Almost Microscopic

Detective David Albertson finished his testimony today.

The state had him on the stand for the second day in a row. He is the Tampa Police Department's homicide scene investigator. He is the witness who walked the jury through every yellow evidence marker in the parking lot of the Holiday Inn Tampa North, every shell casing, every bullet hole in every car, every shattered window of every hotel room above the floor where Charles Jones bled out in the front seat of his Dodge Charger.

For two and a half hours this morning, the state did exactly what the state needed to do. The 31 nine millimeter pistol casings recovered from the scene are locked in. They are all the same brand. MXT. They are all the same caliber. 9 by 19. They were collected with gloves, picked up with thin metal wires through the open ends so technicians never touched them with their fingers, packaged in individually labeled paper envelopes, sealed with evidence tape across the closure, signed and dated, transported under custody to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement laboratory. The state walked the jury through one specific casing, evidence marker number 62, just so the jury could see how the chain of custody works on every single one of them.

Then the state played the Tesla footage.

I have been waiting for that footage to enter this trial since the day the case was charged. A Tesla parked at a charging station inside the Home2 Suites lot recorded everything its four security cameras could see during the shooting. A black Chevy Impala drove through the parking lot. A silver Chevy Cruze made a three-point turn near the charging station moments later. Then three masked men ran past the Tesla with weapons. The third one went behind the charging stations, raised what appeared to be a rifle, and started firing. The Tesla's own alarm system activated almost immediately afterward, triggered by the concussion of his shots.

That is the closest thing to actually watching the killing of Julio Foolio that this jury is ever going to see. And the state put it in front of them today.

Then defense counsel for Sean Gathright, Mr. Wise, stood up. He had ten minutes on cross.

He used them well.

He confirmed first that of the 31 casings, 30 are now with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. They are testing those casings for DNA from the shooters who handled the rounds. The defense did not press for results today, because results are not on the record yet. But the seed is planted. The jury knows DNA evidence is being developed, and they will be watching for it whenever the state finally puts those results in front of them.

Then he turned to the projectiles. The bullets themselves. He showed Albertson one intact projectile. He showed him a fragment. He had Albertson explain that projectiles come in conditions. Some are intact, with the rifling impressions left by the inside of a barrel still visible on the lead. Some are deformed fragments with no usable surface for comparison. He had Albertson confirm that rifling marks on a recovered projectile can be matched by a firearms analyst to the inside of a specific gun, and that a match like that can identify the firearm that fired the round.

Then he asked one specific question. Of the projectile fragments recovered from inside the Dodge Charger, the day after the shooting, the rounds that actually struck Charles Jones, how many are there and what is their condition?

Albertson confirmed approximately eight fragments came out of the Charger. The defense had Albertson agree, in the state's own witness's words, that those fragments are pretty important pieces of evidence because they came from the shooter who likely killed Mr. Jones.

Wise sat down. The defense had set up the question that will define the rifle ballistic case for the rest of this trial. Of those eight fragments, how many have rifling preserved well enough for the firearms analyst to match to a specific rifle?

Then the prosecutor, Assistant State Attorney Scott Harmon, stood up on redirect.

And he answered that question himself. Before any firearms analyst has taken the stand. Before the jury has seen a single comparison.

He named the rifle calibers on the record for the first time in this case. 300 Blackout. 5.56. He confirmed that 9mm projectiles cannot match an AR rifle in either of those calibers. Different caliber class. Then he walked Albertson through what happens when a high powered rifle round passes through automotive glass and sheet metal. The jacket separates from the core. The fragments deform. Then he asked Albertson the question that will travel through closing arguments.

Could the jury expect that some of those fragments would have value for comparison to a specific firearm?

And Albertson answered, in the prosecutor's own framing, that some of those fragments when they start separating are almost microscopic. Nothing else.

That is the state's word, on redirect, in front of the jury. Microscopic. Used to describe the rifle fragments recovered from inside the car of the man this case is about.

I want to be careful about what I am and am not saying here.

I am not saying the rifle case is dead. I am not saying the defense has won. I am not saying any of these four men are innocent. The presumption of innocence is for the jury, and the burden of proof is for the state, and what each one has to do they will do across the next two weeks of testimony. I am not standing on either side of that courtroom.

I am saying what happened on the record today is the kind of moment that does not happen in normal cases. Prosecutors do not usually pre-excuse the limits of their forensic evidence in front of a jury during the second day of testimony. They wait. They put the evidence on through their analyst. They let the analyst explain why the science is what it is. They control the framing. They do not, as a rule, hand the defense a line for closing arguments before the defense has even started cross-examining their experts.

Harmon did that today. He did it for a reason. He must have looked at what is coming, looked at what Amara Drew is going to be able to say from the firearms lab, looked at the chain of evidence he has on the rifle side of this case, and decided that getting in front of the limitations was better than letting the defense expose them on cross. That is a strategic call. It might be the right strategic call. We will know when Drew testifies and the jury hears from her about what she could and could not match.

But it is also a moment the defense is now going to live in for the rest of this trial.

Because here is the thing. The state has a powerful pistol case. The state has 31 casings, all the same brand, all the same caliber. The state has the location of the pistol shooter physically locked in at the north end of the building, the man closest to the wall, the man video shows firing into the Charger from that exact spot. When Amara Drew gets up there and identifies that 9mm pistol in evidence as the gun that fired those 31 casings, the state will have one defendant in serious trouble on the pistol side of this case.

The state does not have that on the rifle side. The state has fragments. The state has a brass-catcher theory previewed in opening statements to explain why no rifle casings appeared on a scene where the state's own video shows rifle fire. And now the state has its own prosecutor on redirect telling the jury, in advance, that some of those fragments may have no comparison value at all.

The four men at this defense table are not facing identical cases. The state's case against the alleged 9mm pistol shooter, the man at the north end of the building, is built on physical evidence the state walked the jury through for two and a half hours today. The state's case against the men allegedly carrying rifles is built on Tesla footage, a brass-catcher theory, and now a forensic concession the prosecutor made before the firearms analyst even arrived in the building.

This is the kind of moment my father would have circled in red ink and used as a teaching example for the rest of his career. Steven M. Askin understood that the state has all the power in a criminal case, and the only thing that levels the playing field is the burden of proof. The state has to prove this beyond a reasonable doubt against four separate human beings. The defense does not have to prove anything. The defense just has to show the jury that the burden has not been met.

Today, the state's own prosecutor handed the defense a line that is going to make that argument easier on at least three of these four men. If the closing on the rifle side comes down to whether the science actually placed a specific rifle in a specific defendant's hand, the defense does not need to prove the rifle did not match. The defense will simply point to Harmon's redirect and say, the state told you themselves. The fragments may be almost microscopic. They may have no value for comparison. That is not the defense saying the rifle case is weak. That is the prosecutor saying it.

And that is the moment the rifle ballistic case stopped being a certainty in the Julio Foolio murder trial.

Tomorrow, the state moves on to lay witnesses. The wounded victims from the parking lot are coming in from Jacksonville. The trial keeps building. The jury keeps absorbing. Amara Drew is still ahead of us, somewhere in the next two weeks. When she takes the stand, the rifle ballistic question gets answered for real, and we will see whether the science clears the hedge the prosecutor placed on the record today, or whether it confirms it.

Watch every day. Watch every witness. Watch what the defense does with the line the state just handed them.

And keep in mind, every step of the way, that the four men at the defense table are presumed innocent until proven guilty. Beyond a reasonable doubt. Today, the state's own prosecutor told the jury that on the rifle side of this case, the science may not get them all the way there.

Microscopic.

That is the word the jury is going to remember.