Defence lawyer Mark Pettingill yesterday poured scorn on DNA evidence against Stanford Archibald in the Aaron Easton murder trial.

"The DNA evidence is of no value - it doesn't come up trumps,'' he told the six-man, six-woman Supreme Court jury.

He asked jurors whether they would want to convict family members on questionable evidence.

Archibald, 39, formerly of Sandys, has denied killing 19-year-old Mr. Easton 18 years ago.

Mr. Easton's body was found in a pool of blood with 49 stab wounds, collapsed lungs, a punctured liver and a fractured skull on May 4, 1985, on Laffan Street in Pembroke, after being hit with a concrete block.

On Monday, Acting Director of Public Prosecutions Kulandra Ratneser completed the Crown's case, which is based on DNA and circumstantial evidence.

Yesterday, Mr. Pettingill sought to pick holes in the prosecution arguments, casting doubt on the validity of blood samples taken from the suspects - Archibald and Albert (Poochy) Smith, who has since died.

He questioned how, when and what happened to blood samples, whether evidence was tampered with before DNA testing and whether there was cross contamination.

Mr. Pettingill said jurors had to be sure blood was not mixed up and highlighted the apologies on the stand from several witnesses who had dealt with Archibald's blood.

He reminded jurors of pathologist Dr. Keith Cunningham's admission of sloppiness when he could not say which date blood was taken from Archibald, whether there were two or three vials of blood, and when it was delivered to the then Government analyst Dr. John Leask.

"It was the first piece of misinformation," he said.

Mr. Pettingill asked the jury not to look at the DNA stage of gaining evidence, but to instead look at the stages before the blood was tested for DNA.

He said there were four dates when the blood vials were supposedly delivered to the Government analyst lab and three dates listed as when the blood was taken from the suspects - Archibald and Smith.

Mr. Pettingill said that when Government analyst Christine Quigley was making up blood stain cards (cards that contain a suspect's blood sample used for DNA testing) from the vials of blood, she initially noted that the evidence bag containing Archibald's blood vials was sealed. But she had then crossed out the word "sealed" and replaced it with "unsealed".

He said: "The Crown says... oops that bag was open. Why do we have rules and procedures if we are not going to use them?"

He then questioned the cross contamination of the pieces of concrete block and reminded the jury that Insp. George Neil Fraser from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police when giving evidence would not touch the pieces of block for fear of cross contamination. In contrast, Dr. Leask's hand had been on a piece of block in a photo.

Mr. Pettingill said: "The DNA evidence is of no value - it doesn't come up trumps."

In her summation yesterday, Puisne Judge Norma Wade-Miller began taking the jury through the evidence in a chronological order.

She has so far discussed the evidence given, by best friend of the victim, Troy Raymond (Yankee Boy) Rawlins and, the only eyewitness of the murder, Robert Herd.

Mrs. Justice Wade-Miller told the court the Rawlins was the last person to see Mr. Easton alive when he went to a session at 11.45 p.m. She reminded the jury that Mr. Rawlins had given his statement on June 2, which included that Archibald had come to call on the morning before the killing.

She will continue her summation of the trial today.

Mr. Pettingill is being assisted by Larry Mussenden and Crown counsel Cindy Clarke and Juan Wolffe are assisting the Acting DPP.