Attorney David Schwartz, Former Prosecutor Talking About Rex Heuermann's Court Appearance on 88 WCBS

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suspect has been charged with killing a
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fourth woman Rex hman due back in court
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February 6 let's get more on this
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joining us live is David Schwarz a New
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York criminal defense attorney and a
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former prosecutor David do we have any
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idea why it took until now for hman to
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be charged with this killing of a
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Connecticut woman presumably linked to
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the others right Bridget well I mean
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first of all it took 13 years to even
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bring the first arraignments what
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happened was they were prevailing H uh H
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hman for an entire year building a case
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up and they had the first three cases
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because the uh mitochondrial DNA came
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back um which is a whole another story
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but they didn't get it on the fourth uh
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victim and so what they decided to do is
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make the arrest for the first three
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while uh this defendant is incarcerated
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to to investigate for the fourth and
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that's why we have the supplemental
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indictment today okay as far as the
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prosecution and their potential evidence
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um we understand it involves belts one
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with the initials wh believed to be from
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the late grandfather of Rex hman um how
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strong a case does this seem to be to
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you well a a circum a circumstantial
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case is sometimes much stronger than a
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case where there's an eyewitness or
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direct evidence so this is what tyranny
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the DA has been building up ever since
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he took office is to develop this
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circumstantial case if the da had to
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rely on scientific evidence alone the
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way it the way the S the DNA lays out
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they wouldn't be able to get a
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conviction just on the DNA alone because
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all the DNA does it doesn't show that
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hurman himself committed these murders
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it just it it it it takes away about
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99.6% of the rest of the PO population
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but doesn't doesn't exclude huran so
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that's an important piece of evidence
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but you have to take that in conjunction
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with all the other circumstantial
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evidence you mentioned the belt we have
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the truck we have the phone records
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there's a lot of circumstantial evidence
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that we don't even know about right now
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this is going to be a long trial and
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it's all about putting the pieces of the
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puzzle together uh in order to uh
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convict him of these four murders as I
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mentioned at the beginning you're a
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former prosecutor you're also a crial
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defense attorney how would you defend
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Rex hman well certainly I would go after
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the DNA which which you know can be
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successful in the defense the problem
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with the defense because you can show
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that it doesn't show that hman himself
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committed the murder just didn't exclude
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him which is a very very big deal uh you
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could go after the years and years of
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decay of the DNA evidence of the hair
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fibers but look you got to attack a each
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piece of circumstantial evidence
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directly and then tell that jury that
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there's not enough that there's not
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enough there's no eyewitnesses and and
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they did not um connect each link of
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that circumstantial uh chain you know
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and and of course the da is going to say
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use your common sense there is
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overwhelming evidence circumstantial
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evidence to convict this defendant David
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Schwartz New York criminal defense
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attorney and former prosecutor David
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thank you so much WCBS news time 1108
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