By Charlie Brennan, Rocky Mountain News
June 10, 2004

Kobe Bryant's defense team wants jurors in his sexual assault case to be told that investigators made a serious error in failing to collect numerous pieces of evidence at the alleged crime scene.

They might not get their wish.

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When Eagle County Sheriff's Detectives Doug Winters and Dan Loya accompanied the Los Angeles Lakers star to Room 35 at the Lodge & Spa at Cordillera in the early morning hours of July 2, they knew the alleged victim's version of the events two nights before.

Detectives knew that the 19-year-old Eagle woman claimed she had been raped over a chair. They also were aware that she said she had cried in Bryant's hotel room. And they had heard her claim that Bryant told her to clean herself up, afterward, in the bathroom.

Nevertheless, defense lawyer Hal Haddon said in a document made public Wednesday, investigators admitted at Bryant's preliminary hearing that they did not collect the chair, carpeting from beneath the chair, bathroom towels, contents of the bathroom sink drain traps or the contents of any trash cans from the room.

All those items, Haddon argued, are "highly material" to the defense case.

"Had they been collected and preserved by law enforcement, they would either confirmed (sic) or rebutted the absence of any traces of physical evidence that one would expect to find if the accuser's account of having bled, cried and cleaned herself up and washed her face in the bathroom was, in fact, truthful," Haddon stated.

Haddon added, "The government bears the responsibility for law enforcement's failure to conduct the most rudimentary 'crime scene' investigation in this case," and that the failure to do so is "particularly inexcusable when the offense under investigation is sexual assault, a serious felony that carries a potential life term of imprisonment."

As a remedy, the Bryant team wants jurors at his upcoming trial to be told by the judge of this alleged oversight and instructed that it entitles Bryant to a presumption by jurors that, had such evidence been collected, it would have supported the case for Bryant's innocence.

And, in asking for such a jury instruction, Haddon said the defense wasn't waiving its right to later ask for the charges to be dismissed altogether - on the same grounds.

Speaking of the potential for outright dismissal, Denver defense lawyer and legal analyst Scott Robinson said, "Forget about it."

He said chances of the defense even being granted the jury instruction it's seeking is "a long shot."

"It is a different situation altogether when the complaining party can show that the evidence would unquestionably have been favorable."

Also Wednesday, Eagle District Attorney Mark Hurlbert gave Chief District Judge Terry Ruckriegle the explanation he had requested as to why the prosecution had not yet selected a laboratory for DNA retesting, which would permit a defense representative to be present.

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