 -- I'm sorry -- is that Exhibit 213?
JUDGE CANNONE: Okay.
MR. JACKSON: Is this the photograph that was just marked as Exhibit 213 that's in front of you?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Can you explain to the jurors what we're looking at?
DR. WOLFE: So on the left part, you are looking at a frame from the high-speed video just after the contact with the taillight. On the right, you're looking at the post damage to the taillight after the glass had been fired into it.
MR. JACKSON: If we could look at the next exhibit with the Court's permission.
JUDGE CANNONE: Okay.
MR. JACKSON: And what are we looking at here?
DR. WOLFE: Same thing on the left. Again, this is the 37 mile on hour test. The glass striking just in the area where we the bottom of the turn signal indicator is. So right where it meets the red portion of the lens and the clear portion of the lens, it's about where the impact point was. You could see that a large portion of the outer red assembly, or sorry, excuse me, lens cover is missing and fractured. The clear portion of the part of the outer lens to the turn signal indicator is also fractured as well as the underlying clear diffusers in that assembly.
MR. JACKSON: Was your testing in both of these scenarios, the 31 mile an hour test and the 37 mile an hour test, represent an accepted methodology for controlling for aim, velocity, impact site and those issues, if you will, as it relates to testing of this sort?
DR. WOLFE: Yes, we were able to control those variables.
MR. JACKSON: And is that an accepted methodology in the area or the field of accident reconstruction?
DR. WOLFE: Absolutely, yes.
MR. JACKSON: When you finished your testing, were you able to make a determination as to whether or not either one of these velocities, the 31 mile an hour velocity, or the 37 mile an hour velocity were consistent with the damage that you saw on the subject Lexus, which is the 2021 Lexus belonging to Ms. Read?
DR. WOLFE: Yes. From the 37 mile per hour test, we are getting damage that is generally consistent, and that eventually we have portions of the outer lens missing, the underlying diffuser, there was also some fracturing on the backside of the assembly. So again, we observed damage that was generally consistent with that of the subject taillight.
MR. JACKSON: And that was the 31 or the 37?
DR. WOLFE: The 37.
MR. JACKSON: What about the 31?
DR. WOLFE: Didn't have enough energy to create that damage.
MR. JACKSON: So were you able to conclude in your opinion whether or not the velocity of that glass hitting the taillight would have to be somewhere in the vicinity of 37 miles an hour, well above 30 miles an hour?
DR. WOLFE: Well above. It certainly could have been above 40 miles an hour per se. We may have actually blown out more of the outer lens had the speed increased.
MR. JACKSON: Did you have any information in the data or documents that you reviewed associated with this case, for instance, that John O'Keefe had a pneumatic cannon?
DR. WOLFE: No.
MR. JACKSON: Okay. So obviously -- well, let me ask it a different way. Based on this series of tests, were you concluding that the damage on the taillight conclusively was the product of a glass being hurled into the taillight?
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: Sustained.
MR. JACKSON: Were you concluding or did you opine that the damage to the taillight came from a drinking glass?
DR. WOLFE: No, I gave an opinion that the damage was generally consistent with that in the test compared to the subject taillight.
MR. JACKSON: But only in the circumstance where the glass is being hurled at 37 miles an hour, correct?
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: Sustained. You can ask it differently, Mr. Jackson.
MR. JACKSON: Under what circumstances did you determine it was consistent with a drinking glass?
DR. WOLFE: If that drinking glass -- again, the purpose of the test was to do a test to evaluate or simulating somebody throwing a drinking glass at the taillight, so that's what that test was to demonstrate.
MR. JACKSON: Understood. Let's turn to another test that you undertook regarding the head injuries that you became aware of. Did you become aware of in the data that you received that Mr. O'Keefe had suffered head injuries to the back of his skull?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: What sort of testing did you do to determine whether or not and under what circumstances that head injury may be connected or associated with the damage to the taillight?
DR. WOLFE: We performed a drop test with a hybrid three. So that's an instrumented anthropomorphic test device to be able to measure the accelerations on a head form and observe the damage to and impact to the taillight.
MR. JACKSON: What is an ATD, anthropomorphic test device?
DR. WOLFE: So it's a device that's commonly used in our field and it's certainly approved by the federal government to evaluate crash forces in occupant kinematics or I should say occupied crash forces. So it's a device that reconstructionists and biomechanists typically use or commonly use to be able to evaluate, like I said, whether it's forces in a motor vehicle, or let's say you have something being dropped on somebody's head or an impact to somebody's body part, right, you can use that instrumented dummy to evaluate and measure the acceleration and the forces.
MR. JACKSON: Another word or another phrase often used in association with ATD devices are crash test dummies, correct?
DR. WOLFE: Correct, yes.
MR. JACKSON: Why was it important to do a drop test?
DR. WOLFE: So we wanted to have an understanding based upon the fact that Mr. John O'Keefe had a skull fracture to the back of his head whether or not an impact, a direct impact between the taillight and the back of his head could have caused that skull fracture.
MR. JACKSON: What did your testing indicate?
DR. WOLFE: When we did the test, the impact to the taillight was at 15 miles per hour, and we observed that the damage to that taillight was significantly more than the subject taillight at the 15 mile an hour speed. Furthermore, it did not generate, according to my colleague, Dr. Rentschler, enough forces to cause a skull fracture.
MR. JACKSON: So ultimately, what was your conclusion related to the taillight potentially striking John O'Keefe in the head at above 15 miles an hour?
DR. WOLFE: From a damage perspective, it was inconsistent.
MR. JACKSON: Inconsistent?
DR. WOLFE: Correct, inconsistent.
MR. JACKSON: Did you consider temperature and control over temperature in your testing?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Why is that important?
DR. WOLFE: Well, that will affect how that -- you know, we've talked a lot about that acrylic material of the lens. That will certainly affect how it fractures, so we absolutely control the temperature during these tests.
MR. JACKSON: How do you control the temperature?
DR. WOLFE: So we have them sit overnight in chest freezers to get them to the desired temperature, which for our original set of testing was at 28 degrees Fahrenheit. We then rapidly move them to our test picture, and then they were fired almost immediately after that.
MR. JACKSON: And when you're talking about them, you're talking about exemplar taillights?
DR. WOLFE: Correct, yes.
MR. JACKSON: Are those exact replica taillights that you would find on the 2021 Lexus SUV?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: After your testimony in the first proceeding last year in the spring of 2024, were you ultimately contacted by the defense in this case?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: When were you contacted by the defense?
DR. WOLFE: I know that I had reached out to you I believe it was in February of this year because I think I saw some things in the media and was just wondering what was going on.
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: Sustained. Just when, is there a date, Dr. Wolfe?
DR. WOLFE: I don't know if I can give a specific date. If I had to estimate, sometime in February or March, probably.
MR. JACKSON: Were you still under contract with the other entity that hired you?
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: Sustained.
MR. JACKSON: At some point, you and I spoke, correct?
DR. WOLFE: Correct.
MR. JACKSON: And that was you believe it was February of 2025?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Had we spoken at all between the end of your testimony proceeding last year and February of 2025?
DR. WOLFE: No, that was the first time.
MR. JACKSON: Did I ask you anything about retaining you?
DR. WOLFE: Not at that time, no.
MR. JACKSON: At some point, subsequent to that initial discussion in February of 2025, did we have another discussion about the potential of retainment?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Tell me about that. When was that?
DR. WOLFE: From what I recall, it was sometime in March, and we were trying to figure out --
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: Sustained. Next question, please.
MR. JACKSON: Did I ask you if you were available to be retained by the defense?
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: Sustained.
MR. JACKSON: May we approach?
JUDGE CANNONE: Okay.
(Sidebar commences:
MR. JACKSON: I'd like to know what the objection is, and then I'll respond.
JUDGE CANNONE: No, you asked to approach. So do you want to --
MR. JACKSON: Because I have to be able to get into the fact that we retained them and that we couldn't retain them, and part of our communications were we sought to retain them. They said we could not. We waited for probably a month while they overcame the impediments to ascertaining them, and ultimately, we retained them in March, the end of March of 2025, to undertake additional testing in this case based on Dr. Welcher's testing and conclusions.
JUDGE CANNONE: What do you say?
MR. BRENNAN: The defense has now portrayed themselves as totally separate from ARCCA until March of this year. It overlooks the fact that they paid the bill last year. It overlooks the fact that there was a number of communications last year, that there was communications between the Department of Justice and these witnesses violating the sequestration order last year, that they had an unfair advantage when they were testimony because they knew about the testimony in this case. it also overlooks the fact that there were ongoing communications with the defense during trial preparation last year. So it's now been repeated a number of times that it's clear for the jury that they were not initially retained by the defense, they didn't communicate with the defense after the last trial, and they were recently retained by the defense. And so now, it goes to -- it's improper to put that out, and I have to consider how much of that I'm going to attempt to get into to remedy the characterizations made of their relationship.
JUDGE CANNONE: All right. So --
MR. BRENNAN: And it's going down a very collateral road that's now necessary to encroach on.
JUDGE CANNONE: So all of that is subject for cross- examination. The problem I have, and I actually thought Mr. Alessi was going to do this cross, because you're not testifying, Mr. Jackson. The conversation you had me. I asked you this. You did that. So that's improper. I'm not going to let that happen, and I am not letting you get into that the -- I want you to stop saying the other entity that hired you. Just the other entity. You're getting awfully close to what I've prohibited regarding the feds. So I'm not going to let you get into it. They were prohibited from contacting you and all that. Just move on.
MR. JACKSON: I'm not attempting to undercut the Court's order. I've come no where near indicating how hired them, but obviously it's an open question that I had to answer. They got hired by somebody, Your Honor, and I --
JUDGE CANNONE: And you got in that he was hired by you or you were hired -- you hired him in March. That's it. End of it. And if you think it's brought up in cross, to come back to me beforehand before you do it.
MR. JACKSON: I will.
JUDGE CANNONE: But not now. He's your own witness. You can't bolster his own credibility. And no getting into the federal investigation. It's getting very close.
MR. JACKSON: Okay.
end of sidebar.)
MR. JACKSON: May I inquire?
JUDGE CANNONE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Thank you.
MR. JACKSON: Okay. Dr. Wolfe, so ultimately in March of 2025, were you hired by the defense?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Okay. Were you asked to do anything or to review anything from the Commonwealth and any of their experts in relation to testing that was undertaken by them regarding the Lexus and Mr. O'Keefe?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: What were you asked to do?
DR. WOLFE: My understanding is that we were asked to review and evaluate the report and analysis conducted by Dr. Welcher.
MR. JACKSON: Did you receive Dr. Welcher's reports?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Did you receive his raw data?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Did you receive his 140 plus page PowerPoint?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: And did you undertake a review of all of that data in order to evaluate that data?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: What methodology did you undertake at that juncture, before you began any testing, just your review process, what methodology did you undertake in terms of your review of his evaluations and his opinions and conclusions?
DR. WOLFE: Well, I think when reviewing his report and his analysis, I looked to his opinions and then I looked to what's the basis in the foundation to those opinions, right, how did he ultimately arrive at those final conclusions. I'm looking for the methodologies that he followed, what testing did he do, what types of experiments, what type of data analysis ultimately to provide that opinion.
MR. JACKSON: Ultimately, did you prepare a PowerPoint presentation in furtherance of memorializing your review and opinions and conclusions of his evaluation in testifying?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Did you bring that with you today?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Do you have that with you on your computer or are we --
DR. WOLFE: It's on this computer up here.
MR. JACKSON: With the Court's permission, could Dr. Wolfe present his PowerPoint presentation?
JUDGE CANNONE: Okay.
MR. JACKSON: Your Honor, I have a thumb drive that I can -- can we have this marked?
JUDGE CANNONE: Yes. Is this coming into evidence?
MR. BRENNAN: I'm agreeing as a demonstrative aid, not evidence.
JUDGE CANNONE: All right. So we'll mark it for identification.
MR. JACKSON: We'll mark it for identification for the time being and discuss it. Thank you, Your Honor.
(Whereupon Exhibit VVV, ARCCA PowerPoint Report on Thumb drive, was marked for identification.)
MR. JACKSON: May I proceed, Your Honor?
JUDGE CANNONE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Dr. Wolfe, do you see what's displayed or presented up on the TV screen?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: All right. Do you have with you, by the way just a matter of housekeeping, something called a spotlight?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Something we can do whatever spotlight, that?
DR. WOLFE: Correct, yes.
MR. JACKSON: I may me ask you to employ that. I may take it from you at some point as we're discussing this. Do you recognize what's on the screen?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: What is this?
DR. WOLFE: This is my PowerPoint with just the first page the title.
MR. JACKSON: If we could move to the next slide, please.
MR. JACKSON: Describe what we're looking at in this slide?
DR. WOLFE: This is from Dr. Welcher's PowerPoint presentation, slide 121, which he's indicating that there are lacerations on John O'Keefe's right arm and forearm, and he's indicating in this slide that the location and orientation of the lacerations on John O'Keefe's right arm and forearm are consistent with the geometry and orientation of the right rear taillight of the Read 2021 Lexus LX570.
MR. JACKSON: In coming to your opinions and conclusions, and I know this is a mouthful, did you consider the opinions and conclusions of Dr. Welcher in conducting your analysis and your ultimate testing?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Did you rely on Dr. Welcher's report and his PowerPoint in reaching your conclusion and opinions ultimately in this case?
DR. WOLFE: I don't know that I relied on them. Certainly, I utilized them to have an understanding of what his basis was for his opinion and what his opinion was. Ultimately at ARCCA, we did our own independent testing to evaluate that.
MR. JACKSON: So just be clear, I'm not asking, Dr. Wolfe, if you agree with his opinions and conclusions, I'm simply asking did you rely on those in order come to your opinions and conclusions?
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
MR. JACKSON: And did you incorporate them?
MR. BRENNAN: Sorry. Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: Sustained as to form.
MR. JACKSON: Did you agree, ultimately, with Dr. Welcher's ultimately conclusions?
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: Sustained.
MR. JACKSON: You certainly were aware of what his opinions and conclusions were, correct?
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: Move along, Mr. Jackson.
MR. JACKSON: Were you aware of Dr. Welcher's opinions and conclusions?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Are some of those opinions and conclusions represented in your PowerPoint?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Are some of them represented on the slide of the PowerPoint?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: You indicated that this slide indicates that the location and orientation of the lacerations of John O'Keefe's right forearm are consistent with the geometry and orientation of the right rear taillight, correct?
DR. WOLFE: Correct.
MR. JACKSON: Are the injuries to John O'Keefe's arm lacerations?
DR. WOLFE: That would be an opinion for my colleague Dr. Rentschler.
MR. JACKSON: Did you ever hear the phrase abrasion?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: In your opinion, are the injuries to John O'Keefe's right arm described -- better described as lacerations or abrasions?
DR. WOLFE: I don't have an opinion on that.
MR. JACKSON: Okay. Slide number two, please. Based on your review of Dr. Welcher's reports and his data, what testing did Dr. Welcher undertake or conduct?
DR. WOLFE: So he did -- initially, it appeared he did a static test, if you will, just demonstrating holding his right arm out adjacent to the rear taillights on the right side of an exemplar Lexus to demonstrate his theory of how the arm contacted the taillight.
MR. JACKSON: What is a static testing?
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: So I'm sustaining that. Ask it differently, Mr. Jackson.
MR. BRENNAN: I move to strike that answer.
JUDGE CANNONE: I'm going to strike that.
MR. JACKSON: What testing did you note that Dr. Welcher did with regard to this particular photograph? What is a static test?
DR. WOLFE: Well, in a static test, neither the arm or the vehicle is moving. It's just he's -- he's aligning his right arm adjacent to show how his arm aligns to the geometry and the dimensions of the Lexus.
MR. JACKSON: Did Dr. Welcher appear to be wearing similar clothing as John O'Keefe was wearing on January 29, 2022?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Is there any significance or purpose for that in your opinion?
DR. WOLFE: In this test, no.
MR. JACKSON: Did you identify any limitations with regard to this sort of testing undertaken by Dr. Welcher?
DR. WOLFE: Well, it's very basic in that the only thing that this demonstrates is that you can get your right arm to align with the taillight. Beyond that, it doesn't tell you anything with respect to what happens to the arm when it makes contact with the taillight, right? What's the motion of the arm? What's the damage to the taillight? What's the acceleration of the arm? What's the forces of the arm? So it doesn't answer any of those other questions. The only question it answers is does the arm align with the taillight.
MR. JACKSON: You're aware that John O'Keefe was six-one, correct?
DR. WOLFE: Correct.
MR. JACKSON: Is the only person -- let me ask it a different way. Can only a six-foot-one person align their arm with the taillight?
DR. WOLFE: No, the arm is adjustable so certainly people of different heights could also meet that alignment as well.
MR. JACKSON: Just by bending your arm a little bit, right?
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: Sustained.
MR. JACKSON: How would you describe the ability of somebody by five- foot-seven or six-foot-three being able to align their arm with the taillight?
DR. WOLFE: Just changing the orientation and the posture of your arm.
MR. JACKSON: Is there any scientific significance in your opinion of this particular test?
DR. WOLFE: Again, other than just demonstrating that it aligns with it, no, nothing beyond that.
MR. JACKSON: Next slide, please. What are we looking at here?
DR. WOLFE: So this is an extracted frame from one of his dynamic tests in which the vehicle is moving at about two miles per hour into his arm, making contact with his hand, his forearm, and his elbow.
MR. JACKSON: What is a dynamic test as it relates to a static test?
DR. WOLFE: So that's when something is in motion, and in this instance, it's the Lexus moving at about two miles per hour into his arm.
MR. JACKSON: Did Dr. Welcher explain what the purpose of this test was?
DR. WOLFE: From what I recall, I think it was to demonstrate that when his arm makes contact with the taillight, he observed paint transfer in the general location that there were the abrasions or the lacerations on his arm.
MR. JACKSON: Did he appear to paint the taillight?
DR. WOLFE: He did, yes.
MR. JACKSON: You see that Dr. Welcher appears to be wearing an orange T-shirt?
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: Sustained.
MR. JACKSON: What is he wearing?
DR. WOLFE: It appears to be an orange T-shirt.
MR. JACKSON: Is that similar to what was described as being -- as John O'Keefe having worn that night on July -- I'm sorry -- on January 29, 2022?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Is there any significance to wearing that T-shirt?
DR. WOLFE: Not that I can think of, no.
MR. JACKSON: Did you know any or identify any shortcomings with this particular test?
DR. WOLFE: Well, much like the static test, again, it leaves the door open to all those questions, right, about, again, doing this at two miles an hour doesn't tell you anything about what happens at ten, what happens at fifteen, what happens at twenty, right, in terms of what are the collision forces, what's the damage, how does the arm move, what would the expected injuries be, right. This dynamic test as well as the static test doesn't answer any of those questions for us.
MR. JACKSON: Is this test from Dr. Welcher considered a force calculation?
DR. WOLFE: I'm not aware of him making any type of force calculations or measuring accelerations or anything of that nature, no.
MR. JACKSON: Did Dr. Welcher conduct any testing to determine whether the damage to Ms. Read's Lexus was consistent with the striking of an arm of a pedestrian?
DR. WOLFE: I'm not aware of any impact testing that he did, no.
MR. JACKSON: Did Dr. Welcher conduct any testing to determine the forces necessary to cause the damage to the taillight of Ms. Read's vehicle?
DR. WOLFE: Not that I'm aware of, no.
MR. JACKSON: Did Dr. Welcher conduct any testing to determine the forces necessary to cause the injuries to John O'Keefe's arm?
DR. WOLFE: No, not that I'm aware of.
MR. JACKSON: Did Dr. Welcher provide any opinions as it relates to the speed of the subject Lexus at the time of the alleged incident?
DR. WOLFE: No, from reviewing his report and his PowerPoint and analysis, I could not find anywhere in it a specified speed or even a range of speeds.
MR. JACKSON: Did Dr. Welcher provide any opinion as it relates to the forces experienced by the taillight in such an impact.
DR. WOLFE: Not that I'm aware of, no.
MR. JACKSON: Did Dr. Welcher provide any opinion at all as it relates to the post-impact trajectory or movement, if you will, of John O'Keefe's mass or his body subsequent to the alleged impact?
DR. WOLFE: No, not that I'm aware of.
MR. JACKSON: Next slide, please.
MR. JACKSON: Do you recognize this photograph?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: What is this?
DR. WOLFE: So this is something that you've probably heard and certainly I've discussed already, but this is looking at the right rear corner of the subject Lexus specifically in the area of the damaged right taillight.
MR. JACKSON: Did you consider this photograph when coming to your opinions and conclusions?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: What, if anything, of significance did you note on this taillight other than the fact that it's damaged?
DR. WOLFE: Well, I'm going to jump to the next slide if you will. So this is -- now the taillight has obviously been removed from the vehicle. So obviously what's important here is looking at what is the damage that we have to this taillight, what components were damaged in this alleged interaction. So we're looking at the clear diffuser at the bottom it's fractured and missing, same with the ones on the vertical side. The majority of the outer red lens is also missing and fractured. And then on the backside, we also have some damage in terms of some fracturing to that black plastic, and there's also a chunk of plastic missing on the top portion of the taillight as well.
MR. JACKSON: I want to ask you a couple of questions about that diffuser. If I can focus your attention on this area
(indicating). Describe for the jurors what they're looking at in terms of the diffuser. What is a diffuser?
DR. WOLFE: Right. Let me see if this -- so the diffuser is -- right where my mouse is, there's a clear diffuser that runs along the bottom, and then there's another diffuser that runs along here, and then it also goes up vertically. Same here on the bottom one. That also goes up vertically. So this piece was missing and fractured on the bottom along with the vertical portion. The chrome piece here you can see is also fractured and damaged and then the kind of the second tier, if you will, that clear diffuser was also fractured and broken on the upper section as well.
MR. JACKSON: Was that of significance to you in your review of the damage to the taillight?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Why?
DR. WOLFE: Well, because that tells me that we have to have enough force and energy to break -- now we talked about earlier that 5 millimeter thick red outer lens. You have to have enough force to be able to get beyond that to now start penetrating into the interior components of the taillight to get to, again, those clear diffusers, and certainly cause damage to it and get induced out of the back end of the taillight as well.
MR. JACKSON: May I have just a moment?
JUDGE CANNONE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Dr. Wolfe, did you bring with you an undamaged taillight exemplar?
DR. WOLFE: Yes. It's up here with me.
MR. JACKSON: It's up there?
DR. WOLFE: Yep.
MR. JACKSON: Describe what it is that you brought with you?
DR. WOLFE: So I brought a two-part assembly. So what I did is I three D printed a bracket so that I could mount the liftgate taillight assembly as well as the quarter panel taillight assembly.
MR. JACKSON: And these are undamaged and sort of manufacturers specs, correct?
DR. WOLFE: Correct, yes.
MR. JACKSON: May I have just a moment, Your Honor?
JUDGE CANNONE: Okay.
MR. JACKSON: Do you have it with you at the witness stand?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Could you retrieve that with the Court's permission?
JUDGE CANNONE: Okay.
MR. JACKSON: Could you remain standing for just a quick second. Do you recognize what this is?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Is that what you just described?
DR. WOLFE: Correct, yes.
MR. JACKSON: Describe it one more time for the Court, and the jury what is it that we're looking at over here?
DR. WOLFE: So this is an exemplar set of taillights from a 2021 Lexus LX570. On my left side here, this is the liftgate taillight assembly, and it's attached to the corner panel taillight assembly. I will note it's not normally like that. Obviously, you can have it connect or else you wouldn't be able to open the liftgate, but I've created a bracket back here so that these can remain as one unit.
MR. JACKSON: Your Honor, with the Court's permission, I'd like to have that marked as next in order.
JUDGE CANNONE: Is that coming into evidence?
MR. JACKSON: Yes, if possible.
MR. BRENNAN: No objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: So how --
MR. JACKSON: May I approach?
JUDGE CANNONE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: This might be clunky. Thank you. If we could just have the tag perhaps put somewhere on maybe the liftgate side?
JUDGE CANNONE: And is Dr. Wolfe going to use it for his testimony now?
MR. JACKSON: He is.
JUDGE CANNONE: Fair enough.
(Whereupon Exhibit No. 215, Exemplar, was marked as an exhibit.)
MR. JACKSON: May I?
JUDGE CANNONE: Okay.
MR. JACKSON: Thank you.
MR. JACKSON: Dr. Wolfe, you indicated that there was a 5 millimeter area of acrylic covering the diffusers, correct?
DR. WOLFE: Correct.
MR. JACKSON: What I'm knocking on, is that the 5 millimeter acrylic?
DR. WOLFE: Yes, both on the corner panel part that you pointed to as well as the liftgate part.
JUDGE CANNONE: Mr. Jackson, why don't we give that back to the witness and they can do it standing.
MR. JACKSON: Sure.
MR. JACKSON: Is there -- can you see through that lens material into the diffuser that you've just been describing?
DR. WOLFE: Yes, so as I mentioned earlier, this area here there is a diffuser that is running along the bottom.
JUDGE CANNONE: So, Dr. Wolfe, I'm going to ask you to not have that so close to the court reporter's head.
DR. WOLFE: Oh, I apologize.
JUDGE CANNONE: Use the other side of the witness stand, please.
DR. WOLFE: Yes, Your Honor.
MR. JACKSON: So along the bottom, is that clear diffuser that runs along and goes up vertically, then on the second tier, there's also a clear diffuser that runs along here that goes up vertically. You might be able to see it through -- it kind of looks like there's little dots on it, so that's what I'm referring to in terms of the diffuser that's underneath that. Again, so you have that outer material that's 5 millimeters roughly in thickness, and then those diffusers or about 3 millimeters thickness underneath this.
MR. JACKSON: Could you make a determination -- and you can go ahead and have a seat. Well, actually you may not want to. Could you make a determination of the space, the gap, between the outer plasticine area, the outer acrylic area, and the internal diffusers, could you just estimate that gap?
DR. WOLFE: If I could estimate, I'd probably estimate around an inch, maybe an inch and a half.
MR. JACKSON: Okay. You indicated that something was of significance to you in this photograph about the diffusers on the subject taillight, correct?
DR. WOLFE: Correct.
MR. JACKSON: Describe now that you're holding that, what was it was of note to you, Dr. Wolfe?
DR. WOLFE: So as I mentioned, we have damage not only to this outer thick portion, but it was enough force and energy to then penetrate deep enough to fracture the underlying diffusers that sit below this outer surface, and certainly enough force then to work its way back through inducement into the backside and ultimately there was a top portion of the taillight that was also fractured up here.
MR. JACKSON: Was all that significant to you in your review of the subject taillight material?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: You can go ahead and put that down.
JUDGE CANNONE: All right. So that can't go back there because it's in evidence. So why don't we take it and --
MR. JACKSON: I was just going to store it there until he's finished with his testimony.
JUDGE CANNONE: Do you want to take it? Is he using it still for his testimony?
(Clerk McDermott retrieves exhibit.)
MR. JACKSON: May I continue?
JUDGE CANNONE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Can we go to the next slide?
DR. WOLFE: What are we looking at here? A This is a collection of photographs that depict various fragments from the right rear tail lamp assembly of the Lexus, and I will note that -- I'll try to spotlight it. There are a few fragments of this photograph that are glass fragments which as I discussed earlier there is no glass in the taillight so these did not originate from the assembly, but altogether from what I recall, there's about 50 fragments I believe that were counted or so, maybe a little less than that from the right taillight.
MR. JACKSON: And we could go to the next slide, please. What are we looking at here?
DR. WOLFE: So these are photographs depicting the sweatshirt or hoodie that Mr. John O'Keefe was wearing on the night of the alleged incident.
MR. JACKSON: And what was the role that this played in your analysis ultimately?
DR. WOLFE: Well, so one of the things that I noted, and I can go to the next slide, is there were a series of small puncture or holes in the sleeve, on the right sleeve, of the sweatshirt in varying sizes. I think some as small as just a few millimeters. Again, I think there was ten or twelve I think I recall on the right sleeve of that sweatshirt.
MR. JACKSON: If we could go back to the larger paragraph with the previous slide. Do you see the right sleeve, do you note it on the photograph to the right?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Your review of these photographs, what was the significance of the triangular sort of arrows or markers?
DR. WOLFE: I believe those were to annotate or draw attention to those holes.
MR. JACKSON: Okay. The defects in the right sleeve?
DR. WOLFE: Correct.
MR. JACKSON: Can you count those for us, please?
DR. WOLFE: On the photograph on the right I believe I see a total of nine.
MR. JACKSON: And what about the photograph on the left, just the right sleeve area?
DR. WOLFE: Nine as well.
MR. JACKSON: If we could go to the next slide. What are the arrows pointing to in these photographs?
DR. WOLFE: So this is basically the previous shot but what appears to be close ups of some of those evidence markers.
MR. JACKSON: You indicated some of the sizes. What were some of the smaller sizes of those defects, please.
DR. WOLFE: From what I recall, like I said I think it was around 3 to 5 millimeters, maybe some of the smaller ones.
MR. JACKSON: How big is 3 millimeters in inches?
DR. WOLFE: It would probably be around -- probably around like an eighth of an inch or so.
MR. JACKSON: Can we go to the next slide, please?
MR. JACKSON: What do you describe when you say the word fundamental or you write the word fundamental?
DR. WOLFE: So I want to discuss some very basic concepts that I hope will kind of resonate as we go through the PowerPoint, so that you have an understanding of the underlying physics and what I'm talking about.
MR. JACKSON: Can you go ahead and describe the role of an accident reconstructionist and the fundamentals that an accident reconstructionist undertakes in performing the kind of testing you performed?
DR. WOLFE: So as I mentioned earlier, you know, when I was describing what a simple definition of accident reconstruction is, it's the application of physics and engineering to collision events. So this is -- I want to go through some very basic elements of that so that you have an understanding of the physics.
MR. JACKSON: Can you go to the next slide, please. What are we looking at here?
DR. WOLFE: So this might be something you all remember back from high school physics, but even though it's been around since the late 1600s, we still use these laws today. So what we're looking at here is what I just described Newton's laws very simply. And again, you might be familiar with these. So, for instance, if we're talking about Newton's first law, an object at rest tends to stay at rest and at a constant speed unless it's acted on by an outside force. Right. So if my arm is just here (demonstrating) it's just going to stay there until I give it a push or a pull, right? When I do that, that's going to induce an acceleration, right? So that's when we get into Newton's law where if I apply a force to a mass, I'm going to cause it to change its speed. It's going to accelerate. And then Newton's third law, basically the law of reaction indicates that when I push on my arm, there's also an equal and opposite force going back to my hand that I'm pushing with.
MR. JACKSON: What role did these three very fundamental laws of physics play in your reconstruction or your ultimate opinions and conclusions following your accident reconstruction in this case?
DR. WOLFE: So when we're talking about the concept of acceleration, what you will see in the dynamic test that we did and conducted, we measured the acceleration of an arm when it's impacted by a taillight. If we know the mass of the arm, and we've measured the acceleration, we can use Newton's second law, which is force is equal to mass times the acceleration to calculate what that force is applied on the arm, which ultimately you will hear from my colleague Dr. Rentschler to talk about that.
MR. JACKSON: Is that broadly considered a force analysis?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: What role did force analysis, your force analysis, play in the accident reconstruction that you did and undertook in this case?
DR. WOLFE: Well, there's certainly going to be a correlation between the impact speed and the damage that we see. The higher the impact speed, the greater the force. So from my perspective, I was interested in the speed and the force to look at what's the observed damage to the test taillights we did.
MR. JACKSON: Do you think that's fundamental to an accident reconstruction?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Dr. Welcher engage in any force analysis with regard to John O'Keefe's arm and the taillight?
DR. WOLFE: Not that I'm aware of, no.
MR. JACKSON: Let's move to the slide. What are we looking at here?
DR. WOLFE: So don't be too afraid. This is some really simply equations that I want to show you. So that first one, Delta-V, so what do I mean by that? That simply just means you can think of Delta changing, so change in velocity. So if you look at that equation, the change in velocity really simple. If I've got an object that's let's say it's initially for what V knot is initially at zero miles per hour. I hit it, and it's now moving ten miles per hour. That means it underwent a change in speed of ten miles on hour and is moving at that velocity. Acceleration is essentially how quickly did that velocity change occur. Right. Did it go from tan miles an hour in a split second or did it go to tan miles an hour over a few seconds. So depending on the timing of that, right, how quickly that change in velocity occurred will determine what the acceleration is? And as I've already mentioned on the previous slide with Newton's second law, we can then take that information about acceleration and apply it to if we have a known mass to calculate what the force on that object is.
MR. JACKSON: How did these math questions Delta-V, acceleration, force, how do these play into what role do they play in terms of the accident reconstruction here in this case?
DR. WOLFE: Well, they're extremely fundamental, and I think as we go through the PowerPoint, you'll have an appreciation and understanding of what these concepts are. You'll see that I have plotted graphs with acceleration that shows the rate in that change in speed over time. You will see graphs of Delta-V. So the change in speed of the arm as it's being impacted by the taillight, and then ultimately we can calculate the force of that impact to be able to assess whether or not there's a mechanism for the injuries, and as I mentioned, that will be in my colleague Dr. Rentschler that will discuss that.
MR. JACKSON: Can I ask you about Delta-V, specifically? If I can focus on that for a second; is that okay?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: When you say that that equation suggests or dictates that an object that is struck by another object with mass moves up to the same speed of the object that struck it, describe that in a little bit more detail in colloquial terms if you will, sixth grade terms?
DR. WOLFE: I'm sorry. Can you rephrase the question?
MR. JACKSON: Probably not. Because I don't understand as well as you do. If an object -- does Delta-V describe the circumstances in which you have an object that may be at rest, and it's struck by another object moving. Is that calculating the speed at which the object that has struck moves to the same speed as the object striking it?
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: So that's sustained. Just asking a simple question and let him answer it.
MR. JACKSON: Easier said than done, Your Honor. Sure.
MR. JACKSON: Can you describe in more what conversational terms what Delta-V is describing in terms of mathematics?
DR. WOLFE: Right. So let's just give an example specific to this case. If an arm -- if the majority of the arm is struck by a 6,000 pound vehicle moving let's say at 20 miles an hour, that arm will experience a change in speed. It will go from zero up to about 20 miles an hour due to that impact. So that would be the change in speed. If my arm is at rest, stationery, is impacted by a 6,000 pound vehicle, it's going to change its speed up to roughly what that impact speed is.
MR. JACKSON: And what about acceleration? What are you describing or what is math or physics describing in that equation in terms of the time it takes for that arm to now move from zero to twenty?
DR. WOLFE: Right. So that's how quickly that change in speed is occurring. So to give you maybe an example you're more familiar with. Let's say you're driving down the road, you come up, you see a red light at the intersection, right? You're going to get on the brakes slightly, and your vehicle is going to change in speed, right, it's going to slowly decelerate. Let's say you're driving and a deer jumps out in front of you, you got to slam on the brakes, right. You're going to change your speed much quicker, so that's an example of two different rates of acceleration - one where you're mildly breaking, right, you're going to coast down slowly, versus a sudden, you know, emergency in front of you like a deer, you're going to slam on the brakes, and your speed change is going to be much -- it's going to happen much quicker with that acceleration rate.
MR. JACKSON: Are there circumstances in which the acceleration can be from zero to say twenty miles an hour in milliseconds?
DR. WOLFE: Yes, when we're talking about impact durations, especially of this nature, yes, they're not going to be -- we're not talking about the impact occurring over a second, two seconds. That's extremely long. Even a duration of a couple hundred milliseconds, in the context of this, is considered long.
MR. JACKSON: And then of course, the force calculation is associated with the Delta-V and acceleration calculations; is that right?
DR. WOLFE: Correct, yes.
MR. JACKSON: In what way? What are we looking at in terms of a little more complex calculation?
DR. WOLFE: Absolutely. So if you look at the bottom equation there where I have force is equal to mass, and then that top component is the change in speed, right, that Delta-V, V1 minus V knot divided by the change in time, T1 minus T knot. So if you substitute in that equation, right, that's Delta-V over Delta T which is acceleration. So there's a relationship between all of these equations.
MR. JACKSON: And do all of these equations or did all of these equations assist you in coming to determinations, opinions, and conclusions concerning this case?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Are these normally accepted methodologies in determining Delta-V, acceleration, force, you got all the force dynamics or impact dynamics in an accident reconstruction?
DR. WOLFE: Absolutely. They are the core of physics.
MR. JACKSON: Can we go to next slide, please. What are we looking at here? The scientific method, what does that mean?
DR. WOLFE: So the scientific method is a process that scientists typically use to be able to reach conclusions. And so you can think about it in this case, we make an observation, right, we have injuries to the arm. We've got a damaged taillight. So let's try to do some research to figure out, okay, has anyone done testing with that, right, has anyone hit an arm with a taillight to see what happens, to see what the forces are, right. And then we start to make a hypothesis, right. So what happens it's kind of an if/then statement. If the arm contacts the taillight, does the taillight break, does it not break, right, what's hypothesis there. And at least my understanding of reviewing Dr. Welcher's report, it appeared to be that his hypothesis --
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: Sustained. Next question.
MR. JACKSON: Sure.
MR. JACKSON: Did you review. Well, let me ask you a different question. Going back to the calculations previously, the Delta-V, the acceleration, the force calculations that you described to the jury, did you see anywhere in any of Dr. Welcher's reports or his data that he undertook those core calculations?
DR. WOLFE: No.
MR. JACKSON: With regard to the scientific method, did you see whether or not Dr. Welcher followed this scientific method as you're explaining it to the jury?
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: Sustained.
MR. JACKSON: What did you know or what opinions or conclusions did you come to about the scientific method, if any, that Dr. Welcher did or did not obtain?
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: Sustained.
MR. JACKSON: Did you review Dr. Welcher's entire database, in other words all the reports, all the raw data, his PowerPoint?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Did he ever take the scientific method that you know of?
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: So that's sustained.
MR. JACKSON: Continue to describe the scientific method as you know it and you employed it?
DR. WOLFE: Certainly. So again, from reviewing Dr. Welcher's report, he indicated --
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: That's sustained. Let me see you at the sidebar.
(Sidebar commences:
JUDGE CANNONE: All right. Go ahead.
MR. BRENNAN: Yes. These are continuous comments on the credibility of another witness, and they're in the abstract, so they're not accurate. It's misleading. To continually to suggest there's a way to do what Dr. Welcher didn't do that is just opining on his opinion and credibility.
JUDGE CANNONE: So last time --
MR. JACKSON: It's not.
JUDGE CANNONE: -- talk about -- have him comment on the science, not the person. What he saw, what was done, and you all of this is for argument.
MR. JACKSON: Your Honor, that's not true. That's not true. The Commonwealth called Dr. Burgess -- I'm sorry Dr. Burgess. Shanon Burgess to the stand and literally went through Mr. DiSogra's entire PowerPoint and did the exact same thing because he was undertaking an evaluation of Mr. DiSogra's determinations. That's exactly why this witness was called. They put on their case. I'm entitled to call a witness to evaluate whether they did or did not follow the normal scientific protocols undertaken by most people in accident reconstruction.
JUDGE CANNONE: So --
MR. JACKSON: He's not talking about and if I could finish. He's not commenting on his credibility. He's commenting on the work he did or didn't do. That has to be allowed. That's basic.
JUDGE CANNONE: So it doesn't have to be allowed.
MR. JACKSON: It's basic.
JUDGE CANNONE: So he can talk about the science and what he saw. You can argue what he did or didn't do. He brought up DiSogra the last time. There was this objection by the Commonwealth. I don't recall they're being an objection like this to DiSogra. So I told Mr. Alessi on the last witness, the science and the data, what was done, not what the person did.
MR. JACKSON: Well, I --
JUDGE CANNONE: What he saw.
MR. JACKSON: Much of his -- what he saw in Dr. Welcher's evaluations?
JUDGE CANNONE: Compare the science. Compare the science and the testing.
MR. JACKSON: That's why I'm asking.
JUDGE CANNONE: All right. You're saying did Dr. Welcher follow the scientific method. Not that. What he saw and what he didn't see, and then you can argue it.
MR. JACKSON: Okay. That's fine. I'll reform my questions.
end of sidebar.)
MR. JACKSON: Dr. Wolfe --
MR. JACKSON: May I inquire, Your Honor?
JUDGE CANNONE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Dr. Wolfe, where are we on the chart? I've lost my place.
DR. WOLFE: I think hypothesis.
MR. JACKSON: Let's describe, if you would, please, where what hypothesis -- what role hypothesis plays in the general science community?
DR. WOLFE: So, generally, like I said, it's an if/then statement. So if you make a statement if the arm contacts the taillight, then the taillight will shatter, right. So you want to do tests and experimentation and analyze that data to see whether you can accept or reject that hypothesis.
MR. JACKSON: And what's the next stage?
DR. WOLFE: So as I mentioned, after hypotheses, it's once you determine that, what your hypothesis is, you want to test with experimentation, analyze that data, and that's certainly may be an iterative process that you do multiple times to then be able to draw a conclusion from that analysis and testing.
MR. JACKSON: What's the next stage?
DR. WOLFE: To basically report those conclusions and findings.
MR. JACKSON: Why is it important to report those conclusions and findings?
DR. WOLFE: Well, I thinks so you can whether you can accept or reject the hypothesis that was put forward earlier.
MR. JACKSON: You have to -- do you have to analyze the data following the testing that you undertake?
DR. WOLFE: Yes, like I mentioned I think it's an iterative process because certainly you could do one test, and it may not be clear what the answer is to that point. So you may have to do an additional test to basically parametrically evaluate your hypotheses.
MR. JACKSON: Did you see this in -- well, let me ask you first. Did you undertake this scientific method with regard to your reconstruction and your testing in this case?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Did you observe this same scenario in Dr. Welcher's report?
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: Sustained as to that question, Mr. Jackson.
MR. JACKSON: Did you see this undertaken anywhere else?
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: Sustained.
MR. JACKSON: Did you look for testing in Dr. Welcher's evaluation, all of his data?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Did you find any?
DR. WOLFE: No.
MR. JACKSON: Other than the static blue paint test?
DR. WOLFE: That was the only test, correct.
MR. JACKSON: Did you find -- did you see any force dynamics testing?
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: That's leading, so you can put --
MR. JACKSON: Sure.
MR. JACKSON: What about the other testing? Anything else that we talked about? Did you see anything else done in Dr. Welcher's report?
DR. WOLFE: As it pertains to an analysis to the taillight and the damage and the forces, no.
MR. JACKSON: Let's move onto the next slide. Did you actually undertake testing in furtherance of the scientific method?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Let's move onto the next slide and you can describe what are we looking at. What are we looking at here?
DR. WOLFE: So you're looking at a test matrix of the various tests that we conducted at ARCCA. I could go through them one by one if you want.
MR. JACKSON: Let me ask you for foundationally, was your testing directed toward determining whether or not the scenario proposed in Dr. Welcher's report was consistent or inconsistent with what you opined, ultimately?
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: The objection is sustained.
MR. JACKSON: Was your testing specifically designed to determine whether the damage to Ms. Read's vehicle, to her Lexus, was consistent with the scenario that was proposed by Dr. Welcher?
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: That's sustained, too. Ask it differently, Mr. Jackson.
MR. JACKSON: What was your testing -- what were you engaged in in terms of your testing? What were you trying to find out?
DR. WOLFE: Well, I think it was to -- again, we talked earlier about hypothesis, right. My understanding Dr. Welcher indicated that the arm contained the taillight, but there was no analysis or testing to determine what's the expected outcome of that. What's the damage to the taillight --
MR. BRENNAN: I object. I move to strike.
JUDGE CANNONE: So you answered the first question. I'm striking that second part. Ask another question.
MR. JACKSON: Was there anything else?
DR. WOLFE: I think simply put, it's to find out what happens when you impact an arm with a Lexus taillight at various speeds. What happens.
MR. JACKSON: What was your standing of Dr. Welcher's hypothesis?
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: That's sustained.
MR. JACKSON: Did you have an understanding of Dr. Welcher's hypothesis?
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: That's sustained, too.
MR. JACKSON: Ultimately, what we were you trying to find out through your testing?
DR. WOLFE: As I mentioned, I think it was determined when you impact a taillight at 10 miles an hour, 15 miles now, 25 miles an hour? What happens to the taillight? What's the expected damage? What happens to a sweatshirt when it makes contact with that? What happens to the fragments? How does the arm move? What's the acceleration of the arm? Does it change the speed of the arm? I think certainly, as I mentioned my colleague Dr. Rentschler, will discuss what are the expected injuries on that type of impact.
MR. JACKSON: Did you see any of those questions answered in Dr. Welcher's report?
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: Ask it differently.
MR. JACKSON: What did you see in terms of Dr. Welcher's report as it relates to those types of questions?
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: That's sustained.
MR. JACKSON: Ultimately, did you undertaken a methodology to perform the testing to answer the questions that you just explained that are going to be asked before this jury?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Describe that, please.
DR. WOLFE: So we started out -- we kind of worked at this incrementally, right. We didn't start right off the bat with utilizing an exemplar Lexus, going right into an ADT or a test dummy. Right. We wanted to start in the laboratory to have an understanding what happens at a range of speeds, in this instance, the first two tests, between 10 and 17 miles per hour. Right. Like what happens -- what kind of damage do we observe. At 10 miles an hour, do we even break the light. At 17, what kind of damage do we get, what kind of accelerations do we get, and then we move up to full scale vehicle impact testing.
MR. JACKSON: Is that methodology that you just described generally accepted in the field of accident reconstruction in the broader field of engineering?
DR. WOLFE: Absolutely. Everything from utilizing instrument and test dummy to using an exemplar vehicle to all the data acquisition systems that we have in the laboratory as well as the vehicle, all of that is generally accepted techniques in the field of accident reconstruction to evaluate what we did in this case.
MR. JACKSON: And are those techniques also supported by peer- reviewed article and scientific literature related to accident reconstruction?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Did you rely on this methodology that you just described to render opinions and conclusions as it relates to this case?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Have you relied on that same methodology in rendering opinions and conclusions in other courts?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Let's go to the next slide, please. What are we looking at here?
DR. WOLFE: So we've gone over this before, but this is looking at the exemplar vehicle that we utilized for the latter part of our testing. You're looking at the, again, just annotating where the liftgate taillight is as well as the corner panel taillight.
MR. JACKSON: When you say exemplar vehicle, what is this SUV you're looking at?
DR. WOLFE: So it's the same year, make, and model of the subject vehicle. So it's a 2021 Lexus LX570. So it's the same weight, same geometry, same as the subject vehicle.
MR. JACKSON: Is this a picture off the Internet, or do you actually have access to this truck?
DR. WOLFE: We have access to that vehicle, yes.
MR. JACKSON: And, ultimately, what testing did you undertake specifically as it relates to this particular vehicle?
DR. WOLFE: We did full scale vehicle testing with the vehicle driving into an ATD arm as well as an ATD arm attached to a dummy, and then a full on impact to the test dummy.
MR. JACKSON: Did you assess the damage to the right taillight after these various tests?
DR. WOLFE: Yes, after all the tests.
MR. JACKSON: Did you assess the acceleration and quantified forces that were involved?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Did you assess the material and the textile damage to the clothed ATD?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Ultimately, did you conduct lab tests in an effort to answer some of these questions as well?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: And you've already mentioned this, but you utilized in your testing, your exemplar vehicle to the fullest extent that you felt necessary?
DR. WOLFE: Absolutely, yes.
MR. JACKSON: Were you hampered or hindered in any way in terms of damaging the vehicle or utilizing the vehicle anyway that you wished?
DR. WOLFE: No.
MR. JACKSON: Let's go to the next slide, please. What are tests A and B, what are those laboratory tests?
DR. WOLFE: So these were the initial two tests that we did to get an idea of starting to test this hypotheses. As I mentioned, we weren't sure at 10 miles an hour what would happen to the taillight. We wanted to see what would happen at 17 miles an hour with the arm. So again, just to evaluate from the starting point what happens in this interaction based upon how Dr. Welcher had his arm oriented in his PowerPoint analysis.
MR. JACKSON: Next slide, please. What is this?
DR. WOLFE: So you're looking at a photograph of our lab set up. You can see on the left side of that is our hybrid three anthropomorphic test device. To the right is a linear impactor, and this is something we already have in house that we built years ago for our testing that we do for the National Hockey League where we're look at, you know, what's the accelerations on an impact to a goalie wearing a helmet. Right. You use this same device for that type of testing to measure head acceleration. So we apply the same linear impactor to be able to project, if you will, or accelerate the taillight at a known speed into the ADT arm.
MR. JACKSON: What are some of the instrumentation that you use in addition to the mechanical impactor, what is some of the instrumentation that you use to track the data?
DR. WOLFE: Certainly. So you can see -- so at the top here, these -- there's a blue camera here. There's another blue camera here. So these are our high-speed cameras, and you'll see there's a bunch of lights around those high speeds, that's just because the frame rate is so high, and again it's only sampling for a very, very short amount of time, so you have to have a lot light when you do these high-speed tests. So we have the high-speed cameras running. We have an accelerometer mounted to the ATD arm here on the other side. So that's some of the instrumentation. There's also a couple of other cameras that we were documenting this overall.
MR. JACKSON: Can we go to the next slide, please. What are we looking at in these photographs?
DR. WOLFE: So this is looking at -- and not to be confused, this wasn't the arm position when the impact occurred. This is just showing you the set up. So on the left there's just kind of an overall shot, then on the right is right here (indicating) is the uniaxial accelerometer. So that is going to measure -- we talked about that term earlier, right, the acceleration, so that's going to measure how quickly is this arm changing its speed, right. What's the acceleration of the arm as it's impacted?
MR. JACKSON: Does that accelerometer put in motion some of the mathematical formulations that you talked about earlier?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Move to the next slide, please. Tell me about this -- these photographs.
DR. WOLFE: So the importance of this is more specifically looking at the right photograph here, it might be a little bit hard to see, but we wanted to get the same exact sweatshirt or hoodie for the testing to evaluate, if the taillight breaks, is there a mechanism for the fragments to penetrate and cause holes in the sweatshirt as were observed into Mr. John O'Keefe's sweatshirt.
MR. JACKSON: Next slide. Were you successful in finding the exact sweatshirt?
DR. WOLFE: Yes. And I will note, as I mentioned, I know it's probably hard to see, but the material blend on the sleeves are the exact same. They are 60 percent cotton and 40 percent polyester.
MR. JACKSON: Was it important in your mind to maintain consistency with the data that you received concerning John O'Keefe's clothing?
DR. WOLFE: Certainly. I think we wanted to try to control as many variables as we could.
MR. JACKSON: Let's move to the next slide, please. Test A. Describe test A for us, please.
DR. WOLFE: So you're going to see a series of photographs and then videos, but test A was mounting a preconditioned taillight on that linear impactor to accelerate it into the hybrid three arm to, again, evaluate the damage to the taillight and the acceleration to the arm.
MR. JACKSON: Let's move to the next slide, please. What are we looking at in these photographs?
DR. WOLFE: So you're looking on the left photograph just before the impact test was conducted. On the right, you're looking at a thermal image that is depicting the temperature profile of the taillight.
MR. JACKSON: Describe that thermal image?
DR. WOLFE: Certainly.
DR. WOLFE: Your Honor, may I refer to my notes?
JUDGE CANNONE: Yes. A So what I did is analyzed the profile of the temperature down in this area, and when we look at that segment, that lower portion here, where contact was made, the average temperature in that area was about 34 degrees with a minimum of about 33 degrees.
MR. JACKSON: How did you get that exemplar taillight down to around freezing?
DR. WOLFE: So all of the taillights that we tested were preconditioned overnight in a freezer.
MR. JACKSON: Why was that important?
DR. WOLFE: Well, it's my understanding that at the time that this allegedly occurred, the ambient temperature was 31 degrees Fahrenheit. So as I mentioned earlier, certainly there is a correlation between how plastics perform in cold weather. So we wanted to take that variable into account in our testing to precondition them down to temperatures that were consistent with -- at the time of the alleged incident.
MR. JACKSON: Next slide, please. What are we looking in this slide -- in this photograph?
DR. WOLFE: So this is a video. Do you want me to go ahead and play the video?
MR. JACKSON: Tell us what we're about to see and then I'll ask the Court's permission.
DR. WOLFE: So you are looking at a camera that is mounted above the entire set up. If you look at the top portion of this video, you will see the taillight, part of it's covered by the high-speed camera, but what will happen is the linear impactor will fire and the taillight will be accelerated up to 10 miles per hour striking the clothed ATD arm.
MR. JACKSON: With the Court's permission?
JUDGE CANNONE: Okay.
(Video played.)
MR. JACKSON: Next slide, please. What is this?
DR. WOLFE: So this is also a video but with the high-speed camera. So It's the high-speed camera that's looking top down at the arm. So you will see when the video plays, you will see the taillight enter from the left and contact the arm. And I will note that this is essentially slow-Mo, so it's not happening in real time. So you'll see the taillight slowly moving, but it's actually in reality moving at 10 miles per hour.
MR. JACKSON: Understood. Let's play that.
(Video played.)
MR. JACKSON: Can I ask a question now that that's played? How did you mount the taillight to the accelerator, the linear accelerator?
DR. WOLFE: Right. So we had to get a bit little creative there because you may have observed this when we had the physical assembly out earlier. The back of that, it's not some nice clean service that we can just bolt on. So we had to do is 3D print a bracket that we could bolt onto the linear impactor, and we used a polyurethane expanding foam to be able to marry those two together so we could then bolt it onto the linear impactor to use it for this test.
MR. JACKSON: Did you see any debris from that foam mounting mechanism?
DR. WOLFE: Yes, there's a few flakes you can see of that polyurethane foam off the backside kind of going into the - - being dispersed there.
MR. JACKSON: Okay. With regard to this particular 10 mile an hour test, what did you note in terms of damage to the taillight?
DR. WOLFE: It was very minimal.
MR. JACKSON: And what did you note, if any damage at all, to that hoodie?
DR. WOLFE: That was none.
MR. JACKSON: Could we look at the next slide, please? What are we looking at in this slide?
DR. WOLFE: So this is looking at a side view. So same test just looking at it from the side, so you're able to see the taillight come from the left and impact the arm.
MR. JACKSON: Can we play this, please.
(Video played.)
MR. JACKSON: What did you note in terms of deflection of the arm, the test arm?
DR. WOLFE: Well, the arm essentially, and we'll see this in the data later, it reaches a common velocity with the taillight. Based upon the portion of the arm that was contacted. Again consistent with how Dr. Welcher has it oriented, it will become accelerated up to 10 miles an hour roughly.
MR. JACKSON: Over approximately what period of time is that arm accelerated up to 10 miles an hour along with the taillight?
DR. WOLFE: We'll see it on the data plots. I think it's about 10 milliseconds or so.
MR. JACKSON: How long -- do you know how long an eye blink on average takes?
DR. WOLFE: Off the top of my head, no, I don't. Probably pretty quick. Q Somewhere around 250 milliseconds; is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: Sustained.
MR. JACKSON: Let's move to the next slide, please. What are we looking at in this series of photographs?
DR. WOLFE: So these are extracted frames from the high-speed video that we just saw in the previous slide basically showing just at contact, just after contact, and then post-contact so you can see the kinematics of the arm, and how the arm is moving.
MR. JACKSON: Okay. Let's move to the next slide, please. What is this photograph?
DR. WOLFE: So this is photographs taken of the taillight after the 10 mile an hour test. I will note that there was a couple of small fragments of the clear portion of the assembly, the outer lens, that was missing from that turn signal area towards the left here. There's a couple fragments missing, and then there was some small fracturing here in that area.
MR. JACKSON: How would you describe the damage to the taillight after that 10 mile an hour test?
DR. WOLFE: If I may go to the next slide, I think it might.
MR. JACKSON: Sure.
DR. WOLFE: So this was the totality of that damage at 10 miles per hour. So I would describe it as minimal and superficial.
MR. JACKSON: Okay. Next slide, please. What is this?
DR. WOLFE: So this is the photograph that I have just shown you compared to that of the subject taillight so that you can have a side-by-side comparison of the test taillight compared to that of the subject.
MR. JACKSON: Were you able to reach any opinions and conclusions about whether the damage to the subject taillight was consistent with striking an arm at 10 miles an hour?
DR. WOLFE: It's inconsistent in my opinion.
MR. JACKSON: Next slide, please. This is still test A; is that correct?
DR. WOLFE: Correct.
MR. JACKSON: Were you able to reach any opinions or conclusions whether or not that the damage to Mr. O'Keefe's clothing is consistent with being struck by the taillight at 10 miles per hour?
DR. WOLFE: What I observed from the test is that there was no mechanism to create any of the holes that we observed on the subject sweatshirt.
MR. JACKSON: Do you hold that opinion to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: As well as to the form and the details?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Next slide, please. What are we looking at in this graph?
DR. WOLFE: So this is a graph that shows the roughly -- on the next graph, you're going to see a 24 millisecond window. So what I want to show you on this graph is what does that look like over a full second so you can have an appreciation of just how quickly this is occurring. As you mentioned earlier, I think your comment about a blink of an eye, this is even shorter than that. We're looking at -- as you'll see on the next graph, again it spans just over a few milliseconds. So that yellow tick that you see in the middle there, what I've done is I've plotted that over a full second. So one second is equal to a thousand milliseconds. So if we go 500 milliseconds to the right, 500 milliseconds to the left, this whole graph represents one second in time. This impact duration is occurring very quickly.
MR. JACKSON: One second, is that reflected from the beginning of the graph to the end of the graph, that's representing one second; is that correct?
DR. WOLFE: Correct. So starting at this y-axis all the way to here is one second in time with our impact duration happening over just a few milliseconds.
MR. JACKSON: And this was at 10 miles an hour?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Next slide, please. What are we looking at in this graph?
DR. WOLFE: So we're looking at the acceleration or the change in speed over time, that parameter that we discussed earlier. So what you can see is that as the arm is impacted, we had the accelerometer mounted on the inside portion of the forearm, if you will. You'll see that it starts to accelerate, right, because it's changing its speed and then it starts to level off after the impact has subsided, basically, and it's reached a common velocity.
MR. JACKSON: What do we see in terms of the G forces that are -- that the arm is subject to?
DR. WOLFE: So the peak is occurring right around here at about -- it looks like just over six milliseconds, and the peak acceleration is just over one hundred and thirty Gs.
MR. JACKSON: And what does that mean, what is a G?
DR. WOLFE: So a G is an acceleration due to gravity. So if we're being held down by one G. So you can think of it as basically a multiplication factor that it's 131 times the acceleration due to gravity.
MR. JACKSON: And the next slide, please. What are we looking at in this slide?
DR. WOLFE: So this is, again, that concept that we talked about earlier Delta-V. This is the change in speed. So if we do some math to the previous data that we collected, it's a technique called integration. We can actually add up all of that acceleration to determine what speed did the arm get up to. And when we do that calculation to this data, what we see is that initially at the impact, right, the arms at rest, right, Newton's law, first law, and then we impart a force on it in terms of the taillight impacting it. It's going to cause the arm to accelerate and change its speed. So as I noted earlier, it's essentially going to reach a common velocity with the impact force based upon how Dr. Welcher has the arm oriented. And we can see that it's a tick over 10 miles per hour at just over 10 milliseconds. So that means that the arm in a millisecond period is going from zero up to about ten miles per hour which was the speed of the impact.
MR. JACKSON: And 131 times is the force of gravity?
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: Sustained as to that form.
MR. JACKSON: What does the -- where does gravity play into this? What is the 131 Gs, where is that force observed?
DR. WOLFE: So that is the acceleration that the arm experienced as a result of that impact. So that's how quickly it was changing in speed.
MR. JACKSON: Understood. Let's go to the next slide.
JUDGE CANNONE: So is this a good place to take the morning recess?
MR. JACKSON: It is.
JUDGE CANNONE: All right. Folks, we'll take a recess. Dr. Wolfe, you can file out with the jurors. Can I see counsel regarding just scheduling, please.
(Sidebar commences:
JUDGE CANNONE: I just want to get an idea how much longer are you with him.
MR. JACKSON: It's going to be a good amount of time. Probably another maybe two hours. Probably another I'd say an hour and a half to two hours. Maybe.
JUDGE CANNONE: Okay. So we'll go all day with Dr. Wolfe?
MR. JACKSON: I think we will. That was my expectation. I don't have another witness.
JUDGE CANNONE: Okay. Is Dr. Laposata shorter than a whole day?
MR. JACKSON: She's about five-five.
JUDGE CANNONE: Than a whole day, Mr. Jackson.
MR. JACKSON: Yes, she's shorter than a whole day.
JUDGE CANNONE: All right. I'm starting to have concerns that I had a down day yesterday. When do you expect -- and I'm not curbing, I just need to know.
MR. JACKSON: Dr. Rentschler and Dr. Laposata will both be shorter than Dr. Wolfe, I believe. Dr. Rentschler is probably the longer of the two of them, but my hope is that I can -- we will rest by Tuesday morning.
JUDGE CANNONE: Okay. And if you rest by Tuesday morning, we'll make sure that you have all the information by Tuesday from Dr. Welcher my order will be that by Tuesday so you can take the rest of the day to prepare it for Wednesday.
MR. JACKSON: I thought you already indicated that they would have it to us by Monday.
JUDGE CANNONE: They need to have it -- my order is that they have it prior -- a day prior to Dr. Welcher's testimony.
MR. JACKSON: Okay. And he's going to be limited to the information that Dr. Wolfe and Dr. Rentschler are testifying to now, correct?
JUDGE CANNONE: Yes. Nothing from before.
MR. JACKSON: I hope that -- my only hope is that the Court imposes the exact same rules on Dr. Welcher's testimony that you're imposing on --
JUDGE CANNONE: You object and I will.
MR. JACKSON: I don't like objecting every ten seconds.
MR. BRENNAN: Me either.
MR. JACKSON: Yeah. That's yet to be seen.
JUDGE CANNONE: So you know what my ruling is. I expect everybody to abide by it.
MR. BRENNAN: We'll have some -- we'll need some time to talk about Dr. Rentschler's PowerPoint that we received last night. There's some new things in there that we weren't prepared for.
JUDGE CANNONE: Okay. He's not on until Monday, right?
MR. JACKSON: Right.
JUDGE CANNONE: I'd like a copy of that PowerPoint.
MR. JACKSON: Sure.
JUDGE CANNONE: So I know what you're talking about in advance. And we've got some motions. All right. If the defendant rests Tuesday, that's great on the timeline.
MR. JACKSON: We're still on track.
JUDGE CANNONE: So Thursday or Friday will be --
MR. JACKSON: No, no, we're still on track.
JUDGE CANNONE: Okay.
MR. JACKSON: I think by Tuesday we'll be done with the case.
JUDGE CANNONE: Okay. All right. Great. Thanks.
end of sidebar.)
(Court in recess at 11:05 a.m.)
(Court in session at 11:37:59 a.m.)
(Defendant is present with counsel.)
(Jury in.)
JUDGE CANNONE: Are you all set, Dr. Wolfe?
DR. WOLFE: Yes, thank you, Your Honor.
JUDGE CANNONE: All right. Mr. Jackson.
MR. JACKSON: Thank you, Your Honor.
MR. JACKSON: Dr. Wolfe, before we get into laboratory test B. I failed to ask you, were you compensated or was ARCCA paid following the proceeding last year for any time?
DR. WOLFE: Yes, last year.
MR. JACKSON: Last year.
DR. WOLFE: Correct, yes.
MR. JACKSON: Do you know how much that was?
DR. WOLFE: From what I recall, I think it was around $20,000.
MR. JACKSON: Was ARCCA paid by the defense in your initial testing, the initial analysis, which we talked about earlier this morning, was ARCCA paid by the defense for any of that?
DR. WOLFE: No, not the report, testing, none of that.
MR. JACKSON: Okay. What were you paid for last year related to the first proceeding?
DR. WOLFE: My time to appear at the proceeding.
MR. JACKSON: Travel?
DR. WOLFE: Correct. Travel --
MR. JACKSON: Testimony.
DR. WOLFE: -- testimony, yes, sir.
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: So the form, Mr. Jackson.
MR. JACKSON: Sure
MR. JACKSON: What about now, have you paid any additional sums by the defense specifically for your undertaking which you're testifying about today?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: About how much have you been paid?
DR. WOLFE: I think when I spoke to accounting, I think they indicated it was around $50,000.
MR. JACKSON: Okay. Let's talk about laboratory test B as in bravo.
MR. JACKSON: May I have just a moment, Your Honor?
JUDGE CANNONE: Sure.
MR. JACKSON: What was different about lab test B as opposed to lab test A?
DR. WOLFE: So the tests were essentially identical aside from the speed increase going from 10 up to 17.
MR. JACKSON: Okay. Let's take a look at the next slide. Just so I'm clear, Doctor, I want to make sure I'm on the same slide as you. Is this slide 35 pursuant to your notes?
DR. WOLFE: This is slide 36.
MR. JACKSON: Thirty-six. Got it. If we could be a little more brief I think because is this similar to the 10 mile an hour test just with increased velocity?
DR. WOLFE: Correct.
MR. JACKSON: What about the purple hued taillight on the right? What is that?
DR. WOLFE: So, again, that is a thermal image depicting the temperature profile of the right taillight that was tested the --
MR. JACKSON: I'm sorry. Go ahead.
DR. WOLFE: I was just going to note that the average temperature profile of the taillight here in this test was approximately 30 degrees Fahrenheit.
MR. JACKSON: Is that below freezing?
DR. WOLFE: It is, yes.
MR. JACKSON: In the ATD, the test dummy if you will.
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Is it also clothes?
DR. WOLFE: Correct, yes, with a -- you may notice a difference in the sweatshirt color. We put on a new sweatshirt in this test.
MR. JACKSON: Was it also an exact replica of the sweatshirt at issue worn by John O'Keefe?
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
MR. JACKSON: I'll ask it a different way.
MR. JACKSON: How did it compare to the sweatshirt that was worn by John O'Keefe?
DR. WOLFE: It was made by the same company and had the same material blend as the previous test and the one that Mr. John O'Keefe was wearing.
MR. JACKSON: Next slide, please. What are we looking at here?
DR. WOLFE: So this will be a video, and you will see, much like you did in the other one, where the taillight can be accelerated up to 17 miles an hour, impact the arm, and one of things you'll see is actually an artifact of the test, if you will, where the taillight due to the fact that the impactor stops at the end of the stroke, that force actually causes it to decouple from that polyurethane foam that we use to adhere the two.
MR. JACKSON: What do you mean by decouple? What does that mean?
DR. WOLFE: So as I mentioned, once the linear impactor reaches the end of its strike, it stops instantaneously and the force of that stop just caused where we adhered the two together, just caused it to detach, basically break away. So in essence, it doesn't matter because we only care about that -- remember we're talking that short duration of time, that 10 milliseconds. So once it breaks, it's already reached a common velocity to the taillight. Q Can we go ahead to the next slide, please. What do you note about this impact? A So one of the things you'll see is kind of that dust cloud that you see again. That's all the particulates from the expanding foam that we use. So that's kind of what you see in the background there kind of going over kind of the arm and the taillight there.
MR. JACKSON: Do you note more damage or less damage to the taillight at 17 miles an hour versus the 10 miles an hour test?
DR. WOLFE: There's more damage, yes.
MR. JACKSON: Let's go to the next slide, please. What are we looking at here?
DR. WOLFE: So you're looking at a top down view from the high- speed camera. You'll see the taillight enter from the left impacting the arm at 17 miles per hour.
MR. JACKSON: Okay. Go ahead and play that. Can you describe the coupling that's shown here?
DR. WOLFE: Absolutely. So as you can see where the two are basically married together, right, it's actually coming back together now. So the bond that we had, right, this is the most effective way that we could mount it to the impactor. It just became detached due to the force of that impactor stopping at the end of the stroke.
MR. JACKSON: Understood. Next slide, please. What are we looking at here?
DR. WOLFE: So in this slide, you're looking at another high-speed video. This is just a side view. Again, you're going to see the taillight enter the frame from the left impacting the arm at 17 miles per hour.
MR. JACKSON: Is this in slow-motion as well?
DR. WOLFE: This is in slow-motion. Correct. Not real-time.
MR. JACKSON: What do you note in terms of the deflection of the arm?
DR. WOLFE: The arm, as we saw in the previous one, is accelerated up so it's moving out at roughly a common velocity with what the impact speed was.
MR. JACKSON: And what did you know about the damage to the taillight?
DR. WOLFE: It was more significant than the 10 mile an hour test which again there was very minimal damage to that where several fragments of that red outer lens fractured as well as the clear lens.
MR. JACKSON: Next slide. And what does this depict?
DR. WOLFE: This is extracted frames from the previous video just showing right at contact, during contact, and post contact.
MR. JACKSON: Next slide, please. What is this a photograph of?
DR. WOLFE: This photograph is depicting the damage to the taillight at the conclusion of the test where, again, it's missing fragments of the outer red lens. I will note that the interior diffusers and plastic components are intact in this test.
MR. JACKSON: When you say intact, what do you mean?
DR. WOLFE: They are not damaged or broken.
MR. JACKSON: At all?
DR. WOLFE: Correct, at all.
MR. JACKSON: Next slide, please. What does that one show?
DR. WOLFE: Another photograph showing the taillight post-test. Again, no damage to the underlying diffusers in terms of being cracked, shattered, or broken.
MR. JACKSON: And what did you note in terms of the damage to the outer lens, the red piece?
DR. WOLFE: It broke into a few fragments, and I think on the next slide, I depict those in a photograph.
MR. JACKSON: Let's take a look at that. What is that?
DR. WOLFE: So this is a photograph depicting the collection of the post -- the fragments posttests. I will note there's about -- there's one clear piece, one red piece, another clear piece, and there is one more red piece in this bag. So the outer lens broke into approximately four pieces in the seventeen mile per hour test. And I'll point out one other thing just because you can see it in the photograph. This is that 3D printed bracket that we use to bolt it on to the linear impactor with the foam on the other side that melted it to the taillight.
MR. JACKSON: Thank you for that. Next slide, please. What is this a picture of or pictures of?
DR. WOLFE: This is a side-by-side comparison showing a depiction of the 17 mile an hour test impact to the test taillight comparing it to that of the subject taillight.
MR. JACKSON: Were you able to reach any conclusions or opinions as to whether or not the damage to the subject taillight on the right is consistent with striking an arm at 17 miles per hour?
DR. WOLFE: It's inconsistent from a damage perspective.
MR. JACKSON: What's the basis of that opinion?
DR. WOLFE: The tests that I just showed you all.
MR. JACKSON: Was that testing that you just talked about conducted in accordance with the scientific literature and generally accepted methodologies that you earlier described?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Is the damage to the rear taillight consistent with striking John O'Keefe's arm at 17 miles per hour?
DR. WOLFE: No.
MR. JACKSON: Do you hold that opinion to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Slide 45, please. What is this?
DR. WOLFE: You're looking at photographs, posttests of the sweatshirt that the ATD was wearing at the time of the impact.
MR. JACKSON: Is this the 17 mile an hour impact?
DR. WOLFE: Correct, yes.
MR. JACKSON: Did you notice any defects in the fabric of the right arm?
DR. WOLFE: There were no punctures, holes or fraying of the material during this impact test.
MR. JACKSON: Based on the testing you conducted in this case, is the damage to -- that you saw of the shirt that John O'Keefe was wearing consistent or inconsistent with the shirt that's on the ATD?
DR. WOLFE: It was inconsistent compared to the sweatshirt that Mr. John O'Keefe was wearing.
MR. JACKSON: Based on that, do you have an opinion or a conclusion as to whether or not the damage on Mr. O'Keefe's clothing was consistent with being struck with the right rear taillight at 17 miles per hour?
DR. WOLFE: It is inconsistent.
MR. JACKSON: Next slide, please. What is this graph depicting?
DR. WOLFE: So going back again to these terms that we've talked about. This is the acceleration trace of the 17 mile an hour impact test. And you can see that we reached a peak acceleration at around 5 milliseconds, and that's at about almost 270 Gs.
MR. JACKSON: You said 270 Gs?
DR. WOLFE: Correct.
MR. JACKSON: Or 217?
DR. WOLFE: Two hundred and seventy. Seven-zero.
MR. JACKSON: Did that have any significance on your analysis?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: What was that?
DR. WOLFE: Well, we can use that to estimate -- obviously, we can integrate that to get the speed, but we can also estimate the force applied to the taillight with that information.
MR. JACKSON: Could we go to the next slide, please. What is the Delta-V as it relates to the 17 mile an hour lab test?
DR. WOLFE: So you can see, again the arm initially rests. It's accelerated up increasing in speed and then reaches just about 16 miles per hour, so reaching nearly a common velocity with the taillight at about 8 milliseconds in time.
MR. JACKSON: Next slide, please. Did you conduct additional tests other than the two lab tests that we talked about?
DR. WOLFE: Yes, sir.
MR. JACKSON: Describe just in general and then we'll talk more specifics, what were the tests that you undertook after the lab test?
DR. WOLFE: So we conducted two tests with a suspended ATD arm that was impacted by an exemplar 2021 Lexus LX570. We then conducted a test where the arm was then attached to a test dummy. And then our final test was full-on impact to a test dummy.
MR. JACKSON: Can we go to slide 48, please? What are we looking at in this slide?
DR. WOLFE: This is the exemplar 2021 Lexus LX570 that was utilized during this test program.
MR. JACKSON: Was this the same vehicle that was utilized in all tests C, D, E, and F?
DR. WOLFE: Correct, yes.
MR. JACKSON: If you could, slide 49, the next slide. What is depicted in this photograph?
DR. WOLFE: Well, so there's a number of things here so I'll try to point them all out. So obviously we talked about just now the Lexus here, the exemplar vehicle. We have a forklift that was hoisted up that ultimately was suspending the arm. I think I have an additional photograph that shows it close up, but the arm was suspended from the forklift at the correct height to interact with the taillight. We have our high speed cameras set up under this umbrella. There's another one over here. Another thing you'll note is we brought out the chest freezer when we were installing these in the Lexus to again keep them at that steady state temperature for as long as possible.
MR. JACKSON: If we could go to the next slide, please. What are we looking in this photograph?
DR. WOLFE: So this is the approximate position that we planned to have contact occur in these tests. So as you can see the forearm is in contact with the liftgate and the corner panel taillight along with the elbow.
MR. JACKSON: Why did you choose this configuration for the arm, the forearm, the hand, and the elbow?
DR. WOLFE: It was based upon my review of Dr. Welcher's work in that he did through his static and dynamic test or paint test that this was how the arm was roughly oriented when the alleged contact occurred.
MR. JACKSON: What were you trying to replicate in positioning the arm in this direction this way as it relates to the SUV?
DR. WOLFE: Well, I think as I stated earlier, it was to understand, you know, okay, let's get beyond just simple geometry aligning things. What happens to the arm, right, what are the accelerations, what's the damage, right, what -- we want to answer some of those other questions that Dr. Welcher didn't answer.
MR. BRENNAN: Objection. Move to strike.
JUDGE CANNONE: I'm going to strike the last part of that answer.
MR. JACKSON: Does this configuration align with your understanding of Dr. Welcher's alignment of the arm as it relates to the vehicle?
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: Sustained.
MR. JACKSON: May we approach, Your Honor?
JUDGE CANNONE: Yes.
(Sidebar commences:
JUDGE CANNONE: He already testified to that. He just said it.
MR. JACKSON: The objection was sustained.
JUDGE CANNONE: Right. He just said it. He said it --
MR. JACKSON: Would you stop --
JUDGE CANNONE: No, no. He already answered the questions. I already announced. What was the nature of your objection?
MR. BRENNAN: Here's the other problem --
MR. JACKSON: If I may? I'll move on.
JUDGE CANNONE: You said the position of slide 51 is the position of the arm that he got from Dr. Welcher --
MR. JACKSON: Okay. That's fine. That's fine.
MR. BRENNAN: That's fine. It's when it's misleading. Dr. Welcher never said this is how the arm was positioned when it was hit. It wasn't a reenactment. It was an alignment to show for the consistency between the damage and the arm. So the repeated stating of or suggesting this is what Dr. Welcher says the arm was in this position, that is not what he said.
JUDGE CANNONE: No. What he said was -- what this witness testified to at slide 51 was the position of the arm from Dr. Welcher's experiment.
MR. BRENNAN: I have no problem with that.
JUDGE CANNONE: Not that it was the position that John O'Keefe had his arm in. The second question was that. This is already in.
MR. JACKSON: That's fine.
end of sidebar.)
MR. JACKSON: Thank you, Your Honor. May I inquire?
JUDGE CANNONE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Okay. Let's go to the next slide. It may be self- explanatory. What was the speed of your first test out in the field?
DR. WOLFE: Fifteen miles per hour.
MR. JACKSON: Next slide, please. What are we looking at in these two photographs?
DR. WOLFE: So on the left is a photograph of the installed reconditioned taillights just after the install, and on the right is a thermal image of that. And if I may just point out with the temperature. So one of the things you may see here is that due to the reflective chrome here, this is just an artifact of that being really reflective. So when we look at the average temperature profile of the taillight for this test, the average was approximately 17 degrees Fahrenheit for the taillight.
MR. JACKSON: Was it important in this testing to account for the temperature variance of the taillight assembly?
DR. WOLFE: Yes, absolutely. And I will note we certainly strived to maintain that. One of the things you may see in this photograph on the left are these pellets on the ground, and that is due to the fact during the installation process one of my colleagues was positioned adjacent to that to the taillight fixtures applying a compress of dry ice to help mitigate any heat transfer during the install process.
MR. JACKSON: Next slide, please. What are we looking at in this photograph?
DR. WOLFE: It's a drone video. So you're going to see the Lexus accelerate from left to right impacting the hybrid suspended arm and the area where you can see the umbrella.
MR. JACKSON: Can you use your spotlight and orient us where are the vehicles and the testing locations?
DR. WOLFE: Yes. So the Lexus is starting here. You will see it accelerate in reverse with the hybrid arm suspended in this area here.
MR. JACKSON: Is this a video or just a slow shot?
DR. WOLFE: This is a drone video.
MR. JACKSON: Go ahead and play. Dr. Wolfe, is that in real-time or slowed down or sped up?
DR. WOLFE: This is in real time.
MR. JACKSON: Next video, please. What is this?
DR. WOLFE: This is a camera that was mounted on top of the forklift that was suspending the arm.
MR. JACKSON: Is this a still shot or is it a video?
DR. WOLFE: It's a video.
MR. JACKSON: What is the orientation of that arm as it relates to the vehicle, what we'll see?
DR. WOLFE: So it will make contact with the taillight, although I will note in this test ultimately the contact ended up being more of a clip or a sideswipe in this test.
MR. JACKSON: Go ahead.
(Video played.)
MR. JACKSON: Did you see the impact area?
DR. WOLFE: It's quick.
MR. JACKSON: Right. What did you mean when you said more of a sideswipe or a clip?
DR. WOLFE: So I think the next couple videos will help demonstrate that.
MR. JACKSON: Put on the next one. What are we looking at in this video? I'm sorry. In this photograph?
DR. WOLFE: So this is going to be a high-speed or slow-mo video. You're going to see the Lexus come in from the right, and then move across the screen to the left, and you'll see contact occur between the taillight and the arm.
MR. JACKSON: Okay.
(Video played.)
MR. JACKSON: Can you explain to the jurors using this video what you meant by more of a sideswipe or a clip?
DR. WOLFE: Right. So this is where the hand and the wrist are kind of in the area of the quarter panel taillight and then a portion of the forearm in contact with -- I'm sorry what I previously said, the wrist and the hand in contact with the liftgate portion of the taillight, and then on the forearm is more in contact with the corner panel taillight.
MR. JACKSON: Can we move to the next slide? And what is this angle?
DR. WOLFE: Yeah, the same test just at a different angle with the high-speed cameras in slow motion.
MR. JACKSON: And this is at 15 miles per hour, correct?
DR. WOLFE: Fifteen miles an hour, correct.
MR. JACKSON: Can you explain to the jurors, given the fact that this is suspended, does that have any impact on the ultimate analysis or reconstruction rather than being attached to a --
DR. WOLFE: Well, effectively, mass is mass. So whether we have an arm that is suspended or attached, again the arm is on a joint, right, so the arm can accelerate freely of the rest of the body, right. So if anything, even if it is attached to the body, there may actually be some additional force associated with that just because there could be more mass attached to it.
MR. JACKSON: Understood. So let's go ahead and play this video.
(Video played.)
MR. JACKSON: Can we go to the next slide, please? What are we looking at in these these three photographs?
DR. WOLFE: So you're looking at on the left, starting from left to right just to contact and then just after contact and then post contact. So as I mentioned, you can see that in this first one at contact. Again, we don't have the hand isn't and the arm aren't positioned as far out on the previous tests and the hand is in the area and the wrist of the lift gate taillight with part of the forearm in contact with the quarter panel taillight, and as you saw in the video, essentially the arm just kind of just moves out of the way of the vehicle as it comes by.
MR. JACKSON: Understood. Next slide, please. What are we looking at here?
DR. WOLFE: This is a photograph of the test vehicle subsequent to the test depicting the, I'll say, lack of damage to the taillights.
MR. JACKSON: Describe what you did see in terms of damage or lack thereof on the taillight?
DR. WOLFE: There was no damage or fracturing to the taillights.
MR. JACKSON: Describe the orientation of the arm in this particular test that you said was more of a sideswipe. What was the orientation of the arm to the taillight in terms of how much of the arm touched the taillight. That's probably a clunky question but I think you understand it.
DR. WOLFE: I don't know if I could break it down it to -- I think it just -- qualitatively speaking, like I said, it appears to be the hand and the wrist and kind of the lower portion of the forearm, maybe to the midforearm or so.
MR. JACKSON: So nothing on the upper arm?
DR. WOLFE: Correct.
MR. JACKSON: Any contact?
DR. WOLFE: Correct. Nothing on the upper arm, yes.
MR. JACKSON: And if you would pass this slide and onto the next slide? What is this depicting?
DR. WOLFE: So this is depicting the test taillights of the 15 mile-per-hour impact into the hybrid arm compared to that of the subject taillight.
MR. JACKSON: Was there any notable damage at all on the subject -- I'm sorry -- on the exemplar taillight following test C at 15 miles an hour?
DR. WOLFE: The only thing there may have been was some very slight abrasions, maybe to the plastic, but there certainly was no breaking or fracturing of the lens assembly.
MR. JACKSON: Were you able to reach any opinions or conclusions as to whether the damage to the subject taillight was consistent with striking an arm at 15 miles-per-hour?
DR. WOLFE: In this test, it was inconsistent.
MR. JACKSON: Even in a sideswipe?
DR. WOLFE: Correct.
MR. JACKSON: Was that testing that we just saw done in accordance with scientific literature and generally accepted methodologies in the area of accident reconstruction?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Is the damage to the right rear taillight of the subject vehicle consistent with striking John O'Keefe's arm at 15 miles-per-hour in a sideswipe configuration?
DR. WOLFE: It's inconsistent.
MR. JACKSON: Do you hold opinion to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Can we move to the next slide, please. What are we looking at this graph?
DR. WOLFE: So you're looking at the hand acceleration overtime so you can see that because, as you saw in the previous video and slides, the hand initially made contact with the taillight so that gets accelerated up first. So we're getting peak accelerations in this test for the hand of about 254 Gs. And, yes, over a period of about a little over six seconds -- or sorry six milliseconds or so.
MR. JACKSON: What was the arm or appendage outfitted with to determine a date on this graphic?
DR. WOLFE: Right. So if you think back to the lab testing we did, right, because we didn't have, and again this is why we did the testing incrementally as we went about it, but in the lab test, we didn't have a way to mount the liftgate assembly to also evaluate that interaction. So when we moved outside to the full-scale vehicle testing, we had a liftgate taillight, obviously the full vehicle, so we also instrumented the hand with an accelerometer as well as the forearm so we were able to measure the acceleration of both the hand and the forearm in these tests.
MR. JACKSON: Can we move to the next slide, please. And what are we looking at here?
DR. WOLFE: So this is the acceleration of the arm. So you can see that it reaches a peak around five milliseconds at about -- it looks like just under 200 Gs.
MR. JACKSON: And the next slide. What's depicted in this graph?
DR. WOLFE: So this is doing, again, the integration of the acceleration data for the hand to determine what speed did the hand get accelerated up to, and you can see that at the onset of this it's at rest, it's impacted, and then gets up almost to fifteen miles an in four milliseconds, ultimately does reach at about eighteen milliseconds it does reach that fifteen, but it's nearly at fifteen at contact.
MR. JACKSON: Thank you. The next slide, please. And what is this Delta-V show us?
DR. WOLFE: So this is showing the change in speed of the arm. And again because the hand was and the wrist was more of the central impact to the ADT arm, this ultimately saw less acceleration, therefore, less of a change in speed. So at around six milliseconds, well, roughly actually about one millisecond after it started to increase in acceleration it's at about five miles per hour.
MR. JACKSON: Is that reflected in the -- at the arm pivoted?
DR. WOLFE: Yes. There's some rotation going on so it's not translating or accelerating.
MR. JACKSON: Understood. Can we move to the next slide, please. Test D, what was the speed that you undertook in test D as in delta.
DR. WOLFE: So this is a 29 mile-per-hour impact into the suspended hybrid arm.
MR. JACKSON: Move to the next slide. What are we looking at in this series of photographs?
DR. WOLFE: So on the left is my colleague again compressing the taillight while we install the upper taillight -- the liftgate taillight to again try to maintain that steady state temperature. Over here on the right is the thermal image of the taillight after the install. So the average temperature of this taillight during the test was approximately 17 degrees Fahrenheit.
MR. JACKSON: Next slide, please. Staying with test D, what is this depicting?
DR. WOLFE: This is a drone video showing a top-down perspective of the test with the Lexus starting on the left-hand part of the screen accelerating in reverse into the suspended hybrid arm over here at the location of the forklift.
MR. JACKSON: Okay. If we could watch this video.
(Video played.)
MR. JACKSON: Your next slides show -- there you go, the suspended arm. What are we looking at here?
DR. WOLFE: So this is a video camera that was positioned on top of the forklift looking down at the arm. So you'll see the vehicle move from bottom to top as this video plays.
MR. JACKSON: By the way, Dr. Wolfe, what are the purple and white lines predominating -- sorry I was talking.
DR. WOLFE: Sorry. I didn't --
MR. JACKSON: What are the purple and white lines that you see?
DR. WOLFE: So those are guidelines to help. I will note this is kind of like a needle in a haystack. It's very hard to hit this small of a target. So it just served as a guideline to reference as we're accelerating rearward into this.
MR. JACKSON: Is this in real-time?
DR. WOLFE: This is in real-time, yes.
MR. JACKSON: What's the speed that the vehicle is entering the frame at?
DR. WOLFE: Twenty-nine miles per hour.
MR. JACKSON: Thank you. What happened to the arm in terms of the suspension?
DR. WOLFE: It actually gets ripped off from the mounting location.
MR. JACKSON: Is there a reason you believe physically that that arm was ripped off from the suspension that tethers?
DR. WOLFE: Well, certainly there was enough force to break the tie lines to the forklift.
MR. JACKSON: Was there a test value of those tie lines?
DR. WOLFE: I think they were rated at 150 pounds.
MR. JACKSON: What does that suggest in terms of the force that was exerted -- just before we get to the other testing, the force was exerted on the arms as we tear off the tie lines?
DR. WOLFE: Well, it indicates that the arm saw at least 150 pounds of force.
MR. JACKSON: Okay. Next slide, please. What are we looking at in this video?
DR. WOLFE: So this is going to be a slow-motion video. You'll see the Lexus accelerate in reverse making contact with the arm, and again this is the 20 mile-per-hour impact test.
MR. JACKSON: Next slide, please. And what is this?
DR. WOLFE: This is a video, a high-speed video, so slow-motion, of test D at 20 miles per hour into the ATD arm that is suspended. So you'll see the Lexus enter the frame from the right and impact the arm.
(Video played.)
MR. JACKSON: Okay. Was this strike more reflective of what you were attempting to replicate?
DR. WOLFE: Yes, this was a more central impact to the arm, yes.
MR. JACKSON: Next slide, please. And what is this?
DR. WOLFE: So this is a high-speed or slow-motion video depicting the test D at 29 miles per hour, just a different perspective than the previous video.
MR. JACKSON: Okay. Next slide. And what are we looking at here?
DR. WOLFE: So this is extracted frames from the high-speed video. So starting out left to right, this is roughly at first contact with the majority of the hand -- well, the hand, the majority of the forearm in contact with the liftgate taillight with a portion of the elbow in contact with the corner panel taillight.
MR. JACKSON: Can I stop right you there. On that far left frame, is that -- does that fairly replicate what you were attempting to approximate in terms of the orientation of the arm versus the taillight?
DR. WOLFE: Yes, more of a central impact compared to that first test at 15, yes?
MR. JACKSON: Is that more or less consistent with what you saw in Dr. Welcher's test where he had his arm in that still shot associated with the geometry of the car?
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: Sustained.
MR. JACKSON: Is this consistent with what you were trying to replicate after your review of Dr. Welcher's report?
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: Sustained. You can ask it differently.
MR. JACKSON: What were you trying to replicate or why were you trying to replicate this 29 mile-per-hour text in this particular orientation?
DR. WOLFE: We were trying to see, based upon Dr. Welcher's orientation, what happens to the arm in terms of the acceleration and the damage to the taillight at that configuration at contact.
MR. JACKSON: Okay. Next slide, please. What are we looking at?
DR. WOLFE: So this is a photograph depicting the damage to the liftgate taillight as well as the quarter panel taillight.
MR. JACKSON: And what do you notice it terms of that damage?
DR. WOLFE: So on the liftgate taillight, a significant portion of that thick 5 millimeter red outer lens is fractured and broken off. The underlying diffusers are still in place. There was a small crack in I believe it was the upper diffuser here. The quarter panel taillight had the clear section damaged with the outer lens missing along with some fragments from the outer portion of the red part of the lens.
MR. JACKSON: Next slide, please. What are we looking at in this slide?
DR. WOLFE: So this is another photograph depicting the quarter panel taillight. As I indicated, there is portions of the red lens cover missing. The interior diffusers remained largely intact in this test.
MR. JACKSON: Next slide. What is this side-by-side depicting?
DR. WOLFE: This is showing the results of the 29 mile-per-hour impact test to the test vehicle compared to that of the subject taillight.
MR. JACKSON: Given that orientation of test D, were you able to reach any opinions or conclusions as to whether or not the damage to the subject taillight was consistent with striking an arm at 29 miles per hour?
DR. WOLFE: It was inconsistent.
MR. JACKSON: What's the basis for that opinion, Dr. Wolfe?
DR. WOLFE: The results of this test.
MR. JACKSON: And was that testing conducted in accordance with the scientific literature and generally accepted methodologies in the field of accident reconstruction?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Is the damage to the right rear taillight consistent with striking John O'Keefe's arm at 29 miles per hour -- when I say the type, the right rear taillight I mean of the subject vehicle?
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: Sustained as to that.
MR. JACKSON: With regard to your opinion concerning whether the subject taillight is consistent with striking an arm at 29 miles per hour, do you hold that opinion to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Next slide, please. What is depicted in this graph?
DR. WOLFE: So this is looking at the acceleration of the hand and the twenty-nine mile-per-hour impact test with peak accelerations close to eight hundred Gs at two milliseconds.
MR. JACKSON: Next slide, please. What are we looking at in this graph?
DR. WOLFE: This is the acceleration of the arm reaching peak acceleration of about 500 Gs.
MR. JACKSON: You indicated 800 Gs in the last graph. What's the difference between this and the delta --
DR. WOLFE: Between the hand and the arm?
MR. JACKSON: Understood. Which one suffered or was subject to 800 Gs?
DR. WOLFE: That would be the hand.
MR. JACKSON: And which one was subject to the 500 Gs?
DR. WOLFE: That would be the arm.
MR. JACKSON: Next slide, please. What are we looking at in this graphic?
DR. WOLFE: So this is looking at the change in speed, so how -- what speed did the hand get up to as a result of the impact. So we can see that at about three milliseconds the arm is moving at almost twenty-five miles per hour, and then a little bit later, and again this is still very quick in time, at about fourteen milliseconds it's not about thirty miles per hour.
MR. JACKSON: Next slide, please. What's depicted in this graphic?
DR. WOLFE: So this is looking at the change in speed of the arm as a result of the contact. So starting here at about two milliseconds, the arm accelerates up to about eight milliseconds we're at about thirty-five miles per hour. And this -- you may be wondering why are we getting more speed than what the input was, and that's because you get a phenomenon known as restitution. Basically, there's an elastic collision between the two where you can get almost a bouncing effect. So when you have something that weighs 6,000 pounds striking something that's much, much lighter than that, it can actually cause it to accelerate up to a greater velocity than the impact speed.
MR. JACKSON: Next slide, please. Test E, 24 mile an hour impact test. What is that?
DR. WOLFE: So this is a 24 mile and hour impact test to the ATD arm attached to a test dummy.
MR. JACKSON: Next slide, please. Why did you utilize 24 miles an hour for this test?
DR. WOLFE: So it's my understanding that this is the upper end. There is a triggering event of I believe it's 1162-2, and I think at the end of that data, the speed is approximately 24 miles per hour. So we did a test at the endpoint, if you will, in that data set.
MR. JACKSON: What is this photograph showing in terms of the orientation of the arm and the hybrid test dummy or the ATD?
DR. WOLFE: So the orientation is to depict, again, the orientation that Dr. Welcher indicated in his static and dynamic test to show what happens when again that ATD arm that we had is attached to a test dummy and is struck at 24 miles per hour.
MR. JACKSON: Next slide, please. And what is this?
DR. WOLFE: So this is the thermal image of the taillights just after the install with the average temperature at about -- just over 33 degrees Fahrenheit.
MR. JACKSON: Next slide. And what are we looking at?
DR. WOLFE: So you're looking at a top-down drone video with the Lexus here on the left that will accelerate and reverse up to 24 miles an hour striking the ATD arm.
(Video played.)
MR. JACKSON: Next slide. What are we looking at in this slide?
DR. WOLFE: So this is a top-down video from a top of the forklift or where the arm is suspended attached to the dummy. So you're going to see the vehicle enter from the bottom into going to the top of the screen.
MR. JACKSON: Next slide. What is this view?
DR. WOLFE: It's just another perspective. This is a slow-motion video where you'll see the Lexus in reverse. I think this one actually has a kind of a long buildup before it starts up here.
(Video played.)
MR. JACKSON: And if we could go to the next slide, please. So what is this?
DR. WOLFE: This is a prospective from the high-speed camera, so slow-motion video with the Lexus reversing into the ATD arm at 24 miles per hour.
MR. JACKSON: Before you play this, Dr. Wolfe, I forget to ask this, it may be obvious. After each test C, D, E, and F, were you replacing the taillight with new exemplar taillights that had been temperature accorded for?
DR. WOLFE: Yes, every test had a new set of quarter panel taillights as well as liftgate taillights, and even in the test where the taillight in the 15 mile an hour test where the taillight was not damaged, we still put on new taillights. We did not repurpose or reuse any of the taillights.
MR. JACKSON: Okay. Thank you. Next slide, please. In this configuration, was the ATD outfitted with the hoodie that you earlier described?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: At the time you outfitted the ATD with a hoodie in this configuration for this test E, did you confirm that the sleeve, right sleeve, was damaged?
DR. WOLFE: After this test?
MR. JACKSON: No, before.
DR. WOLFE: It was undamaged before this test.
MR. JACKSON: What are we looking at in this slide?
DR. WOLFE: So this is still frames from the high-speed. So starting out on the left here just at contact. So the forearm making contact with the liftgate taillight and then the upper part of the forearm and the elbow making contact, a direct hit, into the quarter panel taillight. In the middle here is just after contact, and on the right -- on the right is post-contact.
MR. JACKSON: Thank you. Next slide, please. What are we looking at on this -- from this picture?
DR. WOLFE: So this is an overall photograph depicting the taillights subsequent to this test at 24 miles per hour. I will note that there is no damage to the liftgate taillight, and then there is damage to the quarter panel taillight.
MR. JACKSON: Is there any damage to the internal diffusers on this taillight?
DR. WOLFE: So if I go to the next photograph, if I may.
MR. JACKSON: Please.
DR. WOLFE: So you can see here there is a kind of thicker, it's actually not a crack. So I'm looking at the clear diffuser here with the dots that you see. This line that you see kind of opaque. I don't know if you've got a laser pointer to --
MR. JACKSON: Your Honor, may I?
JUDGE CANNONE: Yes. A Just so there's no confusion. Thank you. So the line right here is (indicating) is that's part of the assembly, so that's part of how the plastic is molded. There is a very small crack right here in the underlying diffuser, but all of the remaining part of the diffuser, in terms of this portion here and here, are all intact and same with this portion of it.
MR. JACKSON: What about the chrome piece?
DR. WOLFE: I don't believe that was damaged during this test, no.
MR. JACKSON: And what about the clear acrylic toward the top left of that taillight?
DR. WOLFE: It was partially fractured, but not the entire outer portion of it.
MR. JACKSON: Next slide, please. What does this depict?
DR. WOLFE: So this is a photograph depicting the corner panel taillights subsequent to the 24 mile-an-hour impact test with the ATD arm compared to that of the subject taillight.
MR. JACKSON: Based on this test, were you able to reach any opinions and conclusions as to whether the damage to the subject taillight is consistent with striking John O'Keefe's arm at 24 miles an hour?
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: Sustained in that form.
MR. JACKSON: Were you able to reach any opinions or conclusions as to whether the damage to the subject taillight is consistent with striking an arm at 24 miles per hour?
DR. WOLFE: Based upon the test results, it's inconsistent with striking an arm.
MR. JACKSON: How do you -- on what do you base that opinion?
DR. WOLFE: I base it upon the test results that I've shown in terms of the video and the data acquisition.
MR. JACKSON: Can you describe that in a little more detail?
DR. WOLFE: So during this test, we had the instrumented hybrid arm outstretched from the test dummy with the accelerometer on the hand and the forearm. We had data acquisition on the vehicle monitoring the speeds of the vehicle. We accelerated that vehicle into the arm at 24 miles an hour to conduct a dynamic impact test to make -- collect data certainly about the acceleration that the arm experienced, but then also make observations about the damage that we observed to the taillight.
MR. JACKSON: Do you hold that opinion that we just discussed to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: And were your tests conducted in accordance with methodologies that are generally accepted in the field of accident in reconstruction in this particular test cycle?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Next slide, please. What are we looking at in this series of photos?
DR. WOLFE: So these are photographs depicting the tests clothing. Again, prior to the test there were no holes or damage to the sweatshirt. That was the same posttest. We did see any -- not make any observations with respect to any fraying, holes, punctures to the material of the sleeve.
MR. JACKSON: Was there any damage whatsoever observed on the right sleeve of that ATD?
DR. WOLFE: No.
MR. JACKSON: Next slide, please. What are we looking at in terms of this graph?
DR. WOLFE: So what you're looking at in this graph is the acceleration of the hand reaching a peak acceleration just after ten milliseconds of approximately four hundred thirty-five Gs.
MR. JACKSON: Next slide. What are we looking at here?
DR. WOLFE: This is the acceleration of the arm during this twenty- four mile an hour impact test reaching peak Gs of about three hundred at four milliseconds.
MR. JACKSON: And the next slide. What is this Delta-V graph showing us?
DR. WOLFE: So this is showing the change in speed of the hand as a result of the impact, ultimately getting up to approximately 24 miles an hour, which, again, is the impact of velocity of the Lexus.
MR. JACKSON: And how fast did it get to 24 miles an hour?
DR. WOLFE: In probably about ten milliseconds or less.
MR. JACKSON: Next slide, please. What does this image show?
DR. WOLFE: This is showing the change in speed of the arm going to about just over it looks like about twenty-two miles an hour at about ten milliseconds. So total window of time of about eight milliseconds that it took to get up to that twenty-two mile an hour speed or so.
MR. JACKSON: Understood. And next slide, please. Did you undertake -- by the way, another question. On that -- when the ATD was oriented in test E, as in echo, where you're standing with this one arm out, when the impact was on the right arm, what happened to the mass of the body of the ATD?
DR. WOLFE: It rotated.
MR. JACKSON: Was it projected at all off to the side?
DR. WOLFE: No.
MR. JACKSON: Was it projected rearward?
DR. WOLFE: No.
MR. JACKSON: Was that rotation expected based on your experience?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: What is the 29 mile an hour impact test in test F?
DR. WOLFE: So this was a test we conducted with what's known as a rescue Randy or a test dummy that was a full on impact to the right rear corner of the Lexus.
MR. JACKSON: Let's take a look at the next slide, please. With regard to test E, I'll ask you about that -- I'll go back to that testing while we're looking at this one. With test E, was that reflective of a direct impact on the arm itself?
DR. WOLFE: Correct. Right in the area of the elbow to the quarter panel taillight.
MR. JACKSON: As opposed to a sideswipe of the arm?
DR. WOLFE: Correct, yes.
MR. JACKSON: Thank you. Did you undertake to test a direct impact on the body of the ATD in this test?
DR. WOLFE: Of the rescue Randy dummy?
MR. JACKSON: Yes.
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: What are we looking at here?
DR. WOLFE: So this is the intended impact configuration with the rescue Randy suspended here by the forklift and again kind of in the profile of that right rear corner.
MR. JACKSON: How much does this test dummy weigh?
DR. WOLFE: Approximately 200 pounds.
MR. JACKSON: Next slide, please. What are we looking at in this photograph?
DR. WOLFE: So this is a video. We had a little bit of a false start so our high speeds weren't triggered, but thankfully we were able to pull our surveillance video to get at least an overall video of the test taking place.
MR. JACKSON: Do you have or did you intended -- did you intend to have high-speed video just like you had in every other test?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: What went wrong, something --
DR. WOLFE: Just miscommunication between the driver and the rest of the test engineers. So false start.
MR. JACKSON: Got it. Okay. Was the taillight housing reassembled for this test?
DR. WOLFE: Yes, it had a preconditioned new set of taillights on it.
MR. JACKSON: And other than the taillight being damaged several times that we've seen, was there any other damage to rear of that exemplar vehicle?
DR. WOLFE: I'm sorry. Can you repeat the question?
MR. JACKSON: Sure. Other than the taillight damage that you have taken us through in your testing C through F, was there any other inherent damage to the tail of the liftgate that existed when the exemplar vehicle was received by you?
DR. WOLFE: When it was received, no. It was in good condition. No defects or damager were noted.
MR. JACKSON: Okay. What are we going to expect to see in this video?
DR. WOLFE: So in this video you'll see in the surveillance video, the Lexus will come from the right to left, strike the rescue Randy, and then you'll see the rescue Randy projected and slide on the ground.
MR. JACKSON: Okay. Next slide, please. What are we looking at in this series of photographs?
DR. WOLFE: So this is an extract from our V box software and data acquisition system. So on the top, you'll see the video. On the bottom is the data. So this is another feed that we had of video. This was triggered, so we do have data from this perspective. So what you'll see is my colleague will move away from the assembly with the dry ice, and then the vehicle will accelerate in reverse.
MR. JACKSON: That was my question. The blue, that's dry ice gloves?
DR. WOLFE: Yeah, you can't -- you don't want to touch dry ice with your bare hands, so it's -- yeah, he's wearing gloves.
(Video played.) A He's capturing the thermal images now.
MR. JACKSON: Next slide, please. And what are we looking at in this?
DR. WOLFE: So these are extracted frames from that video you just saw from the data acquisition system. So on the left here is just before contact between the test dummy and the Lexus. On the right is just at contact.
MR. JACKSON: Next slide, please. And what are we seeing in this series of photos?
DR. WOLFE: So this is obviously during the collision sequence. The body now has loaded into the liftgate and the back window. What you see in here is the back window shattering, and this is just a few split second later in time where, again, the body is continuing to move with the vehicle as it's contacted.
MR. JACKSON: Next slide. And what is this?
DR. WOLFE: This depicts the post-impact damage to the rear of the Lexus. As I noted, the rear window is completely shattered. There's deformation and crush to the liftgate section of the vehicle. The bumper step was popped out, and then there was some minor fracturing in the bumper cover at the lower level.
MR. JACKSON: Did you note anything regarding the internal components of the exemplar taillight even at this direct impact?
DR. WOLFE: So the taillight as you can see, it blew out the other lens cover. I believe the part of the clear diffusers were actually still in place. I think the lower might've been fractured here, but I think the upper one was still in place.
MR. JACKSON: At 29 miles an hour with a direct impact, did the exemplar taillight exhibit the same type of damage to the diffuser as the subject taillight?
DR. WOLFE: I'm not sure I understand your question.
MR. JACKSON: More or less damage in this photo to the diffuser, specifically, than in the subject taillight?
DR. WOLFE: Well, I think there was more in the subject taillight. As I mentioned, the -- I believe the top diffuser on this --
MR. JACKSON: More damage?
DR. WOLFE: Correct.
MR. JACKSON: Okay. That was my question. And is there another slide that the -- on the back of this one?
DR. WOLFE: That's it.
MR. JACKSON: We can hit the lights. Dr. Wolfe, you conducted tests at what miles per hour? Tell me the sequence?
DR. WOLFE: It would be ten miles per hour, seventeen miles per hour, fifteen miles per hour, twenty-nine miles per, twenty-four miles per hour, and then a full on hit at twenty-nine miles per hour.
MR. JACKSON: Regarding all the tests you conducted, what did you observe with regard to the damage, if any, to the internal components of the quarter panel taillight, and I'm talking about the chrome pieces and the diffusers.
DR. WOLFE: It was less than all the tested taillights than that of the subject taillight.
MR. JACKSON: Did you reach any opinions or conclusions as to whether the damage to the right rear light of the subject 2021 Lexus is consistent with the impact to John O'Keefe's right arm during a high-speed reverse --
MR. BRENNAN: Objection.
JUDGE CANNONE: Sustained in that form, Mr. Jackson.
MR. JACKSON: Did you reach any opinions or conclusions as to whether the damage to the right rear taillight of the subject vehicle is consistent or inconsistent with an impact to a right arm during a high-speed reversal?
DR. WOLFE: It was inconsistent.
MR. JACKSON: What's the basis for that opinion?
DR. WOLFE: All of the test data that we did from the laboratory testing moving up to full scale vehicle testing, all of the collected data in terms of the photographs, the observations, all the acceleration data collected, so all of the testing that we've walked through in this PowerPoint along with certainly that was based upon all generally accepted and peer-reviewed methodologies in the accident reconstruction community.
MR. JACKSON: Do you hold that opinion to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty based on your experience, training, and education?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Did you reach any opinions or conclusions as to relating to the punctures and the holes in the hoodie that you saw that was related to John O'Keefe?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Do you have opinions or conclusions as to whether or not the damage that you saw to the hoodie related to John O'Keefe is consistent or inconsistent with an impact from a right rear taillight of the subject SUV?
DR. WOLFE: It was inconsistent.
MR. JACKSON: And what do you base that opinion on?
DR. WOLFE: Based upon all of the impact testing that we did with the clothed ATD arm in the laboratory as well as the field.
MR. JACKSON: In any of the testing that you did, did you ever see taillight pieces cut, puncture, or fray the sleeve of that hoodie?
DR. WOLFE: No.
MR. JACKSON: The exemplar hoodie I should say?
DR. WOLFE: Correct.
MR. JACKSON: Did you reach any opinions or conclusions as to whether the rear taillight of the subject SUV was involved in a center of mass strike of a pedestrian at a high-speed?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: What is your opinion?
DR. WOLFE: That the damage to the subject Lexus is inconsistent with a center of mass hit.
MR. JACKSON: What do you base that opinion on?
DR. WOLFE: The testing that we conducted in the last test that you just saw.
MR. JACKSON: Do you hold that opinion to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty, by the way?
DR. WOLFE: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Okay. That's all I have.
JUDGE CANNONE: All right. Is this a good place for a break or do you want to get started?
MR. BRENNAN: Court's preference.
JUDGE CANNONE: Jurors, why don't we let you have your lunch. So we'll come back. Why don't we come back ready to go at 1:30.
(Court in recess at 12:41 p.m.)
(Court in session at 1:40 p.m.)
(Defendant is present with counsel.)
JUDGE CANNONE: So, Counsel, Court Order: Jurors or Juror Issue
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, Your Honor.
(Jury in.)
JUDGE CANNONE: So, jurors, we're going to stop today at 3:45. All right. Mr. Brennan.
MR. BRENNAN: Thank you, Your Honor.
MR. JACKSON: Your Honor, as a matter of housekeeping before Mr. Brennan gets started, I would ask for the admission of triple V.
MR. BRENNAN: Subject to --
MR. JACKSON: Subject to redactions that Mr. Brennan and I have been talking about.
JUDGE CANNONE: All right.
MR. BRENNAN: Agreed.
MR. JACKSON: Thank you, Your Honor.
JUDGE CANNONE: Thank you. All right, Mr. Brennan.
(Whereupon Exhibit No. 216, Dr. Wolfe's PowerPoint (formerly VVV), was marked as an exhibit.)