Rochester resident found guilty of attempted murder in Batavia arson fire
A Rochester man accused of starting a fire at 12 Elms St. on Jan. 24, 2009, and attempting to kill the father of an estranged girlfriend, was found guilty today of attempted murder by a Genesee County jury.
The jury also found Andre L. Scott, 30, guilty of burglary and arson.
The tall and lanky Scott, dressed in a sharp tan suit, did not react to the verdict, but at least one person sitting in the gallery behind him rushed from the courtroom in tears as the jury foreman responded "guilty" to the second count.
Scott could face 15 years in prison, or 25-to-life. He will be sentenced Oct. 28.
Defense attorney Thomas Burns, who was assigned to the case, was clearly disappointed in the verdict. He worked hard to punch holes in the prosecution's case, calling into doubt the method in which evidence was gathered and how DNA was handled by investigators and the state's crime lab in Albany.
Burns said there will likely be an appeal, but another attorney will represent Scott through that process. It isn't clear at this time, Burns said, what shape the appeal will take, but he said he will work closely with the appeals' attorney to help prepare the case.
District Attorney Lawrence Friedman said the jury reached the correct verdict.
"Obviously, we're pleased with the verdict," Friedman said. "We certainly felt the evidence supported the verdict and we're glad the jury was able to sift through the evidence of a complicated case to arrive at these results."
The jury found that on Jan. 24, Scott, reacting to a fight with his estranged girlfriend, carried out threats he made to her, her father and a friend, and went to the father's apartment building on Elm Street and started a fire.
Scott was accused of pouring gasoline from a Clorox bottle onto the stairs, leading to the man's apartment and then lighting a book of matches to start the fire.
The blaze was discovered quickly and the fire department responded before much damage could be done. Nobody was hurt in the fire.
This morning, Burns and Friedman made their closing arguments to the jury. After the jump, a few notes from the summations.
Thomas Burns, Defense:
Burns called into question the process the State Police crime lab used to handle the DNA evidence, saying that Peter Lewis, a technician at the lab, offered testimony that called into doubt the chain of DNA evidence.
"He testified that the laboratory had a protocol, and it's a written protocol," Burns said. "He doesn't have a copy of it. He doesn't know what it says. But he knows he followed it."
As for the parole officer who collected DNA evidence, Burns said he testified about how to use the kit to collect evidence.
"What was the training? To read the instructions. Had he read the instructions? No," Burns said.
The laboratory used a kit to process the DNA. According to Burns, the kit instructions say to use a "nanogram" of sample DNA.
But none of the pieces of evidence -- such as a bottle cap from a Clorox Bleach container, its handle and a book of matches -- contained that much DNA.
"They did not follow the protocols," Burns said. "This is a serious break of this laboratory's ability to produce a scientifically valid report."
Burns also questioned the scientific validity of using only the suspect's sample DNA to test against the DNA gathered at the crime scene.
He compared the process to using a photo line-up. You don't show a witness to a crime a photo of only one suspect. You show him several suspects, and ask him to pick out the suspect.
In the same way, Burns argued, the lab should have been provided control DNA samples and asked to identify the one that matched, instead of looking for a reason to match the one it had.
"Human nature says you can have suggestions placed in your head and that it interferes with the scientific process," Burns said.
Burns also questioned why -- if Scott made calls and sent text messages threatening the alleged victims -- no recordings or copies of text messages containing threats where entered into evidence.
He noted that one of the alleged victims had a lengthy criminal history, including accusations of lying to police. But the only evidence of threats, Burns said, came from the testimony of three people.
District Attorney Lawrence Friedman
Friedman said the arguments against the DNA evidence could be made in any case.
"It's so easy to throw stones," Friedman said. "It's easy to play Monday-morning quarterback and suggest things could have been done different. If you accept the defense argument, then everybody involved in this case is either incompetent or there is some grand conspiracy against his client."
Friedman compared the idea that Peter Lewis could do his lab work without referring to the written protocols to a typical juror driving his or her car with out reading the owner's manual before each road trip.
"You don't need to be able to know your manual by heart in order to drive your car," Friedman said.
As to the credibility of the DNA evidence, Friedman said, "This isn't just Peter Lewis saying, 'these are my results.' They were peer reviewed. They were reviewed by supervisors and they were reviewed by administrators."
Friedman also called into question the testimony of alibi witnesses.
The witnesses, Friedman said, were able to recall with some detail events of Jan. 24, 2009, even though some of them didn't know for up to a year later that Scott had been charged with a crime. There was nothing, Friedman said, that would have made Jan. 24 particularly memorable.
"So how is it that they are able, after all these months, able to recall such amazing detail," Friedman said. "They have no recall of the day before or the day after. The amount of detail they claim to recall about Jan. 24 is ridiculous. It's not worthy of your consideration.
And why, Friedman wondered, didn't one of these alibi witnesses come forward long before the trial and tell police they had the wrong man because they were with him at the time of the accused crime. Not one of the witnesses contacted police prior to the trial, Friedman said.
