Feb 23, 2007  |  By: LOU CHIBBARO J  | COMMENTS     

A defense attorney challenged the qualifications of Washington’s chief medical examiner this week at a murder trial involving a D.C. health official who the examiner claims was strangled before he fell to his death from the window of his boyfriend’s second-floor apartment in June 2004.

For the second time in less than a year, Dr. Marie Pierre-Louis emerged as a pivotal witness in the trial of Washington resident Carl Roberts, 42, who is charged with second-degree murder for allegedly forcing Leonard Bates to fall from the bathroom window in Roberts’ second floor apartment on Capitol Hill.

Closing arguments are expected today. If a verdict is reached, observers say it’s likely to come sometime next week.

In March 2005, a D.C. Superior Court jury was unable to reach a verdict in the case, following a vote of 8-4 in favor of a conviction, forcing Judge Erik Christian to declare a mistrial.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Roy Austin, the prosecutor in the case, called for a second trial, which began Feb. 15.

The case has attracted attention in the gay community because it is one of three apparently unrelated deaths of gay people in 2004 due to falls from apartments with D.C. police linking all three cases to domestic violence. Gay health advocates and the police department’s Gay & Lesbian Liaison Unit have used the cases as examples of why gay domestic violence needs to be addressed.

In his opening arguments on Feb. 15 in the Roberts trial, Austin cited Pierre-Louis’s autopsy findings showing that Bates had been strangled prior to his fall from the window as proof that Roberts was responsible for Bates’ death. Roberts told police he and Bates were alone in Roberts’ apartment at the time Bates fell from the window.

Roberts later told police that the two had smoked marijuana and that Roberts believed the marijuana had been “laced” with another substance that caused Bates to have a negative reaction causing him to become suicidal. The defense has cited other witnesses, who reported Roberts telling them that Bates said he wanted to take his own life and began climbing out the bathroom window.

A struggle ensued as Roberts tried to stop Bates from jumping out the window, with both men falling to the pavement below, witnesses reported Roberts as saying. Roberts told them he fell on top of Bates, a development that prevented Roberts from suffering serious injuries.

Toxicology tests associated with an autopsy of Bates later showed that there were small traces of marijuana in Bates’ blood, but no other chemical substances or drugs were found.

“We have evidence that there was compression of the neck while he was still alive and his heart was still beating,” Pierre-Louis told the jury under questioning from Austin.

“The compression of the neck was not part of the injuries caused by the fall,” she said, adding that such injuries were consistent with manual strangulation.

During cross-examination, defense attorney Renee Raymond repeatedly questioned whether Pierre-Louis had sufficient training in the specialized field of death by strangulation to justify her conclusion that Bates’ neck injuries were caused by strangulation rather than by the fall. Raymond cited other parts of Pierre-Louis’s autopsy report indicating Bates most likely landed on his head, causing part of his skull to be crushed.

She asked Pierre-Louis why she listed the cause of death to be both strangulation and severe trauma injuries to the head rather than just the trauma injuries.

Both were responsible for the death, Pierre-Louis replied.

Raymond then noted that Pierre-Louis does not have certification as a medical examiner from an official board that most other area medical examiners have, asking her whether her lack of certification made her less qualified to assess a strangulation case.

“No it does not,” Pierre-Louis replied.

Prior to Pierre-Louis’s testimony, Austin called to the stand Clint Roberts, a 34-year-old gay man unrelated to Carl Roberts, who testified that he met Carl Roberts in July 2004 through a gay Internet site called Adam For Adam. Clint Roberts testified that the site was understood to be a place where gay men meet for friendship and possibly sex. Under questioning from Austin, Clint Roberts said Carl Roberts visited his apartment in suburban Maryland, where the two got to know each other and departed with a kiss on the lips — but the two did not have sex.

In his opening arguments, Austin said Carl Roberts’ ...