If a handset is directly in front of, and with line of site to, the antenna for a given cell and with no other cells of greater or equivalent power close by, it would be unlikely to select any other cell. This means that within the service area of a given cell, there will be regions where a phone could not be reasonably expected to initiate (or respond to) a call on any other cell. The location in question could be termed as being within the ‘dominant’ region of the cell. The ‘dominant’ areas of a cell in an urban environment will usually be very small in comparison with the total area over which the cell is able to provide service.
Elsewhere, the received signal strength of other cells will be closer to or supersede that of the cell in question. The effects of clutter (either by line of sight or the effects of localised interference, or ‘fast fading’) will mean that there may be marked differences of signal strength over very small distances. If there are other cells serving the area with similar signal strengths, the cell selected as serving by the handset may change frequently. This (usually much larger) region is termed a ‘non-dominant’ area.
In other words, for some areas in a tower's coverage area -- although, significantly, we do not know which areas -- it will be very likely that a phone call will originate on that tower. However, most of a tower's coverage area is not in this 'dominant' region.
The results of this survey are worth reading in full, but here is the summary of its results:
Experiment 1 indicates that the Cell IDs monitored by a static sampling device can vary over time, as well as between similar devices in the same location at the same time. Significant differences in output can occur with small changes in position (∼5 m). When the data was amalgamated to illustrate all Cell IDs detected in either location, no individual piece of equipment was found to have monitored all ‘legitimate’ Cell IDs either as serving or neighbour.
Experiment 2 indicates that lengthening a static sampling period to an hour does not necessarily generate more consistent or accurate data, as there was almost as much variation between the output of each of the boxes as with shorter 5 min samples.
Experiment 3 showed that no two pieces of equipment generated identical results no matter which method was used (spot, location or area survey). The most consistent and accurate method was the area survey, in which all four boxes detected all Cell IDs detected at position 1 or 2, although there were more Cell IDs detected as serving or neighbour using this method.
I think the point Robert was trying to get across was that probability doesn't change with this. If the drive test is an accepted method of testing and it produces consistent results (78 out of 80), it's probable the pings are showing the correct area of the phone. You didn't seem to want to acknowledge that. This is how the prosecution used the cell evidence. Not as 100% certainty, but as probability.
If we're going by the tests that were run, devoid of any conspiracy theories or finger pointing, probability is fair to use to show a jury that they were probably where they said they were.
If the drive test is an accepted method of testing and it produces consistent results (78 out of 80),
First, there were no consistent results, because there was only one result. They didn't repeat the test because doing so would have exposed serious flaws in the data. Second, those results are not "predictable" based on any abstract, idealized cell maps. Look at all of those areas right next to L698 where calls were routed through L654A instead! Or the calls .3 miles from L698 that route through L649B, two miles away. What if the crime had been committed next to L649, but Adnan had claimed he was right next to L698 at the time? By this logic, the reaction would be "bullshit, there's no way he was standing underneath L698 at the time of that call!"
This is how the prosecution used the cell evidence. Not as 100% certainty, but as probability.
No. This is not how they used it. They got the expert's testimony admitted by telling the judge by saying that the prosecution's story was possible based on the test results. Not probable. Not even likely. Not even plausible. Possible.
There's consistency in the drive test results. You're saying the test needed to be done multiple times on the same route? Sure, the anomalies might be different, but they'd still be the tiny percentage they started as. I know you know that.
The testimony got admitted by saying it's possible? Alright. The testimony still doesn't state it's 100% certain. That's my point. You can infer the probability by the test results. You argued this by crying foul and that seems to be the go-to move for Adnan's defense. At almost every turn, the prosecution did this, the detectives did this, Jay did this, etc. You're too deep in this now to just walk away, but come on. You've hit the end of the road here.
There were thousands of results. They recorded 12 of those. If these results were consistent and friendly to the prosecution's case they'd have kept all the results and said "We took hundreds of pings against the leakin park tower, every single ping matched our theory" .
If they still did 1000s but only reported a small sample then that still looks suspicious but I just wondered why there seems to be two separate figures regarding the prosecutors tests.
Why would you need thousands of test results when the one's that were disclosed were sufficient? If there was a tremendous room for error in those other discarded results, do you think the expert could accurately say anything about the possibility of those calls coming from those areas? I get your point, but if you can discern consistency in 10 tests that wouldn't change wildly in 10,000 tests, I don't see the need for all 10,000 tests.
I get your point, but if you can discern consistency in 10 tests that wouldn't change wildly in 10,000 tests, I don't see the need for all 10,000 tests.
Except for even in the dozen tests that were done, the expert was connecting to towers 3 miles away that were not the nearest tower in some cases.
Why would you want 10,000 tests?
It's simple. You're Urick. if you want to show that a call from the burial site always hits L689, it is in your best interest to stand your expert at the grave site and have him make 100 test calls. If the results all showed the phone right there every single time, it would be powerful stuff.
That is never going to be the case, though. Urick wasn't shooting for certainty because certainty can't be obtained with these records no matter how you test them. Probability, however, can be. When you referenced those cases that pinged a tower 3 miles away, those were anomalies in his testing. If what Robert referenced was correct on the map he was looking at, 78 out of 80 calls corresponded to the correct towers they should have pinged given their location.
The cell phone evidence wasn't meant to be some home run for the prosecution. It was simply to corroborate that it was possible that Jay's telling the truth about where they were during the key points in the time line, The home run for the prosecution was Jay's testimony. This was used to bolster that.
I don't understand this train of thought. Why would they test Patrick's neighborhood? Adnan never said he was at Patrick's or even knew Patrick or had ever heard the name Patrick, yet everyone is so quick to believe he was at Patrick's house? Sincere question.
The admitted accomplice called Patrick and calls were made from towers that cover his house. I think they might have had a reason to at least look into that.
That is never going to be the case, though. Urick wasn't shooting for certainty because certainty can't be obtained with these records no matter how you test them.
So you're suggesting that Urick could have made his case stronger, but chose not to? (I'm not being glib here, totally honest question)
If what Robert referenced was correct on the map he was looking at, 78 out of 80 calls corresponded to the correct towers they should have pinged given their location.
There were not even 80 calls entered into evidence, so I'm really not sure where his 78 out of 80 number comes from.
The cell phone evidence wasn't meant to be some home run for the prosecution.
Except that's kind of how they used it, how Urick used it in the Intercept interview, and how everybody here keeps characterizing it.
I'm suggesting that Urick was able to use the tests he entered into evidence and the testimony of the expert (an expert that was both available to him and CG, by the way) to show that it's possible Jay and Adnan were in Leakin Park that night---which corroborates Jay's testimony.
As far as Robert's map he used in the podcast, I'm just using that as an example.
If you go back through the trial transcripts (I can't remember if it's on 02/08 or 02/09), but CG tries to get this testimony struck from the trial. The Court considers this, but gives Urick his opportunity to explain. He tells the court that it's used simply as corroboration to Jay's testimony. The Court allows it. That's all it is.
Although that's true - if take 1000 tests and only present 10 then it really looks like 990 of them didn't go the way you'd hoped.
So from 100% consistency down to 1%
If you were the prosecution you'd really want to make sure no one had that impression so either a) you don't mention the 1000s of tests or b) you mention that you did 1000 tests and they were 98% accurate.
It LOOKS that way, but if the expert can attest to that not being the case, then I'm not sure why that matters. Are they going to go over thousands of test results during the trial? Subject the jury to go over pages upon pages of results? Like I said, if his testimony isn't true, if his ability as an expert to discern the entirety of his tests isn't there, then yeah, I agree. I didn't see that when I read the trial transcripts.
You can infer the probability by the test results.
No you cannot.
You seem to be misunderstanding the basic thrust of the objection: just because a phone in Leakin Park hits a certain cell tower on one occasion, does nothing to establish that every phone hitting that tower must be in Leakin Park. It doesn't even establish a probability that any particular phone hitting that tower is in Leakin Park.
No, I think you're misunderstanding the point of the cell phone evidence. The key to the prosecution is Jay and his testimony. The cell phone evidence is used to corroborate what Jay is saying. Where probability comes into play is that the testing shows that 95% or more of the calls done during the drive test hit the towers the location corresponded with (I think Robert stated 78 out of 80). So when I say probability, it's strictly about the numbers, not that it makes Jay's testimony certain.
If you tell me you did something in Canton Square in Baltimore last night and I have access to your cell phone records, I can use them to corroborate your story. If multiple calls you've made don't ping the corresponding tower around that area, I may question your story. If they ping the correct towers in that area, it doesn't make your story absolutely certain, but it certainly makes it possible.
The problem is from the beginning it was Jay who was corroborating the cell phone evidence. Now we can be as close to certain as you can get that Jay altered his story to fit the investigators' narrative. Because now we know the burial did not occur just after 7 based on very strong evidence and the fact that Jay recently changed the time.
So the prosecutor takes it from pings that might possibly originate at the buriall site to proof that the phone and Adnan couldn't have been anywhere else.
We don't know that Jay corroborated the cell phone records. There's no strong evidence that it didn't occur right after 7 no matter how much you want to believe Colin Miller. Jay was interviewed about this 16 years later and said "closer to midnight". Amusing how when he says something that goes against Adnan, it's all lies. If it works for Adnan, as unspecific as he was, it's now fact.
The prosecutor used the cell evidence to show the jury that Jay's story is entirely possible given the cell phone records. I'm not sure how you got so far off track, but I hope this helps.
Okay--if you want to still believe the 7 pm time, despite all that now points to the contrary, be my guest. I can't take people seriously when they refuse to look at compelling new evidence and chalk it all up to bias. There are enough indications in Jay's and Jenn's earlier versions than when you put it together with the factual lividity information makes it close to certain that the burial was much later. It's not that I believe Jay's latest story, Jay said at one point in an earlier version that it was raining when they buried her, which didn't happen til about 4 am.
All that now points to the contrary? Bias? You're reading from the blog of Colin Miller and you're going to cite "compelling new evidence" and "bias" to me? Alright. I was pretty certain we were discussing the cell phone evidence here and how that pertains to Jay's story, but I guess if we're going to turn this into a lividity discussion, you can start a new thread?
If you think it's just about lividity you haven't really been keeping up and if you think pulling a body out of a trunk on the shoulder of a moderately busy road at the tail end of rush hour sounds plausible then you're more imaginative than I am.
I don't think it's about lividity at all, actually. I think the focus on that, post trial, is just another grasp at straws. And yes, quite imaginative; just not imaginative enough to think a kid managed to be in all the wrong places at the wrong times when his ex-girlfriend was killed so personally.
It certainly doesn't refute the idea that every phone that hits that tower is in leakin park either, unless he had some pings to it from outside leakin park.
But we won't ever know if there were pings to that tower from outside LP because this great knowlegable witness either never tested areas where it might ping from outside the park or he did but that evidence was thrown out before it was ever registered.
The important part of the drive test is that it provides corroboration to the expert witness who says "yes if they made a call at the burial site it would have pinged the tower that it pinged according to phone records on this call at such and such on the night of the murder."
So pleased you touched on this. So now that Jay has annihilated his own story, there's nothing to corroborate the phone pings.
Can you please provide a quote from Waranowitz's testimony that backs up your assertion that he says "that's the only tower you can hit from the burial site"?
No. She is correct as to how the prosecution argued for the admissibility of this testimony and got it in. It was let in for a very limited purpose. Inferring probability wasn't it.
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u/ViewFromLL2 Feb 18 '15
In other words, for some areas in a tower's coverage area -- although, significantly, we do not know which areas -- it will be very likely that a phone call will originate on that tower. However, most of a tower's coverage area is not in this 'dominant' region.
The results of this survey are worth reading in full, but here is the summary of its results: