Over the last three days, prosecutors have called eighteen witnesses to testify in the murder trial of former St. Louis cop Jason Stockley, and nearly every one of those witnesses has been questioned about the importance of wearing gloves.
The question might seem a little ... basic, and the answers have varied little between police officers, detectives, crime scene technicians and DNA analysts: Gloves, of course, prevent contamination of evidence and protect the wearer from possibly infectious bodily fluids.
But there's a good reason prosecutors are hammering on the simple question — they're working to fortify their argument that Stockley was not following basic procedures for a murder scene, which is particularly significant since it was a murder scene he created after fatally shooting Anthony Lamar Smith five times on December 20, 2011.
Prosecutors argue that Stockley broke several police policies: Officers are supposed to wear gloves when handling evidence.…