HIGH Court Judge Sonia Bertram-Linton on Thursday shut down a request from prosecutor Kathy-Ann Pyke to have a superintendent from the Government Forensic Lab take a spent casing back to the lab for additional scrutiny.

The request, which was seen by Bertram-Linton and defence attorneys as odd, was made during the Home Circuit Court murder trial of six cops in relation to the January 12, 2013 shooting deaths of Matthew Lee, Ucliffe Dyer, and Mark Allen.

The three men were killed in an alleged shoot-out with the police on Acadia Drive in Barbican, St Andrew. Two illegal firearms were seized and it is alleged that a fourth man escaped.

The bullet casing which Pyke wanted the superintendent to take back to the lab was among 14 spent casings which were said to have come from police service weapons fired during the incident.

Pyke asked the superintendent, who was on the witness stand, to tell the court whether he had matched that specific spent casing to a firearm.

The witness said he could not do so with the naked eye.

That response prompted Pyke to ask Bertram-Linton whether the superintendent could take the casing back to the lab.

But Bertram-Linton told the prosecutor that it sounded as if she was moving the goal post. In response, Pyke said that was not her intention.

But defence attorney Althea Grant-Coppin objected to Pyke’s request, telling the judge that the analyst already did the examination.

“As a result of the examination, we have a report. What further analysis is he now being asked to do? In all my 30 years I have never heard of anything like this,” the attorney said.

John Jacobs, another defence attorney, said he was confused because the defence team was not denying that the cops fired their guns during the alleged shoot-out.

“I am not sure to what end she is seeking further analysis. It is already established that these spent casings came from service weapons. We are not denying that they fired. A thorough analysis was done in the firearms and ammunition. As a matter of fact, there was an addendum,” Jacobs said.

Bertram-Linton told Pyke that she agreed with the position of the defence and added that she did not think it would be fair to do what the prosecutor was suggesting.

“Leave it alone. I do not think is proper to do what you are asking in these circumstances,” the judge said as Pyke pushed her request.

On trial for murder are Sergeant Simroy Mott, Corporal Donovan Fullerton, along with constables Andrew Smith, Sheldon Richards, Orandy Rose, and Richard Lynch. Corporal Fullerton is also charged with making a false statement to the Independent Commission of Investigations.