The defense went on to detail a long list of failures in the chain of exhibits, from negligence in Shai Peleg's seizure of the shoes (laying them on the road, taking a photo on a personal phone, not changing gloves, "throwing" the shoes in the car when they were exposed, not sealing the packaging), through improper transportation in a police vehicle, to storing them in a room that many people have access to. All of these created a huge potential for contamination and secondary transfer of the genetic profile from the defendant (who came into contact with investigators and objects) or from the deceased (through investigators who were present at the scene) to the shoes.
Dr. Bublil, the expert who examined the exhibits and conducted an opinion, confirmed that she could not know what the exhibits went through before they arrived at the laboratory, and that a scenario of shaking hands or touching contaminated surfaces could lead to the transmission of genetic profiling.
A third aspect is related to methodological and interpretive problems in the analysis of genetic profiles.
As for shoes, it is claimed that we are dealing with a mixed profile and not a single one. In the sample from the shoe in which the defendant's profile was located (B-22), three alleles were observed in two profile markers (D16S539, D3S1358), thus evidence of a mixture of profiles. Dr. Plutzky explained that three alleles in the site cannot be found in a single profile, so it is most likely a mixture of two people. The defense also disputed Dr. Bublil's determination regarding the height of the "stutter" ("stutter") in certain alleles, and claimed that her determination was inconsistent with the manufacturer's data and the forensic laboratory data. It was argued that the profile produced from sample 22-B matched the defendant's profile in 12 out of 23 markers (52%), and not in full match. The profile tables indicate a partial profile.
It was claimed that the defendant's profile was not even verified. The profile was not verified by the producer of the profile in the forensic laboratory at the National Headquarters, and Dr. Bublil relied solely on information from the database, without verifying it. She also noted that she was unable to know whether a mistake was made in the production of the profile in the database.