CALIFORNIA: VERY DUBIOUS EVIDENCE

Convicted on the basis of dogs picking up a 7 year old scent??? And an angry ex-wife is a good witness???

A motion seeking a third trial for Nathaniel Davison, convicted of murder in a "cold case" trial late last year, has been filed in Lake County Superior Court by Lakeport attorney Mitchell Hauptman. Davison was judged guilty of murdering Tracy Lyons and disposing of his body in 1998 by a Lake County jury in November. Hauptman's motion charges that Davison did not receive adequate defense in either of his first two trials, the first of which ended in a hung jury and a mistrial. Public defender Doug Rhoades represented Davison in both trials.

"Nathan Davison did not kill Tracy Lyons," Hauptman says in a brief filed at Lake County courthouse. "Moreover," the brief continues, "the evidence at trial was glaringly insufficient to support the wrongful conviction that occurred. A substantial portion of the evidence' which was presented was highly prejudicial, fundamentally irrelevant, and should have been objected to and excluded."

Much of the testimony regarding Davison's character flaws and Jillian's character strengths, Hauptman asserts, was inadmissible under the law. His motion concludes that "the failure of any effort to present any defense whatsoever abandoned Davison to the wit and wiles of a skilled prosecutor."

The prosecutor, county Chief Deputy District Attorney Jon Hopkins, said he did not agree. "I've read through the brief and I disagree with just about all of Mr. Hauptman's points," Hopkins said. "I think the verdict was sound and based on competent evidence, and I think the defense attorney did an excellent job."

Hauptman specifically charges that too much credibility was given to testimony of Jillian Davison, Davison's ex-wife and Lyons' stepdaughter. Jillian testified that Davison told her he had shot Lyons and that she saw Lyons' shoes sticking out of a 55-gallon barrel in which Davison was alleged to have put the victim's remains after quartering him with a chain saw. Davison's alleged motive was that he felt Lyons should die for sexually abusing Jillian as a child.

Neither Lyons' body, the revolver that Davison was alleged to have used to shoot him, the chain saw nor the barrel have ever been found and there is no forensic evidence.

Hauptman also labels as "irrelevant" the testimony of trainers regarding how their cadaver dogs picked up the seven-year-old scent of Lyons in the vicinity of the hills behind Clearlake Oaks, where Davison was alleged to have buried him in a shallow grave. "The conviction rests upon the unimpeached testimony of Jill Davison, the infallible testimony of two dogs and a ton of inadmissible character evidence," Hauptman wrote. " ... In other words, human remains' dogs are infallible. Like the pope, they speak ex cathedra, they are inaccessible to cross-examination, and, when they speak that's the beginning and end of it; matter settled. More accurate as a match' tool than DNA evidence."


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