David Siegel represented LaGuer leading up to the DNA testing which Alan Keel and Edward T. Blake performed. Might they have gotten the right results but drawn the wrong
conclusions?
Blake, who founded Forensic Science Associates,
twice, in the pages of the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, speculated wildly on LaGuer's character and motives in ways that
go way beyond the evidence he was given to analyze. Dr. Lawrence Kobilinsky reviewed those comments and wrote (see letter above), "It is my opinion that Dr. Blake's comments were inappropriate
and, given the totality of the evidence, possibly wrong on the facts."
This is what writer Peter J. Boyer had to say about Blake:
"[Edward Blake's] confidence in the lab sometimes extends
to strong feelings about the legal case itself, a tendency that some find discordant with the scientist's mandate for dispassionate
inquiry."
"The thought that DNA evidence is a panacea is
just completely and 100 percent wrong. Under the governor's bill innocent people can still be put to death. DNA evidence
and scientific evidence is only as good as the human being who is collecting evidence or who is analyzing the evidence
in the laboratory. Anyone who thinks this is a foolproof gold standard bill is being misled gravely."
- State Representative David Linsky (Berkshire Eagle)
