PENNSYLVANIA JUSTICE

An Adams County man imprisoned for 16 years for a murder he did not commit filed a federal lawsuit yesterday against the county, the state police and investigators, accusing them of lying and doctoring evidence to obtain the conviction. Attorneys for Barry Laughman, 42, of Hanover, charge in the suit that Laughman's wrongful conviction "is part of a persistent and troubling pattern of manipulating and falsifying evidence and testimony that exists and is condoned within certain law enforcement units of the commonwealth and the county." The suit, which seeks unspecified damages, names troopers John J. Holtz and Donald Blevins, state police chemist Janice Roadcap and four former state police commissioners as defendants, as well as Adams County and its district attorney's office. It charges that the commissioners and other high-ranking members of the state police knew the investigators would fabricate evidence and did nothing to stop it. "The aforementioned misconduct of defendants troopers Holtz and Blevins and Chemist Roadcap is consistent with a pattern of misconduct which has existed, been condoned and even encouraged within the PSP for at least the last 34 years," the suit says.

Laughman was convicted of raping and murdering Edna Laughman, 85, a distant relative, in 1987. His conviction was based largely on a confession obtained by Holtz, who claimed the mildly retarded man knew details of the crime known only to the killer. While Laughman's blood type is different from that of semen left on the victim, Roadcap offered explanations for the discrepancies. In later testimony, experts called her explanations "junk science." Both Holtz and Roadcap have been involved in other cases that were overturned.

The prosecution had sought the death penalty against Laughman, but the jury spared his life after former Adams County Judge Oscar Spicer told them they should consider the fact that the police had destroyed evidence that could have exonerated Laughman. DNA testing was in its infancy at the time, but Spicer gave the remaining samples to Laughman's court-appointed attorneys and left the case open. An attorney sent the samples to a Penn State University professor in 1994, but never followed up when the professor asked for a comparative sample. In May 2003, The Patriot-News traced the DNA to Professor Mark Stoneking, who was teaching at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. Stoneking had preserved the samples, and subsequent testing cleared Laughman. Laughman's attorney, William C. Costopoulos, said the DNA proves his client was railroaded. "I feel very strongly about the fact that we have proof of actual innocence in this case because of the DNA revelations," Costopoulos said. "My hope is to try to remedy what's been done to this innocent person."

The state attorney general's office, which must defend the suit, declined comment, saying it must review the complaint with the state police. State Police spokeswoman Trooper Lynette Quinn said her agency does not comment on pending litigation and had probably not been served with the suit yet. Adams County District Attorney Shawn Wagner, who was not in office during Laughman's prosecution and ultimately dropped the charges against him, also declined comment.

The suit lists other cases involving Holtz and Roadcap that were overturned, including the case of former Upper Merion High School principal Jay C. Smith, who was released from death row in 1992 by the state Supreme Court, and Steven Crawford of Harrisburg, who has a similar suit pending against Roadcap and the state police for allegedly doctoring evidence in a murder case that left him behind bars for 28 years until his release in 2002.

After his release in November 2003, Laughman returned to his job as a laborer at a fertilizer company where he had worked before his arrest. The boss gave him his job back, saying no one in the community ever believed he was guilty.

(Report from here)



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