I think that's a tad unfair to be honest Skip. It appears when you are challenged you start to get personal for some reason and start name calling.
When I state someone is biased, distorting etc it is not getting personal it is stating something matter of factly and I never have a problem justifying why I state such things. I demonstrated quite clearly how Holly took claims and then twisted them to suit her agenda. She did google searches to try to find proof 22 calibers can't cause drawback, to try to prove drawback can't occur in neck shots and can't occur with moderators attached. Her searches came up empty so she distorted and tried to pretend these things are true anyway.
Drawback mainly occurs from a contact shot to the head. I am sure you can meet me half and agree on that. A yes or no will fine.
In real world environments, victims usually have clothes on their body and the clothing often inhibits spatter as does long hair. This is why spatter is more often seen in head shots it is not because the body is unlikely to result in spatter. The location on the body is important for a variety of reasons including clothing. Sheila's neck was exposed not covered by clothing. She suffered from a previous shot nearby which cause hemorrhaging inside her neck so there was a cavity full of blood covered by elastic skin. This is the optimal condition for backspatter to occur.
You have said yourself that if a silencer is fitted it slows down the gases, well the gases are less hot with a silencer on. Is this right or not?
Some gas escapes with the bullet other gas that the baffled managed to slow down will be cool down and contract inside the moderator and by the time it escapes it will be cooler than otherwise without the moderator. The contracting of gasses is what creates the partial vacuum that sucks things inside a gun so that partial vacuum will still be present in a moderator. When used with semi-automatic weapons soot and lead particles normally sent out the muzzle of the weapon are sent back out the ejection port and vents. So it enhances the particles that would have been on Sheila had she been doing the firing.
The shot to one of the twins was a contact shot yet no blood was found in the silencer that belonged to one of them.
The experts could not tell if any of the shots to the boys were contact shots they said they were close and could have been contact shots. 22 caliber shots to the head though rarely result in spatter, most spatter observed from 22 calibers has been with body shots.
We then have two samples of blood one being that of Sheila and the other a possible mixture of June and Nevill's. This being in 1986.
The blood was determined to have been Sheila's. The defense argued maybe the blood failed to intimately mix (though they could not come up with a way for the blood to have not intimately mixed) and maybe the lab messed up and failed to detect the blood was a mixture. So the defense argued the moderator was used to shoot June and Nevill, that their blood got inside, their blood failed to intimately mix and the lab messed up and failed to detect it was a mixture and that the moderator was not used to shoot Sheila she put it away in the closet before shooting herself and despite her fatal shot being a contact wound her blood didn't get inside the rifle.
The judge himself asked Fletcher if there was any other way that blood could have got in the silencer other than drawback....Fletcher's reply was it would have had to have been put there. There must have been some doubt at trial whether or not blood could have gotten into the silencer via drawback.
That leaves no doubt it was drawback. His response was very clear. the question was to try find out if innocent contamination were possible. he answered there is no chance the blood got there through innocent contamination it either was drawback or it had to have been planted.
There was no evidence presented to even attempt to establish it was planted all the evidence presented established it was drawback. The defense effectively conceded it was drawback and argued the moderator was used to shoot June and Nevill, that their blood got inside, their blood failed to intimately mix and the lab messed up and failed to detect it was a mixture and that the moderator was not used to shoot Sheila she put it away in the closet before shooting herself and despite her fatal shot being a contact wound her blood didn't get inside the rifle.
If the possibility is only likely then surely its can also mean its unlikely and this alone makes it unsafe for the answers to most of my questions are it might have or it may have; which is not good enough...Either it is possible or its not possible....Had the jury been aware that the gases slowed down that process they would have doubted the evidence presented to them. They were not aware, because no experiments were done therefore no outcome resulted in a correct conclusion that blood got into the silencer due to drawback.
1) If something is likely then it is the complete opposite of unlikely. You have degrees of likelihood which vary from 51-99%, degrees of unlikelihood which vary from 1-49%. The only other things are 0 percent, 100% and even money (50%). Sometimes percentages are used but more often degrees of likelihood or unlikelihood.
2) You are making a giant leap that the experts were wrong in assessing drawback was likely to occur with the moderator attached. The simple fact a moderator slows down the gases doesn't mean drawback was unlikely to occur. There are still gases coming out that act upon the wound and the gases contract inside the moderator which creates a partial vacuum effect. It is the duty of the defense to raise evidence to the jury if there were evidence that it were unlikely for drawback to be able to get in the moderator. The defense found no evidence to support such contention. Nor have you pointed to any the simple fact the moderator reduced the gas pressure doesn't make it unlikely for blood to be able to get inside the moderator in question. The defense never made the argument because this is not an accurate claim and thus they found no expert willing to assert such in court.
3)Worse you are ignoring that blood was in fact found in the moderator. Whether something is likely or not when you have evidence it happened it makes no difference if it was likely or not. Suppose I had to represent an electric company in a case where someone sued because they stepped on a NYC sidewalk grate and were electrocuted. Saying this happens infrequently and is not likely to happen doesn't in any way help to refute that it did happen in the case at hand. Unless I have evidence the person got electrocuted elsewhere and ran to the grate to blame it on the grate or proof that they intentionally had someone electrocute them to blame it on the grate the fact it is not common is useless. Short of evidence that they electrocuted themselves on purpose the only defense that could work is if it could be established it were impossible for them to have been electrocuted by the grate because it is scientifically impossible and thus they had to have been injured in some other manner.
Muzzle impressions are rarely left in soft contact and near contact shots. If a muzzle impression is observed and the wound is determined to be a soft contact or near contact shot does that mean the muzzle impression was likely intentionally placed there in an act of evidence tampering? The evidence is that it occurred it makes no difference if it was likely or unlikely to occur- it was established it did occur- that is all that matters. Unless it was impossible to have occurred you are up the creek. If you have evidence of tampering then in that case the defense simultaneously brings up that it is unlikely for muzzle impressions to be left and you used that to bolster your case it was planted. You can't just make a case of it being planted by saying it happens only occasionally so must have been planted.
4) In the instant case there is another assessment you keep ignoring. The assessment was if the moderator wasn't used then drawback definitely would have been found inside the rifle but her blood wasn't found in the rifle. No Jeremy supporters has even attempted to take on this argument not even Jeremy's appellate lawyers- a point the Court of Appeals highlighted, "There was in addition not merely the presence of the blood flake in the moderator but the absence of any blood in the barrel of the gun, the end of which would have been in contact with her neck when the shot was fired."
