We2, you don't seem to have a handle on the Bias case. In the opinion of his own attorneys, if his gun had been loaded with factory ammo, he would never have been convicted. Quite probably, he never even would have been charged.
Bias had no motive to kill his wife. There was NONE of the usual abusive escalation that leads up to wife murder. Moreover, his wife had multiple times expressed suicidal ideation and at one time had attempted suicide with a firearm.
Because the spent cartridge was headstamped "Federal +P" the crime lab did GSR testing with exemplar Federal +P ammunition. Their conclusion was that GSR would have been left from a distance the length of her arm, and since there was no GSR on the body, they concluded that the gun could not have been in her hand. Defense testing with the light handloads Bias had recorded making did not deposit GSR at arm's length, and would have vindicated his story. Unfortunately, neither testing nor testimony was allowed. "The defendant manufactured the evidence" and all that.
The state's case, and the ultimate conviction, turned on the fact that the crime lab testimony was, in essence, "That ammo would have left GSR if she had been holding the gun, and it left no GSR on her body."
We2, you say you were a prosecutor. If you were prosecuting a rape case, and demanded a blood sample from the defendant for DNA testing, would you have allowed his attorney to drop a vial of blood at your office and say, "Take my word for it, this came from my client"? Of course not. Asking the courts to take your word, believe your records, or test your home-made ammo is asking the same thing. You can't expect it to be admitted.
This is why we've not yet found a case where the courts accepted GSR testing with handloads, and probably never will.
Bias had no motive to kill his wife. There was NONE of the usual abusive escalation that leads up to wife murder. Moreover, his wife had multiple times expressed suicidal ideation and at one time had attempted suicide with a firearm.
Because the spent cartridge was headstamped "Federal +P" the crime lab did GSR testing with exemplar Federal +P ammunition. Their conclusion was that GSR would have been left from a distance the length of her arm, and since there was no GSR on the body, they concluded that the gun could not have been in her hand. Defense testing with the light handloads Bias had recorded making did not deposit GSR at arm's length, and would have vindicated his story. Unfortunately, neither testing nor testimony was allowed. "The defendant manufactured the evidence" and all that.
The state's case, and the ultimate conviction, turned on the fact that the crime lab testimony was, in essence, "That ammo would have left GSR if she had been holding the gun, and it left no GSR on her body."
We2, you say you were a prosecutor. If you were prosecuting a rape case, and demanded a blood sample from the defendant for DNA testing, would you have allowed his attorney to drop a vial of blood at your office and say, "Take my word for it, this came from my client"? Of course not. Asking the courts to take your word, believe your records, or test your home-made ammo is asking the same thing. You can't expect it to be admitted.
This is why we've not yet found a case where the courts accepted GSR testing with handloads, and probably never will.