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State v. Cookson12/1/2003
murder scene and the Gould autopsy. Those bullets as well as Helms' opinion were admitted at trial.
Cookson was arrested and charged with the murders of Gould and Treven. He was denied bail. The jury trial began on November 27, 2001, and concluded with the guilty verdicts on December 6, 2001. The State argued to the jury that Cookson had a motive to kill Gould because she left him and he was losing control over her. The State emphasized that Cookson possessed the weapon that was used to kill Gould and Treven. The defense theory was that Cookson, who had denied to the police any involvement with the murders, was sleeping on his brother's couch, as his brother testified, at the time of the murders. Cookson chose not to testify. The defense did not challenge the opinions of the firearms experts or offer evidence on the murder weapon.
Immediately after the jury returned the guilty verdicts, the defense counsel requested a conference with the court. Cookson's attorneys disclosed that during the course of the trial they and their investigator met with David Vantol, a prospective witness whom they believed would corroborate Cookson's alibi. Instead, Vantol confessed to the murders and to knowing the location of the murder weapon. Cookson's defense team did not think that Vantol's confession was credible enough to call him as a witness. At a subsequent meeting before the trial was concluded, Vantol again confessed to the defense attorneys that he killed Gould and Treven. However, at this second meeting he implicated Cookson as having arranged or participated in the killings. Because Vantol's second confession would be harmful to Cookson, the attorneys, with Cookson's knowledge, decided not to call Vantol to testify. In the conference with the court after the trial, the defense attorneys described Vantol's confession to the court but made no motion at that time.
The case was continued for sentencing, and shortly after the trial, Cookson moved for a new trial on four grounds, three of which were on the basis of newly discovered evidence: (1) the murder weapon was discovered after trial; (2) the firearms expert learned of an error in his testimony; and (3) Vantol's confession. The fourth ground was the claim that Cookson's due process rights were violated because of the false evidence of the firearms expert.
A hearing was held on the motion at which the following facts emerged. The police interviewed Vantol the same day that Cookson's trial ended, and Vantol led them to a 9mm gun hidden under a rock, which he claimed was the weapon he used to shoot Gould and Treven. This gun was a Taurus Model PT-92, not the Taurus Model PT-99-AF that figured prominently in Cookson's trial. The recovered gun was tested, and the expert testimony at the motion hearing was that the Taurus Model PT-92 was the gun that killed Gould and Treven.
Bachelder, the firearms expert, testified at the motion hearing that his opinion at trial was incorrect. The opinion he gave at trial was that shell casings obtained from previous owners of the Taurus Model PT-99-AF were fired from the same weapon that murdered Gould and Treven. He had mistaken class characteristics, that is, characteristics applicable to a class of firearms, as unique characteristics, that is, characteristics unique to a particular gun. Bachelder did not discover this mistake until after Cookson's trial when he read an article about the class characteristics of the particular model. The court found that the trial testimony of Bachelder was the result of a mistake and that neither the State nor Bachelder knew at the time that he was in error.
The police conducted several interviews with Vantol after the tr
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