◆ SpookStack

om Cw It was for this reason that the Grand Jury conducted its investigation, and a court order was obtained directing the County Clerk to preserve the evidence and not to allow persons other than the attorneys, or their representatives, to view evidence. At trial, the evidence was secured in a locked cabinet controlled by the Court Clerk assigned to the case. At the termination of the case, a conference was held in the chambers of the Presiding Judge where security procedures were outlined. A court order from Judge Walker was obtained which directed the clerk to show the exhibits to attorneys of record only, and only when notice had been given to the other side. This was to insure both that a representative of the other side would be present at any viewing of the evidence, and to insure that the integrity of the exhibits would be preserved. However, no member of the District Attorney's staff was ever given notice by the County Clerk's Office until May 1971, that exhibits in the Sirhan case had been examined by unauthoriz ed persons for almost a year. Many of the people examining the exhibits during 1970 and 1971 did not have proper authority under previous court orders for access to the Sirhan exhibits. 1975 - Proposed Tests By 1975, new criticism of the Sirhan case involved several law enforcement agencies. Previous two-gun advocates and critics had been noticeably critical of L.A.P.D. criminalist DeWayne Wolfer, and the possibility of serious ballisties evidence discrepancy. But in light of the cloud of suspicion concerning government after the Watergate scandal, the term “official version" was received with much skepticism by the public. Additionally, the charge was repeatedly heard that not only the L.A.P.D., but the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office in general, and, District Attorney Joseph Busch in particular, were “stonewalling,” covering up, and preventing the full facts from being released. Yet all the critics had one demand that was central to their theme: demand that the Sirhan weapon be test fired. Despite the fact that at the Ward hearing both criminalist Lowell Bradford and Herbert MacDonell testified that a classical microscopic comparison of the evidence bullets with the test fired bullets. would be a necessary preliminary step before any determination could be made as to the need to test fire the gun (since if the evidence bullets matched up with the Wolfer test fired bullets, the need to determine a second gun would be moot), a growing demand was made that the Sirhan weapon be refired. Sirhan's new attorney, Godfrey Isaac, had filed a writ of Habeas Corpus and a writ of Error Coram Nobis in the State Supreme Court in January, 1975, alleging every previously cited theory of two guns (including the affidavits of William Harper, Herbert MacDonell, Vincent Guinn, the autopsy report, and transcripts of the 1974 Baxter Ward hearings), but the State Supreme Court turned down the writ in February 1975. This did not seem to dissuade the critics that there should be a new complete reinvestigation of the Robert Kennedy murder. - 20 -