Letter from Paust to Town RE: Denver Police Bullet and DOJ Report

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University of Houston
HOUSTON, TEXAS 77004

BaUt Coilaga ol Law

November 12, 1975

Mr. Alan Town
American Civil Liberties Union 

of Colorado
1711 Pennsylvania Street 
Denver, Colorado 80203
Dear Mr. Town;
Thank you for your letter of November 3rd, and the information 
about the Denver police bullet. I am including a packet of 
information which includes a new report of the U. S. Dept, of 
Justice on stopping power - it does not address wound injury.
The charts should be most useful to you, for I note that a normal 
.38 Special, 158 grain has an RI Index of about 2 to 4.5, whereas 
the 110 grain JHP Winchester-Westerns have an Ri index of about 
14 to 19. Although, the data they produce may not be directly 
indicative of relative increases in wounding injury, it seems that the findings are significant. Further, note that page 8 of the 
Justice Department's Summary Report states that a hollow-point 
bullet will begin deforming at a velocity above 705 feet per second. 
This is highly significant because the "old" Denver bullet and the 
new proposed Denver bullet travel in excess of 1,000 feet per 
second. Additionally, page 7 of the report shows the interrelation­
ship between velocity and construction that is evident in other writings.
One should not forget that Dr. Di Maio has published, in 17 Journal 
of Forensic Science 377 (1972),what effects occur within the human 
body when a 110 grain partial-jacketed Super Vel bullet is used. 
Furthermore, Stanton O. Berg in his article on Supersonic Gunshot 
Wounds points out differences in wound injury between bullets which 
travel in excess of 1,100 feet per second and the more normal .38 
Special velocities of around 700 to 855 feet per second. I also 
enclose the first pages of an article by Dr. Di Maio and others which 
demonstrate all that you need to know, and all that a court needs 
to know by taking judicial notice, about the wound injury probability 
with use of various bullet weights, velocities, and types. The formula 
stated therein, and in every other publication by this author, is 
significant, for it shows that the severity of a wound is directly 
related to the amount of kinetic energy expended by the bullet in the



Mr. Alan Town Page - 2 - November 12, 1975

human body. As Dr. Di Maio admits "the greater the loss of 
kinetic energy, the greater the damage to the tissues, and, 
therefore, the more severe the wound." With regard to the 
Denver bullet all that you have to do is compare 290 foot 
pounds of kinetic energy transfer to the transfer by a normal 
.38 Special which is 74 to 84 foot pounds. Thus, the proposed 
Denver bullet would transfer to the human body about 3.6 times more energy than a normal .38 Special, which is the standard 
round for most police department across the country despite the 
minority trend toward use of illegal and cruel bullets. I also 
note that the "old" Denver bullet can expend up to twice or 
3.6 times the kinetic energy that a normal round transfers.
I also enclose a copy of the notes that I took from a May 5th, 
Pennsylvania hearing on hollow-point bullets. These notes 
demonstrated the types of questions that are relevant and the 
types of responses one can expect from certain persons.
I assume that you have a copy of the draft law review article 
on the dum-dum bullet controversy and the comment about to be 
published in the Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly . We 
are about to have hearings on these topics in the U. S. House 
Judiciary Committee, Sub-Committee on Crime. Your thoughts 
on these developments would be appreciated. Thank you very much.
With kind regards.

Co-Chairman ABA Comm. 
Law and the Use of 

Force

Law
on Int'l

JJP:mb
Enclosures
cc; A.C.L.U., N.Y.

Bill Olds, C.C.L.U.
P.S. I assume that you are aware of the lawsuits 

Massachusets, Tennessee, and Connecticut. filed in