Ladies and gentlemen, this 0 witness has previously been sworn. Proceed, please. DWAYNE WOLF, having been first duly sworn, testified as follows: DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MS. JOHNSON: Q. Sir, could you please state your name for the jury? A. Dr. Dwayne Wolf. Q. How are you employed, sir? A. I'm the deputy chief medical examiner for Harris County. Q. Can you tell us what a medical examiner is? A. Medical examiner is a physician who investigates deaths. We investigate deaths that result from physical or chemical injury or deaths that are sudden and unexpected. In the course of those investigations, we often do autopsies; and ultimately we determine the cause and manner of death and collect evidence from the body to be used in court. Q. And you said you were the deputy chief medical examiner? A. Correct. Q. What does that mean?
A. I'm over the death investigation aspects of our office, the medical examiners within the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences. Our department includes the medical examiner service with death investigations, along with the full service crime laboratory. So my half of the office is the death investigation side. I directly supervise a staff of physicians, So, 0 physicians now, and then also oversee the operations of the morgue and the investigations division within the office. Q. Can you describe for the jury the education, training and experience you have that qualifies you to hold that position? A. I graduated from Lamar University in Beaumont in with a Bachelor's degree in biology. I then attended The University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, through, where I completed both a Ph.D. in molecular biology, as well as an M.D. degree. And then began my training in pathology at Brown University in Providence, and I returned to The University of Texas Medical Branch in and completed my general pathology training in. Forensic pathology subspecialty training was at the Dade County Medical Examiner's Office in Miami. I completed that training in, and I'm board certified in forensic
0 0 pathology, anatomic pathology and, of course, licensed to practice medicine in Texas. Q. Have you testified as an expert in the area of forensic pathology before? Q. On few or many occasions? A. Many. Q. And have you testified as an expert here in Harris County? Q. You used the words pathology and forensic pathology quite a bit this morning. those terms for us? Can you explain A. Sure. Pathology is defined as the study of abnormal tissues and organs. Forensic pathology is a subspecialty that deals with tissues and organs that are abnormal because of injuries, trauma or toxins. Pathologists by and large work in hospitals, they examine tumors to see whether they're benign or malignant or what cell type they are and so forth. Pathologists also run the laboratory in the hospital. The pathology laboratory, the chemistry lab, blood bank all run by pathologists. So forensic pathology is really a subspecialty of the broader field of pathology that deals specifically with investigation of deaths,
again, traumatic deaths and drug deaths. Q. Now, you mentioned that part of the duties of a medical examiner here in Harris County is to conduct autopsies? A. Correct. Q. What is an autopsy? A. An autopsy is essentially physical examination of a dead body. Our examination begins with the body as it's received either from the scene or from the 0 hospital. We begin with an external view of the body, accompanied by photographs of the external appearance of the body. We then remove whatever clothing items of medical intervention might be in place; and then we reexamine the body, again, looking for evidence of injury or evidence of disease. Our examination then proceeds to an internal examination. We open the body. We examine each organ one at a time looking for evidence of injury or any evidence of preexisting disease. Again, we document our findings with photography as we go along both the external as well as the internal portions of the examination. go along. And, again, we collect evidence as we So, in a gunshot wound case, we may have the bullet -- well, in the case where there may have
0 been a physical altercation, we may collect fingernail scrapings and that sort of thing. Q. I think you may have mentioned this earlier but we don't do an autopsy on everyone who dies in the county? A. Correct. Q. What are the parameters for how y'all decide when you need to do an autopsy? A. The law, which is Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, Chapter, Section, is the medical examiner law. And actually Section under that defines what deaths have to be reported to the medical examiner. Those categories include deaths of all children six years of age or less; deaths that occur within admission to a hospital within hours. So, those are all reported. Sudden and unexpected deaths, any deaths that result from injury, whether that's suspected homicide, suicide, or accident. So traffic fatalities and that sort of thing, all of those deaths are reported by our office. If you add all that up, every year, about,000 deaths are reported to the Harris County Medical Examiner every year, out of about,000 deaths in our county every year. The law doesn't say which deaths we have to do an autopsy on. But in cases where a person
goes to the hospital and they're there long enough to have an EKG diagnosis of a heart attack, but they die within hours, well, under the law that's reported to our office, and we will have a report on that, but there's no reason for us to bring in the body to do an autopsy, so we don't. So that's the extent of our 0 involvement in those cases. So, if you look at that,000 deaths that are reported, we only bring about,000 bodies a year for further examination; and those could include anything where there's a suspicion of a homicide, suicide, children deaths where there's an unclear cause of death, traffic fatalities, accidents, all drug deaths. Again, within that group it's at our discretion whether we autopsy or not. So, in cases of traffic fatalities where a person goes to the hospital and they've been in a hospital for a week, say, they have a lot of surgeries, CT scans and so forth, we're pretty clear by the time they get to us what their array of injuries are, so we don't tend to autopsy those. There's another category of deaths, old people who die at home who just don't have a physician taking care of them, if there is no suspicion of anything unnatural, a lot of those, we'll just do an external examination and not do an autopsy. So, of the
,000 bodies that we bring to our office for examinations, we autopsy around, hundred a year. But our numbers are up for, so that,000 is likely to be higher. But we tend to autopsy about 0 percent 0 of the bodies that we bring in, and all homicides, so if there's a suspicion of homicide, there's a hundred percent autopsy. Q. And do you decide which medical examiner does which autopsy? A. It's essentially a random system that we've worked out. So those of us who happen to be on the schedule for the day are put in rank order by seniority. It's just a rotation system, and then whoever got the last autopsy the day before, the next person up gets the first autopsy the next day, so it's random. Q. So even though you're the deputy chief medical examiner, you still do autopsies? Q. I want to talk to you about an autopsy you performed on January st of on the body of a man identified as Saturnino Argueta. that autopsy? Are you familiar with Q. Now, is each autopsy given its own unique identifying number?
Q. And what is the identifying number for the autopsy of Saturnino Argueta? A. It's M-L, dash, 000. Would you do that one more time, please? 0 THE WITNESS: the first case of. MS. JOHNSON: ML, dash, 000, so he was Thank you. May I approach the witness? You may. Q. (BY MS. JOHNSON) Dr. Wolf, I'm going to show you what's been marked as State's Exhibit No. 0. you recognize this document? Q. And what is that document? Do A. It's a copy of an autopsy report for this case. Q. And did you write this report? Q. Is this report something that's created in the regular course of business for the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences? Q. Is made at or near the time of the events described?
0 Q. Is it made by a person with knowledge of the events reported in here? Q. And are you a custodian of records of this document? Q. I'm also going to show you State's Exhibits No. 0 through as well as State's Exhibit No. ; do you recognize these photographs? Q. And what are they? A. These are photographs that were taken during the course of the examination of Mr. Argueta. Q. And do each of these photographs contain that identifying number in the photograph? Q. And do each of these photographs fairly and accurately depict both Mr. Argueta's body and evidence you recovered from it as it appeared to you during the autopsy? MS. JOHNSON: At this time I'm going to offer State's 0 through as well as State and ask that they be admitted into evidence.
(State's Exhibit Nos. 0 through and offered.) MR. CORTEZ: No objection as to the ME's report, Your Honor. We would object to 0 through as redundant, cumulative and under 0. I'll look at those in just a 0 moment. Bring them up, please. State's Exhibit 0 is admitted. (State's Exhibit No. 0 admitted.) (Bench conference.) MR. CORTEZ: I do not object to the bullet pictures. I know. I'm pretty sure you're not going to be doing that one for identification purpose, we have to have that one. And this is the exit wound. And so I have a couple of questions. It's going to be about these three. And I'm specifically looking at 0, 0 and. Is that the same? of the exit wound on. MS. JOHNSON: No, sir. That's the close-up MS. JOHNSON: That's the close-up of this? That, yes, sir. be over here I would think. Okay. Your problem is going to MR. CORTEZ: As well as the others, Your
Honor, the report is very detailed, and I don't think that there's anything -- I'll take a look. You show me a case on that, and Why do we need this? MS. JOHNSON: It's difficult to tell the position of the wound without a reference point. I tried to pick as close in as I could get where you can still see a reference point on the body. Unfortunately, 0 the Complainant had surgical intervention at the hospital, so there's nothing I can do about that. This one is not coming in right now. MS. JOHNSON: Okay. So at the moment in addition to State's Exhibit No. 0, I'm also admitting State's Exhibit 0, 0 through and. separately. Keep that one and admitted.) (State's Exhibit Nos. 0, 0 through MR. CORTEZ: MS. JOHNSON: Thank you, Judge. Thank you. (End of bench conference.) MS. JOHNSON: May I publish? You may.
The excluded one was 0, correct? MS. JOHNSON: Yes, sir. Thank you. 0 Q. (BY MS. JOHNSON) All right. Dr. Wolf, first of all, what are we looking at here in State's Exhibit No. 0? A. This is the top page of my autopsy report in this case. Q. And we can see here, is that the reference number that you indicated earlier that identifies this case? Q. And what does this date indicate? A. That's the date the autopsy was actually done. Q. January st of? A. Correct. Q. And what do we see here? A. That was the decedent's name and the address as we knew it at the time of his death. Q. And I want to come back to these other things on the front page in a moment, and what I would like to do is there are many pages where you go into great detail about your findings in the report. But I'd like to focus on page on this section called pathological findings. And before we start going through that, what
do we have here in State's Exhibit No. 0? A. It's called an identification photograph. It's a photograph of the face of the decedent taken after the -- Excuse me a second. Are these not working? MS. JOHNSON: the nature of the photos. I turned them off because of 0 All right. Thank you. A. After the items of medical intervention are removed, we leave the endotracheal tube, the breathing tube, in place and just cut it off so that we can see where the other end of that goes, likewise, for the nasogastric tube. Q. When you performed the autopsy with Mr. Argueta, did you find something that was of interest to you in determining how he died? A. He had a gunshot wound and he also had medical intervention from that, so he was transported to the hospital and the surgeons actually opened his abdomen and then his chest in life-saving attempts. And so when he came to us, I actually had medical records from those procedures as well. Q. And can you tell me where the gunshot wound, or I beg your pardon, where the entrance of the gunshot
wound was on his body? A. Yeah, it was in the upper left part of the abdomen or lower chest. It actually grazed along the 0 lower edge of the rib cage on the left side. Q. And in State's Exhibit No. 0 here, are we seeing a close-up of that entrance wound? Q. Now, I see over here on the right side of this picture there is some red dots on the skin, can you tell me what that is? A. That's stippling. Q. What is stippling? A. And they're actually all the way around. So, if you look close out here on this side, you'll see the same thing. When a gun is fired, obviously the bullet comes out of the end, but there are other things that come out of the end of the gun, there's smoke that doesn't go very far. So the smoke, it comes out with the bullet; and it goes out a couple of inches. But there are also unburned particles of gunpowder that come out from the end of the gun and fans out. And those particles of gunpowder will fly out with enough force to actually cause abrasions out to about feet from the end of the gun. And so in cases where the end of the gun is about inches to feet from the skin, we'll see
a bullet hole and then surrounding that little pinpoint abrasions from unburned particles of gunpowder striking the skin; and that's stippling, so that's what this is. Q. And so if we see stippling here, that gives us a pretty good idea that the gun was inches to feet from this man's body when it was fired; is that correct? A. Right, and in this case he had a shirt on that we didn't get to examine. So, if a gun is within the 0 closest part of that range within a couple of inches, you would actually see soot from the smoke deposited on the skin as well. But a lot of the particles of gunpowder as well as the smoke won't make it through the clothing. So, without looking at the clothing, it's hard to say exactly. But, yeah, inches to feet but given that these penetrated the shirt, it's probably on the lower end of that range. Q. And in your report here we see that you say intermediate range; is that what you mean? A. Right, when we see stippling, that's the term that we use is intermediate range. Q. Can you tell us what path the bullet took through Mr. Argueta's body? A. Sure. It was front to back and downward, no right or left deviation. Q. And can you just for us who don't kind of know
what's in the way in the body in there, can you describe what it hit? A. It went through the lower part of the rib cage. At that point the rib cage is just cartilage, so it's the lower costal margin and it went through the transverse colon, which is your large bowel that extends horizontally across the upper abdomen, then went through the stomach, through several loops of small intestines, through the tissue that holds the small intestines, the 0 back part of the abdominal wall, the mesentery. are a lot of blood vessels within the mesentery. There And it went through the superior mesentery artery, which is one of the main blood vessels that supplies blood to your small intestines. And also perforated the left ureter, which is the tube that goes from your kidney to your bladder. It went through the inferior vena cava, which is one of the main veins of your body. That's the vein that carries blood from legs, everything below your navel, essentially back up to your heart. Then it went through the edge of the third lumbar vertebra, and then it entered into the subcutaneous tissue in the back. So, I actually recovered the bullet from just under the skin in the back. Q. And you mentioned earlier that you knew Mr. Argueta had gone to the hospital first, and you reviewed
0 his medical records from there? A. Correct. Q. And you also indicated that the body came to you from the hospital? A. Right. Q. Was there evidence when it came from the hospital about what they had done to try and save Mr. Argueta's life? A. Yes, when he got to the hospital, they immediately recognized that his injuries were in the abdomen, so they actually opened his abdomen. They saw multiple holes in the small intestines, so they actually took a section of the small intestines out. You can see a big hole in the stomach, so they sewed that. Then they started tying off blood vessels as they went back. During the course of that, his blood pressure started dropping, so they ended up opening his chest to get to his aorta, the main artery in the body, to clamp across that to keep blood from going down into the abdomen. So it's kind of a last ditch-type effort just to keep blood going up into his brain. And then ultimately they just closed his body back up without even closing the gaping hole in the colon or finishing the procedures that they were doing. So when he came to me, he had an open incision in the
0 abdomen along with an incision on the side of the chest along with a bunch of IVs and so forth, just trying to pump enough fluid in him to keep his blood pressure up. Q. And was this evidence in that open abdomen incision about how they had tried to stop the blood flow? A. Well, yeah, there were a lot of blood vessels that were tied off, but, you know, during the course of them trying to fix the abdomen, they put towels in to soak up blood as they go, and it also helps to tamponade the blood flow. In other words, if they close the abdomen back over and they have a bunch of towels in there, there's another pressure to kind of keep the blood vessels from leaking, small blood vessels. Q. Do you know how many? A. I think there were eight towels in there still. Q. Sounds like a lot? A. Yeah. Q. And you mentioned that they closed him back up. In the bottom of State's 0 right here in the left corner, we can see a little bit of Mr. Argueta's skin that's a different color, do you know what this is? A. That's actually subcutaneous fat. So, the incision itself was a vertical incision, but it was gaping open. So, it was kind of a football shape thing
by the time it got to me. that incision. So, you're seeing the edge of Q. Now, you mentioned that the exit wound, I guess, for lack of a better term, was in the lower back of Mr. Argueta. State's? Is that what we're seeing here in 0 A. It really wasn't an exit wound because the bullet was still in him, but the bullet ended up in the subcutaneous tissue on the back, and I could see that externally because there's a little bruise at that location along with a little abrasion right where the bullet almost came out of the skin. And, of course, I could feel the bullet in the subcutaneous tissue. Q. And before we talk about that a little bit more, there are some silver objects up here that we can see on his arm, what are those? A. Those are clamps that the surgeons used to close up the chest incision that they did. Q. And then here in State's Exhibit No., what are we seeing? A. That's a close-up view of the subcutaneous location of the bullet under the skin. So, again, there's bruising that you can see out to about right here and you can also see that's kind of bulging and right in the middle of that, there's a skin tear where
the bullet almost came out. Q. And what's this in State's? A. That's an x-ray that we took which shows the location of the bullet which is right here. There are 0 also a number of other things that you see just sort of randomly placed around the nose or radial tags on some of the towels that the surgeons put in to try to tamponade out the blood flow. Q. And did you recover the bullet from Mr. Argueta's body? Q. And is that what we're seeing here in State's Exhibit No.? Q. And we see that the bullet is sitting here on a manila envelope with some writing on it; what is that? A. That's the envelope that I packaged the bullet in to submit to evidence. And so the label here indicates our case number, the decedent's name, and what it is, which in this case is bullet from back, and then down here at the bottom is my signature, my name printed and then the date that this was collected. Q. And we have a close up of that same item here in State's. Were you able to determine anything about what kind of weapon this would have come from?
A. It was a medium caliber bullet. It's a partially jacketed bullet. Q. What does partially jacketed mean? A. You'll notice that up here the bullet is gray, and back here it's a copper color so it's two different metals, so that copper color part of that is a jacket over the bullet. That jacket -- if a jacket covers the entire bullet, that's a fully jacketed bullet; and the bullets tends to be more intact. If the jacket only 0 goes a part of the way up the front of the bullet, the bullet spreads out or mushrooms, so that's what you're seeing here. These parts here are mushroomed out. So, this bullet would have, you know, had a shape something like that before it spread out. Q. Is this something that would be fired out of a firearm? Q. What do you do once you collect and recover the bullets? A. It's photographed. It's sealed in that bag, that bag is then placed into another evidence bag, and then we place it into a locked room in our morgue and then it's picked up by the evidence handling division of our office, and it ultimately goes to whatever police agency is responsible for the case. If it's a sheriff's
0 office case, it stays within our office because our firearms lab handles those; but if it's the Houston Police Department, for example, somebody from their property room will pick it up and take it back over to their laboratory to work the evidence. Q. Okay. Is it also part of your autopsy process to collect a known DNA sample from a deceased person? Q. Did you do that in this case? Q. What do you do once you collect that known DNA sample? A. I guess it depends on the case. We always collect a tube of blood and a preservative that's appropriate for DNA. So, on every case we collect a tube of blood that can be used for DNA; but depending on the type of case and the police jurisdiction, we may go ahead and make a bloodstain card. So, if it's a Houston Police Department case and it's a homicide at the time of autopsy, we'll go ahead and make a bloodstain card. In other words, we'll put drops of blood on a filter paper and then allow that to dry while we're finishing the autopsy; and then we will package that along with the other evidence in the case. Q. And that goes into that same secure evidence
0 room that you described? A. Correct. Q. I want to move on to page of your autopsy report, which continues your pathological findings. Under Subsection D here you wrote about the direction that the bullet took in Mr. Argueta's body. just describe that for us again? Can you A. It's front to back and downward with no significant deviation left or right. In case you're 0 wondering, the front to back there is underlined because the original autopsy inadvertently said back to front, which clearly wasn't the case. And so at some point when I reviewed the report, I realized the report, the mistake and issued an amended report. So, what we usually do on those is keep the original report intact and then we issue an amended underlining any changes we made, and then we'll put a comment down here that tells why the report was amended. Q. And then Subsection here on your pathological findings, what is that outlining? A. So that just describes some of the therapeutic interventions that he had. Q. After you did your autopsy on Mr. Argueta, were you able to form an opinion as to the cause and manner of his death?
Q. And what was your opinion on what caused the death of Mr. Argueta? A. It was a gunshot wound of the abdomen. Q. And did you reach a conclusion about the manner of death? Q. And what was that? A. Homicide. 0 MS. JOHNSON: MR. CORTEZ: I'll pass the witness. May it please the Court? Can I see the report? CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. CORTEZ: Q. Dr. Wolf, when was it amended? A. When was it amended? Q. Yes. A. June, the signature on this page is from the amendment. Q. Okay. And in the original you actually had two places where you claimed that the progress of the bullet was back to front; is that correct? A. Right, so it's in the description as well as the pathological finding which is essentially a summary of the description.
Q. Dr. Wolf, how long have you worked for Harris County? A. Since 0. Q. And where did you work prior to that? A. Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences, the regional office in Mobile. Q. And why did you leave there? A. I'm from southeast Texas, and I wanted to move back here. There was a job opening, so here I am. 0 Q. And your salary is paid by Harris County, correct? Q. And you said you testified many times in court. Can you give us an approximation, hundreds, thousands? A. Over 00 approximation. Q. And each time for the government, correct? You've never testified for the Defense? A. I mean, we testify for whoever calls us. Usually the subpoena comes from the State. Q. Have you ever testified for a defendant? A. You know, I've been subpoenaed by Defense in a few cases, but usually also by the Prosecution. been a minority of times. It's Q. So you have, in fact, testified for the Defense in the past?
A. I don't know. I've been subpoenaed by the Defense, and in those cases I was probably also subpoenaed by the Prosecution. Q. Dr. Wolf, the patient arrived at Ben Taub at approximately :00 p.m.; is that correct? the report? Do you need 0 A. I've got it. Yeah, it was :0 p.m. Q. And he was declared dead approximately two hours later? A. Correct. Q. Why did you describe the abdominal incision as gaping? A. Because it was. The edge, if the edges of the incision are reapproximated, so that it's a linear incision, then it's not gaping. If the edges are out, you know, six inches apart from one another, that's gaping; and that's kind of how it was here. Q. And how large would you say the incision was? A. centimeters in length, the width, in other words, how far apart the edges were were centimeters. So centimeters vertically gaping opening centimeters. Q. So that was almost a foot long incision down, right? A. Yeah, centimeters.
0 Q. And then he had another one 0 centimeters, about a foot long on his side? A. Correct. Q. Right? Q. So, he's got two big cuts in him? Q. Now, you said that the bullet struck the transverse colon, the stomach, part of the duodenum, part of the superior mesenteric artery; I want to make sure that's clear. Is that also in your report? A. Yeah, so, I'm sorry, which part of that? Q. Well, you testified earlier today that it struck the major mesentery artery but, in fact, your report says it struck branches of that artery. So, did it pierce that artery or just the branches? the -- yeah, the mesentery? I'm sorry, A. Yeah, so, that was based on the medical records. And so what I have in my report is according to the surgical note to include branches of the superior mesentery artery. Q. So a portion of that artery, correct? A. Branches of that artery, yes. Q. The inferior vena cava, the left ureter, portion of the groin muscle and the left edge of the L
0 vertebra; is that correct? Q. No vital organs were struck; is that correct? A. Well, the inferior vena cava, the mesentery, small intestines, I'm not sure what you're getting at. Q. Was the heart struck? A. No. Q. Lungs? A. No. Q. Liver? A. No. Q. Kidneys? A. No. Q. The stomach and the intestines were the primary portions that were hit, correct? A. The blood vessels were the main issue in terms of his mechanism of death. Q. So, are you saying he bled out? Q. That's what I'm trying to get at. Is there anything from your examination that would tell you who shot the deceased? A. No. MR. CORTEZ: I'll pass the witness, Your Honor.
MS. JOHNSON: Your Honor, at this time I would reoffer State's 0 so that the Doctor can show the jury the gaping incision and incision across the chest that the Defense has asked him to describe. (State's Exhibit 0 offered.) MR. CORTEZ: sufficiently described it. Your Honor, I think he And at this point it would just be, again, redundant, cumulative and under 0. You opened the door on this 0 one, State's 0 is admitted. (State's Exhibit No. 0 admitted.) REDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MS. JOHNSON: Q. And I apologize for the graphic nature of the photo. I won't leave it up too long. Just so that the jury understands what we're talking about in State's 0, do we see the gaping incision where they attempted abdominal surgery on the bottom left of the photo? A. Right, and it's covered with a yellow plastic sheet, it's iodine impregnated adhesive sheet. Under that there's a blue towel; and in the center of that, they cut a window so they can see the abdominal contents. Q. And then can we also see the chest incision that Defense counsel described?
Q. And is that the aortic clamping that you had described earlier? A. Well, the aorta is deep within the chest. These are just towel clamps that were used to hold the edges of the skin back together when they closed him back up hurriedly. it was fatal. At that point, I think they realized 0 Q. We can also see the bullet entry wound right here on State's 0, correct? A. Correct. Q. And finally, and I apologize, I forgot to ask you a moment ago. I want to talk to you about specifically in reference to the bullet you recovered and the envelope that you place it in that we can see in and. I want you to, I'm going to pull these items out of this envelope here, specifically this envelope and this fragment? Q. Does this appear to be the envelope that you placed the bullet you recovered from Mr. Argueta's body into? Q. And is that your signature?
0 Q. And if this is packaged with it, does this appear to be the bullet that you recovered from his body? A. It's somewhat altered during the course of their subsequent examination, but it's consistent with the same bullet. Q. And by their examination, do you mean the firearm examiner? A. Correct. Q. Okay. Other than that alteration, does this appear to be in the same or substantially similar condition? A. Right, again, the mushroom part has been pulled forward so that they can actually see the shaft of the bullet; but, yeah, it looks like the same bullet. Q. Okay. At this time I would offer State's Exhibit No. into evidence? (State's Exhibit No. offered.) MR. CORTEZ: No objection, Judge. State's is admitted. (State's Exhibit No. admitted.) MS. JOHNSON: And then I'll pass the witness. Anything else?
MR. CORTEZ: With the Court's permission? RECROSS-EXAMINATION 0 BY MR. CORTEZ: Q. Doctor, did you just testify that you said you closed him up hurriedly? A. Yeah, that that part of the chest, the chest incision was closed pretty quickly. Q. I'm trying to think how to ask this, is a wound like this survivable? A. It wasn't for him. It really depends on how quickly they get to him. Q. Is there anything you can tell from your examinations if there was anything else they could have done medically? In other words, is it possible that something the doctors did in the operating room may have-- MS. JOHNSON: the relevance. question. Judge, I'm going to object to I'm going to let him ask the Q. (BY MR. CORTEZ) Is there something possibly that the doctors did or did not do that could have caused the death of Mr. Argueta? A. No, nothing that's apparent to me. Q. There were no other bullet fragments, correct?
0 0 A. Correct. Q. This is not a hollow point bullet? A. I don't know. Q. Well, you did say it was jacketed, correct? A. Partially jacketed. MR. CORTEZ: All right. Pass the witness, Judge. FURTHER REDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MS. JOHNSON: Q. But for the gunshot wound would Mr. Argueta have been in the hospital that day? A. No. Q. Did he have any evidence of any other disease or defect at that time that would have prevented him from living a normal life? A. No. MS. JOHNSON: MR. CORTEZ: MS. JOHNSON: MR. CORTEZ: I have no further questions. Nothing further, Your Honor. You may stand down. May this witness be excused? May he be excused? Yes, Your Honor. You may step down. Call your next, please. MS. JOHNSON: State calls Mark Deleon.
THE BAILIFF: He's got to be sworn. Oh, come back, she's got to swear you in. Raise your right hand. (Witness sworn.) THE BAILIFF: Okay. Proceed, please. 0 MARK DELEON, having been first duly sworn, testified as follows: DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MS. JOHNSON: Q. Good morning, sir. A. Good morning. Q. Can you please tell the ladies and gentlemen of the jury your name? A. Mark Deleon. Q. How old are you, sir? A.. Q. Are you from the Houston area? A. Yes, ma'am. Q. How long have you lived here? A. All my life. Q. Are you married? A. Divorced. Q. How long have you been divorced? A. Six years.