Day two of the trial was a good day for the government. The key witness, Wayne Mallet told the jury of many illegal discharges. The defense tried to shake his story and did attack Mr. Mallet’s credibility; however, they did not successfully attack the fact of the illegal discharges. This may be a part of the defense strategy, I do not know.
Jeri Dixon’s testimony was plain vanilla, although it did set the stage for the next witness. Ms. Dixon testified regarding sample analysis procedures and discharge proceedures from an administrative angle. The government focused on three dates in August 2006. The defense did a good job on cross examination; however, there was not alot to attack. It did make some points with the sample analysis when compared to Wayne Mallet’s testimony that the water in Tank B-1 never changed (the analysis was different). In fact, this is somewhat of e red herring as Mallet testified that the water in Tank B-1 was discharged on occassion and so the water analysis would change.
Chris Warren was up next and did some significant damage to the defense testifying that the sample analysis supplied by the facility as to what they were discharging did not match real-time analysis of the samples the City took during discharges. The government will finish up direct of Mr. warren today and then the defense will have their crack at him – it should be interesting.
More later.
As always, feel free to contact me at walter.james@jamespllc.com.
WDJiii