The Republican
Court drama going high tech
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
By FRED CONTRADA
fcontrada@repub.com
NORTHAMPTON - Things might already have been looking bad for Nathan J. Ruell, but there came a moment in his murder trial when he saw his fate flash across a 52-inch screen.
A prosecutor was eliciting testimony about DNA evidence that she said tied Ruell to the murder of 83-year-old Rose A. Martowski.
Highly complex, DNA science is normally difficult to explain to jurors. Forensic experts sometimes cite matches found in the defendant's DNA and compare that to how the evidence matches random samples from other sources. The terminology can also be hard to understand.
When it came time to compare Ruell's DNA with that found on a cigarette from the crime scene, however, the prosecution merely clicked a computer mouse and the screen in the courtroom lit up like the sun.
Yellow all the way across. Match. Match. Match. Match. Ruell was sunk. If those old black-and-white Perry Mason shows seem outdated, it's because the real-life world of courtroom drama is now in brilliant color, and WIN Interactive is lighting the way. The Quincy-based company provided both the software and hardware for the Ruell trial, including a new program written especially for DNA evidence.
Northwestern First Assistant District Attorney Renee L. Steese first got a look at WIN's high-tech wares in 2003, when company founder Brian J. Carney made a presentation at a state attorneys general meeting. When she was developing the Ruell case, Steese remembered WIN.
"If there was one thing that caused me to call Brian Carney, it was the DNA," Steese said. "I wanted to be able to present that evidence in an effective way to the jury."
The color-coded DNA chart displayed on the screen near the jury easily separated Ruell from about a hundred other people sampled.
WIN also helped Steese and Assistant District Attorney Michael A. Cahillane illustrate the evidence in other ways. Using a laptop computer, prosecutors were able to zoom in and out of an aerial map of the Ware neighborhood where the crime occurred. The street grid projected on the courtroom screen showed how close Ruell lived to Rose Martowski and other homes he was accused of breaking into.
When it came time to show the jury the crime scene, the prosecutors could switch back and forth from photographs of the outside of Martowski's house to a diagram of its layout to individual rooms.
"It was a more effective and less cumbersome way of providing information to the jury," Steese said.
With WIN's help, Steese was also able to synchronize a tape recording of Ruell's police interview with a transcript projected on the screen. In addition to the 52-inch color monitor at the jury box, the judge had his own 20-inch monitor at the bench.
A former Suffolk County prosecutor, Carney began using multimedia presentations in his own cases in 1998. He started WIN in 2001. Carney had owned a video business on the side and saw potential for that technology in court.
"I realized I was not personally communicating as effectively as I could," he said.
Technology provided by WIN Interactive has played a role in some high-profile cases. In 2002, prosecutors in Connecticut used it to help convict Michael Skakel of the murder of 15-year-old Martha Moxley, a crime that dated back to 1975. Lawyers for Joseph Salvati and Peter Limone also used WIN's multimedia services to win a record $101.75 million in damages from the federal government. Salvati, Limone, Henry Tameleo and Louis Greco had been wrongfully convicted of the gangland slaying of Edward "Teddy" Deegan. Tameleo and Greco died in prison.
Carney has since sold WIN's services to lawyers and law firms across the country. The company specializes in civil cases, but criminal lawyers are increasingly attracted to the technology.
"We provide a competitive advantage," Carney said. "The other side almost never has a visual presentation to oppose what we're doing."
The Northwestern District Attorney's office paid $30,000 for WIN's services in the Ruell case. Carney said his fee sometimes exceeds $100,000.
Alan Rubin, regional supervisor of the Superior Court office of the Committee for Public Counsel Services, is not a fan of high technology, but feels it is fair for one side to use it as long as the other has equal access. Defense lawyers submit their trial budgets to the court for approval.
