A REVIEW OF APPALLING "SCIENTIFIC" EVIDENCE FROM GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

Government crime laboratories should be abolished and all analyses farmed out to private laboratories under "double blind" conditions

A decade ago, as Earl Washington Jr. neared his execution date, a leading DNA expert first suggested an analyst in the vaunted Virginia state crime lab might have erred in the case. The lab's director, Paul Ferrara, rejected the criticism as unfounded. In April, when a second expert hired by Washington 's lawyers questioned another round of tests, Ferrara dismissed him as a "hired gun" and rebuffed calls for an outside review. Several months later, three other experts--this time not paid by the defense --reached the same conclusion. The lab's analyst, they said, had misinterpreted the evidence, but Ferrara again balked at an outside review. "I'm not going to admit error when there is none," Ferrara said in a recent interview at the highly regarded Richmond facility, the first state lab to build a database linking evidence from unsolved crimes to suspects through their genetic profiles.

Within days of that statement, the lab experienced another first. On Sept. 30, the governor of Virginia ordered an audit of the lab's work on the Washington case. That it took a governor's edict to force one of the nation's most-respected labs to allow such a review illustrates the broader problems undermining confidence in the nation's crime labs. Revelations of shoddy work and poorly run facilities have shaken the criminal justice system like never before, raising doubts about the reputation of labs as unbiased advocates for scientific truth.

The far-reaching crime lab scandals roiling the courts are unlike other flaws in the criminal justice system--the rogue prosecutor, the incompetent defense attorney, the unscrupulous cop--because for years the reputation of the labs had been unquestioned. But the consequence of lab errors, whether due to incompetence, imprecision or fraud, is frequently the same--an innocent person behind bars. A Tribune examination of the 200 DNA and Death Row exoneration cases since 1986--including scores of interviews and a review of court transcripts and appellate opinions--found that more than a quarter involved faulty crime lab work or testimony.

In recent years, evidence of problems ranging from negligence to outright deception has been uncovered at crime labs in at least 17 states. Among the failures were faulty blood analysis, fingerprinting errors, flawed hair comparisons and the contamination of evidence used in DNA testing.

Scandal also has hit the FBI crime lab, long considered the nation's top forensic facility. In the mid-1990s, a lab whistle-blower touched off a broad inquiry over allegations of improper handling of evidence. It led to the firing of several lab officials and the overhaul of protocols and procedures. In May of this year, an FBI analyst, Jacqueline Blake, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of making false statements about following protocol in some 100 DNA analysis reports. Though the FBI said its review found no wrongful convictions resulting from her work, the Justice Department's inspector general concluded that the lab's failure to detect her misconduct "has damaged intangibly the credibility of the FBI laboratory." Blake was dismissed from the lab and last month was placed on 2 years of probation.

Veteran lab directors around the country contend the exposure of such scandals is evidence that labs are policing themselves. In most cases, however, lab problems have come to light only after defendants have challenged their convictions. "Virtually every major lab scandal has been broken by a post-conviction DNA exoneration," said Barry Scheck, a founder of the Innocence Project, a non-profit legal clinic that has helped exonerate dozens of inmates.

Given the sheer volume of cases that labs handle, the discovery of even a single flawed analysis raises the prospect of re-examining hundreds, if not thousands, of cases. In many jurisdictions, the task of re-evaluating that many cases is so daunting that authorities have declined to conduct broad audits, despite evidence that analysts have committed errors or engaged in fraudulent practices. One of their well-placed fears: that uncovering additional problems in a lab would spawn lawsuits or unravel an untold number of convictions.

Two of the nation's highest profile crime-lab scandals--involving analysts Fred Zain in West Virginia and Joyce Gilchrist in Oklahoma --resulted in the exonerations of at least 10 defendants, millions of dollars in settlements and broad reviews of hundreds of their cases. Both were accused of falsifying test results and giving false testimony; both denied any wrongdoing.

Earlier this year, in response to the DNA exoneration of a man who served 13 years in prison for rape, the city of Cleveland appointed an independent special master to review all the casework and, if necessary, retest the evidence handled by one analyst, and conduct a random audit of others in the lab. But such a response has been uncommon. In Texas , Gov. Rick Perry has rejected a plea from Houston 's police chief to halt executions of inmates convicted in Harris County until the scope of problems at the police crime lab can be determined.

Two inmates from Harris County have been executed in recent weeks since Chief Harold Hurtt announced the discovery of 280 boxes of evidence from at least 8,000 Houston cases spanning 25 years. The boxes contained everything from clothing and weapons to a fetus. Even before the latest crisis, revelations of incompetent analysts in the police lab's DNA section forced Houston authorities to shutter it. The new questions cover everything from firearm identification to blood typing in a jurisdiction that has sent 75 people to the death chamber, more than most states.

Earlier this year, Boston police admitted that two fingerprint examiners had linked Stephan Cowans to the 1997 shooting of a police sergeant, even though a later review found that the comparison, in the words of Massachusetts Atty. Gen. Thomas Reilly, "wasn't even close." An outside consultant then conducted a broader examination of thousands of prints in the Boston police fingerprint unit, "and the only error he found was in the Cowans case," said police spokeswoman Beverly Ford. Last week, the department turned over all fingerprint examinations to the state police until it can get its own lab accredited.

In Montana , the state Supreme Court narrowly voted last month to dismiss a petition seeking an independent audit and retesting of evidence in hundreds of cases handled by a former state crime lab examiner whose erroneous hair-comparison testimony contributed to three wrongful convictions. Among other revelations, the scandals have exposed the lack of independent oversight and the often-ineffective standards governing the labs that analyze forensic evidence. Lab directors contend that the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors' accreditation board, which will review Virginia 's work in the Washington case, are sticklers for quality and accuracy. But even some tough-on-crime politicians question the effectiveness of the board's review teams. "Everyone boasts that their labs are certified by them," said James Durkin, a former Cook County prosecutor and former Republican state representative. "I believe they are more of a fraternal organization than an authoritative scientific body.".....

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CRAZY APPEAL COURT DECISION OVERTURNED AT LAST

20 years to enforce a sentence!

The Supreme Court ruled today that a lower court improperly gave a Tennessee death row inmate a second chance, infringing on the state's right to execute the man. But four justices said the judicial system failed the inmate. Justices found that the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati abused its discretion when it reopened Gregory Thompson's case. Thompson had already lost an appeal there, and at the Supreme Court.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing the majority opinion, said that the appeals court's action was extraordinary, and that it infringed on the state's right to execute Thompson.

Thompson was convicted of using a rusty butcher knife in 1985 to kill Brenda Blanton Lane, a 28-year-old former newspaper reporter, whom he abducted from a Wal-Mart parking lot in Shelbyville, Tenn., drove to a remote area and killed. Thompson confessed to the crime. "Tennessee expended considerable time and resources in seeking to enforce a capital sentence rendered 20 years ago, a sentence that reflects the judgment of the citizens of Tennessee that Thompson's crimes merit the ultimate punishment," Kennedy wrote.

Thompson was to be executed last year, but that was called off after the appeals court vacated an earlier ruling against him. The change of heart stemmed from the research of appellate Judge Richard F. Suhrheinrich, who found the opinion of an expert witness who believed Thompson suffered from schizophrenia. The expert's opinion had not been entered into the record.....

The high court's ruling clears the way for the Tennessee Supreme Court to set a new execution date, according to the state attorney general's office. Tennessee's victory follows several state losses in death penalty cases. In the past two weeks, the Supreme Court has thrown out the death sentences of inmates in Pennsylvania and Texas. Earlier this year, the court ruled 5-4 that states could not execute juvenile killers.

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THE HUGE PARENT ABUSE SCANDAL IN BRITAIN

Arrogant medical authorities, secretive courts and careless bureaucrats sent many innocent parents to jail on charges of child abuse. Certain patterns or "syndromes" of illness and injury were deemed proof of child abuse without any substantial consideration of alternative explanations. Once again "beyond reasonable doubt" was ignored

Nonetheless, the facility with which the syndromes could bring to light covert abuse concealed from view their poor evidential basis. The causal link between the putative mechanism of assault and subsequent injury could be neither independently confirmed nor experimentally investigated. It might seem reasonable to extrapolate from the presence of retinal and subdural haemorrhages in the battered child that these features had the same significance in a child with no other circumstantial evidence of injury. Certainly the powerful imagery of violent shearing forces disrupting the blood vessels was persuasive, but shaking has never been directly observed or proven to cause such injuries; the supposition that they do is based on (contested) theories of biomechanics

Rather, the legitimacy of the syndromes was predicted on two related and highly improbable assumptions, scientific and legal. The scientific assumption was that there could be no other explanation, either known or that might be discovered at some time in the future, that might explain these 'characteristic' presentations. Meadow's 'rule', for example, precluded the possibility that there might be some unknown genetic explanation for multiple unexpected childhood deaths in the same family, while the 'characteristic' pattern of shaken baby syndrome precluded the possibility of some alternative explanation for the retinal and subdural haemorrhages - such as an acute increase in retinal venous pressure from intracranial bleeding caused by accidental head injury. The legal assumption presupposed that these presentations were so specific for abuse that they were by themselves sufficient to secure a conviction - even in the absence of the sort of circumstantial evidence of violence or neglect that would normally be required to return a guilty verdict in a court of law.

Put another way, the 'characteristic' presentations of the syndromes could not sustain the interpretation placed upon them: they might be 'consistent with' but could not, by themselves, be 'diagnostic of' child abuse. Thus some at least of the parents contributing to the statistics of the fourfold rise in child abuse were likely to be innocent. Three additional factors, in particular, bolstered the credibility of the syndromes in the family and criminal courts.

The authority of the child abuse expert

By the close of the 1980s, the leading experts in child abuse had acquired an international reputation and were thus called on to instruct and educate not just their fellow paediatricians but also the police, lawyers, social workers and judges in the child abuse syndromes. Their persuasive expert opinion, when expressed in court, was guaranteed a sympathetic hearing, while their confidence in the syndromes they had discovered was virtually unchallengeable. Further, they could scarcely accept the force of contrary evidence since to do so would require them to concede that their expert testimonies might, in similar cases, have resulted in wrongful conviction. Meanwhile the costs of the process of investigating allegations arising out of the child abuse syndromes rose to an estimated £1billion per year, with the more prominent experts receiving fees for the preparation of their reports and appearances in court in excess of £100,000 a year

The circular argument of successful convictions

The validity of the child abuse syndromes would appear to be confirmed by the high proportion of successful convictions that followed the courts' careful scrutiny of the allegations against parents. These convictions, however, came to rely increasingly on a circular argument - whereby the main evidence for the child abuse syndrome of which the parents were accused was that parents had been convicted of it in the past. Thus parents whose child presents with subdural and retinal haemorrhages are accused of inflicting shaken baby syndrome because, in the vast majority of cases, parents of children with subdural and retinal haemorrhages are convicted of causing shaken baby syndrome. Similarly, Meadow argued that 'the likelihood that the court verdicts about parental responsibility for [causing their children's death] were correct was very high indeed', without making clear that it was his expert testimony that repetitive SIDS was 'murder unless proved otherwise' that had been a major factor in securing those convictions.

There is a further element of circularity in the presumed pathogenesis of the syndrome of which the parents are accused. The theory of shaken baby syndrome presupposes that violent, abusive force (comparable, it is claimed, to that sustained in a high-speed road traffic accident or a fall from a second storey window) is necessary to cause retinal and subdural haemorrhages. The parents are then caught in the catch-22 of either confessing to the alleged assault (for which they might be offered the inducement 'if you say you did it we will let you have your child back') or denying it, in which case their denial is evidence they must be lying about the events surrounding their child's injury, which is then further evidence of their guilt.

The silencing of parents

The forces of expertise ranged against the parents were formidable enough, but it is apparent too from their personal accounts that they were subjected to a series of intimidatory tactics to silence their protestations of innocence and deny the validity of their testimony as the only witnesses of the circumstances surrounding their child's injury or death. Thus parents describe how, when summoned to see the consultant to learn (they presume) about their child's progress, they were 'ambushed' with the diagnosis of, for example, shaken baby syndrome, presented to them as irrefutable fact ('your son must have been violently shaken for several minutes to cause these injuries') without any suggestion that there could be some alternative explanation.

The prompt involvement of the police and social workers would lead to further accusatory interrogations that begin from the principle that the parents must be guilty - as the doctors would not have made such serious accusations if they were not convinced they were true. The transcript of these interrogations would subsequently be turned against them in court so that any inconsistencies in their explanations of how their child's injuries might have occurred were then presented as evidence of their efforts to conceal their guilt . Parents describe the same pattern of events where they would only be informed late on a Friday evening that a preliminary court hearing had been arranged for the following Monday morning - thus leaving them the weekend to find a lawyer (who was unlikely to have any expertise in this field) to contest their child being taken into foster care

These psychological tactics were a prelude to the yet more powerful intimidatory weapon of technical obscurantism - the description of their child's injuries and couching of the charges against them in a language in which the professionals were fluent but the bewildered parents were not. How could they hope to dispute the allegations when they did not know what was being talked about? Parents are of course entitled to seek their own expert opinion, but soon discovered that the overwhelming consensus about the validity of the child abuse syndromes meant it was very difficult to find anyone to argue in their defence; or worse, the expert reports they requested were actively detrimental to their case

This silencing of parents was made more effective still by the rules of confidentiality that wrap the proceedings of the family courts in a cocoon of secrecy, making parents liable to a charge of contempt of court if they sought advice or support from anyone not directly involved in their case. This secrecy in turn protected the proceedings of the court, and in particular the testimony of expert witnesses, from external scrutiny while concealing from public view the spectacle of so many apparently respectable parents being convicted of inflicting these terrible injuries on their children - without any circumstantial evidence that they had done so.

The unmasking of the child abuse syndromes and the crisis for paediatrics

For parents there was no escaping their fate. From the moment of the initial allegation against them, the alliance of medical experts, police, social workers and an unsympathetic judiciary - well organised, experienced and well financed - meant that their eventual conviction was almost a foregone conclusion. Nonetheless, the two assumptions, scientific and legal, of the specificity of the syndromes as being diagnostic of abuse remained as insecure as ever, with the courts' willingness to convict parents in the absence of circumstantial evidence of abuse resting almost entirely on their faith in the reliability and trustworthiness of medical expert opinion.

The first sign that such faith might be misplaced came in 2003 during Sally Clark's successful appeal, with the revelation of 'fundamental errors' in the testimony of Meadow and other prominent experts that had resulted in her original conviction. Their credibility was further undermined by Justice Judge's Appeal Court ruling exonerating Angela Cannings of murdering her two children. Justice Judge dismissed the central plank of the prosecution case, Meadow's claim that there had been a 'pattern of events' leading up to the deaths of children that was 'characteristic' of smothering: 'We doubt the aptness of the description "pattern"...the history of each child was different from every other child.' Further research would refute Meadow's claim (as reflected in his 'rule') that recurrent SIDS in the same family was 'extremely rare' - in other words, that in such cases the cause was likely to be unnatural. On the contrary, a follow-up study of SIDS families found two or more deaths in the same family to be 'not uncommon' with the overwhelming majority (80-90 per cent) due to natural causes. There are, it has subsequently emerged, several genetic mechanisms that could account for recurrent SIDS including congenital visceroautonomic dysfunction and cardiac dysrhythmias.

Similarly, further research has undermined the validity of retinal and subdural haemorrhages as being characteristic of shaken baby syndrome, with an evidence-based review finding 'serious data gaps, flaws of logic and inconsistency of case definition' in the relevant scientific work. Shaken baby syndrome was not, as its name implied, a 'syndrome', but rather encompassed several different forms of brain injury, with different clinical history and neuropathology, involving some mechanism other than shaking to account for the presence of retinal haemorrhages. Thus a series of independently witnessed accidents confirmed that, as parents had maintained, minor falls could cause an acute subdural bleed with the retinal haemorrhages being due to a sudden rise in retinal venous pressure. Further, parental histories of a preceding episode of respiratory collapse were compatible with the very different pathological findings of anoxic brain damage, with disturbance of the microcirculation causing thin subdural and retinal haemorrhages.

Meanwhile, the widened definition of Munchausen's syndrome by proxy based on 'diagnostic pointers' has also resulted in wrongful convictions, with the child's unexplained symptoms proving to be due to some rare or unusual medical condition with which the doctor was not familiar. Subsequently the syndrome would be renamed 'factitious illness' in recognition of the fact that, while some parents may fabricate the symptoms of their child's illness, the combination of unexplained symptoms and the mother's personality profile did not constitute a syndrome of abuse. Finally, radiologists' misinterpretation of normal variants of ossification in the first year of life as being metaphyseal fractures accounts for the obvious discrepancy between the findings of multiple fractures on skeletal survey and the absence of any clinical signs of abusive injury.

This serial collapse of the improbable scientific assumption that there could be no explanation other than abuse for the characteristic presentation of these syndromes has exposed in turn the equally improbable legal assumption that, contrary to sound judicial practice, it is possible to convict parents without there being additional circumstantial evidence or reasonable motive for their abusive intentions. Thus Justice Judge would, in his exoneration of Angela Cannings, draw attention to 'the absence of the slightest evidence of physical interference which might support the allegation she had deliberately harmed them'. And, again, he emphasised how 'the absence of any indication of ill temper or ill treatment of any child at any time' and 'the evidence of both her family and outsiders about the love and care she bestowed on her children' made it extraordinarily unlikely that she might have smothered them. Justice Judge's exoneration of Angela Cannings' character as a loving mother focuses attention on the moral and judgmental dimension of the child abuse syndromes, arising from extrapolation from Meadow's original description of Munchausen syndrome by proxy, that all parents are potential child abusers. Is this extrapolation plausible? The psychological profile of those who unambiguously have harmed their children reveals, as would be expected, them to be psychopaths, criminals, opioid abusers, alcoholics and so on. So when parents such as Angela Cannings, with no blemish on their character, appear as loving, concerned parents, the likelihood must be that it is because they are loving concerned parents - and very powerful evidence is required to argue otherwise.

Meadow and the proponents of the child abuse syndromes necessarily take the contrary view, and in so doing are required to portray parents' protestations of innocence as deceitful. That moral judgment, together with the failure to recognise that medical knowledge may be incomplete, meant that Angela Cannings' wrongful conviction for infanticide was almost inevitable. The question remains how many other parents have similarly been wrongly convicted of the terrible crime of injuring their children, and been robbed of their families, livelihoods and good name.

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BRITISH PRISON WHISTLEBLOWER FINALLY VINDICATED

How disgraceful that it took an unfair dismissal tribunal to expose corruption. None of the supposed safeguards in the bureaucracy worked at all. It was a coverup all the way.

A prison service whistleblower who alleged a litany of abuse at a high-security jail is set to gain a six-figure sum in compensation after winning a claim for unfair dismissal. Carol Lingard, 37, saw her promising 15-year career as a prison officer destroyed when she reported claims of prisoners being bullied and intimidated at Wakefield prison in west Yorkshire. An employment tribunal earlier this year, where Lingard won her case, heard that colleagues treated her as 'a grass' and her managers failed to take her complaints seriously. Examining the two unsuccessful investigations into her claims, the tribunal heavily criticised the Prison Service management, including the former governor John Slater, the former deputy governor Colin Blakeman - now governor of Leeds prison - and the deputy director of the service, Peter Atherton.

Lingard has since received an apology from the director general of the Service, Phil Wheatley, who acknowledged that the organisation, its Professional Standards Unit (PSU) - established by new whistle-blowing legislation - and his deputy all failed to deal properly with her allegations.

Today, although she can toast her victory, Lingard is angry that she lost her job as a senior prison officer over her allegations - which have still not been fully investigated. 'I began losing my hair, large clumps of it,' she said. 'I've been out of work for two-and-a-half years and I am still taking medicine for anxiety. 'I don't think any prison employee today would go to the PSU with their concerns. I was consistently deemed the problem, all the way to top management.'

Lingard got her first job in the prison service aged 20, and after 10 years' service she was no stranger to the harsh realities of life behind bars when she joined Wakefield as a senior officer in January 1999. Wakefield has around 580 inmates, including Roy Whiting, the killer of eight-year-old Sarah Payne and Ian Huntley, who murdered Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, both 10.

In August 2002, when Lingard first made her allegations, she ran B-wing with 180 prisoners and 40 staff. 'My appraisals had been fantastic. I was the only senior officer picked for fast-track governor assessment,' she said. The tribunal heard that Lingard was vilified as a whistleblower after her string of allegations, which centred on one prison officer. She claimed the officer warned a sex offender he could get slashed by other inmates if he was found with images of children. Lingard alleged that the officer then attempted to have the material planted in the prisoner's cell. Tensions were running high against paedophiles at Wakefield after the murder of Holly and Jessica. Whiting had been attacked and there was more trouble brewing. Lingard alleged that the officer had forged another prisoner's records to show poor behaviour and that he was involved in a suspicious assault allegation against the same inmate. She claimed that the officer had performed Hitler salutes at the probation board of a German inmate. Lingard highlighted her concerns to her line managers. Within 48 hours, she said, 'word spread that I was "a grass" and suddenly I was discriminated against, intimidated and stonewalled. 'Work became a very hostile, unsafe environment. Backs literally turned whenever I entered a room or corridor and gates slammed in my face. I was made to feel as if I had done something dreadful, and that I was going to pay for it.' she said. 'I just couldn't carry on. I couldn't sleep or eat. I was 32 weeks pregnant, had previously suffered two miscarriages and I was losing weight.'

An initial investigation - later described as 'poor' and 'not professional' by the tribunal - found 'no evidence' to support Lingard's allegations. Despite approaching Slater, the prison governor, and the PSU - which briefly investigated her claims but failed to discover the truth - her complaint went no further. Demoralised, Lingard turned to her brother, John Sturzaker, a lawyer, for help. 'Carol was right to report the allegations but I was astonished that the matter had not been sorted out in 18 months and was appalled at how it was handled,' said Sturzaker.

In April 2004, Lingard brought a claim before the employment tribunal. She found out that Wakefield had taken steps to medically retire her. 'Their own doctor told them that my illness was caused by their actions,' she said angrily. The tribunal attacked the senior management at the prison and the service. Its judgment was peppered with damning judgments: 'startling and disturbing,' 'seriously flawed judgement,' 'collective failures,' 'beyond belief,' 'miscarriage of justice,' and 'serious misgivings'. 'Carol was a successful, highly regarded member of staff who made five serious allegations and was instantly regarded as the problem' said Sturzaker. 'A corporate inability to properly investigate and a contempt for those who are brave enough to report wrongdoing emerge from this judgement - she was failed all the way to the top.'

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Police Chemist may have Destroyed Evidence in Death Row Case

Disgraced Oklahoma City police chemist Joyce Gilchrist doctored trial evidence and may have destroyed hair samples that could have exonerated a man now on death row, according to a confidential police memo obtained by The Associated Press. The memo said Gilchrist not only altered her own case notes, but "there is compelling circumstantial evidence" that she "either intentionally lost or destroyed" crime-scene hairs used to convict Curtis Edward McCarty of murder so the evidence could not be retested.

The Oklahoma City Police Department memo, written by then-Deputy Chief Bill Citty to then-Chief M.T. Berry, is dated Sept. 21, 2001, and details 14 days of deliberations and testimony heard by a department review board. The board, consisting of two police chemists and three high-ranking officials, recommended Gilchrist be fired. Four days later, she was.

Citty and Berry declined to comment on the board's findings. Gilchrist, who has sued various city officials for wrongful termination, has long said she is innocent, but declines interviews. Her attorney did not return calls from the AP. Her dismissal followed disclosures she helped send at least two innocent men to prison during her 21-year tenure as a forensic chemist and prosecution witness in hundreds of cases. Those men were released after DNA testing proved they were not guilty.

Since she was fired, two secret criminal investigations - one by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, the other by the FBI - have produced no charges. Officials from both agencies refused to comment, saying the probes are confidential.

The police memorandum details alleged wrongdoing by Gilchrist in 11 cases from the 1980s. The most significant misconduct alleged was in the McCarty case, and those findings are the crux of McCarty's latest appeal of his conviction in the 1982 murder of a young woman, sources familiar with the case told the AP on condition of anonymity. Attorneys on both sides are prohibited from discussing details of that appeal because a federal appellate court, at the request of Oklahoma City officials, has taken the unusual step of sealing the case. The city cited the confidentiality of personnel records in its request.

Detailing Gilchrist's alleged misconduct in the McCarty case, the memo revealed that her case notes - which she testified to at McCarty's trials - had recently been sent to a document examiner at the Tulsa Police Department for independent review. The results, the memo said, showed that Gilchrist "wrote over" her original notes from 1983 that concluded McCarty's hair was "not consistent" with strands found at the crime scene - meaning he was excluded as a suspect.

Three years later, McCarty was tried for murder. During that trial, the memo said, she testified from her altered notes, saying McCarty's hairs were consistent with strands found on the body of 18-year-old Pamela Willis, the daughter of a police officer.

The Tulsa police analysis indicates "Gilchrist wrote over the word `not' to reflect the word `show,'" the memo states. In another instance, Gilchrist added the word "completely" underneath the word "not," the memo says. "The impact of this alteration was that McCarty was left in as a potential suspect rather than excluded," the memo says. "The Board has tremendous concerns and suspicions concerning Gilchrist's analysis of this case."

McCarty, who had a prior conviction for statutory rape, consistently declared he was innocent of the Willis murder. He submitted hair samples to police in 1983 along with those of several other acquaintances of the victim who had seen her in the hours before her death.

His first conviction, in 1986, was overturned by the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, which ruled Gilchrist's hair evidence testimony was riddled with error and personal opinions. Two subsequent trials, with evidence again submitted by Gilchrist, resulted in convictions and death sentences. His third appeal is now before the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals.

The review board's finding that Gilchrist may have destroyed evidence is based on her written assertion to prosecutors in 2000 that she had possession of the McCarty hair evidence and that enough remained for DNA testing. Two months later, the memo said, she wrote to her supervisor that evidence was missing. According to the memo, Gilchrist wrote that she discovered the evidence was gone when McCarty's attorneys came to her office to examine it.

The memo said Gilchrist's misconduct in other cases included incorrect hair and fiber analysis, withholding evidence from defense attorneys, and failing to analyze evidence before trial. One example concerns the attempted-murder conviction of Harold "Gene" Weatherly. Gilchrist wrongly testified that fibers on his tennis shoe came from the victim's house, and mistook an animal hair for a human hair, the memo said.

Weatherly served 15 years in prison and was released. He asked the governor for a pardon and was denied.

The state, which separately reviewed hundreds of cases based on Gilchrist's testimony, has recommended 196 be re-examined. Details of that recommendation are also confidential; the recommendation now sits in the office of state Attorney General Drew Edmondson.

He has not decided whether to pursue charges against Gilchrist, according to prosecutor Jennifer Miller, who worked on the McCarty case. Asked when a decision might be made, Miller replied, "I can't comment on that."

In 2001, the FBI subpoenaed evidence from 10 Gilchrist cases - nine of them involving defendants already executed - for a federal grand jury investigation of possible civil rights violations. "I can't understand what's taking so long. I can't understand why they haven't charged her," said defense attorney Garvin Isaacs, who represented Robert Lee Miller Jr., sentenced to death in 1988. Miller was convicted of murdering and raping two elderly women, based in part on Gilchrist's testimony that crime-scene hairs were consistent with Miller's hair samples. He spent 10 years in prison. He was released after DNA analysis showed the hairs found near the victims belonged to another suspect.

The secrecy surrounding McCarty's case and the two criminal probes of Gilchrist's career has demoralized families of those convicted, who accuse investigators of dragging their feet to avoid more embarrassing prisoner releases. More disturbing, they say, is the question of whether innocent men were executed. "I'm just afraid it's going to be one those hush-hush things," said Jim Fowler, whose son, Mark, was executed three years ago for a murder conviction that relied on Gilchrist's hair comparisons. "It's the best-kept secret in Oklahoma City."

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55 YEARS FOR POT!

A 55-year prison sentence for a convicted Utah marijuana seller was challenged in a federal appeals court yesterday as unconstitutional by 163 former U.S. attorneys general and retired federal judges and prosecutors. In a friend-of-the-court brief filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit in Denver, they urged the court to vacate the sentence of Weldon H. Angelos, 25, saying it violated the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Angelos, a first-time offender, was sentenced in November under the federal mandatory minimum sentences law. At the time, U.S. District Judge Paul G. Cassell called the sentence "unjust, cruel and even irrational," but said he had no choice under the law. Yesterday's brief called Angelos' sentence "grossly disproportionate" to the offenses on which he was convicted and "contrary to the evolving standards of decency which are the hallmark of our civilized society." Harry H. Rimm, a former federal prosecutor now at the New York law firm Greenberg Traurig, LLP, wrote the brief. He said he was astounded at the support among former federal judges and prosecutors for Angelos' position.

Before Angelos was sentenced, Rimm filed a friend-of-the-court brief arguing that the recommended sentencing was unconstitutional and disproportionately harsh for a first-time offender. That brief was signed by 29 former federal judges and prosecutors, including nine from Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

The 163 who signed yesterday's brief pointed to the growing interest in the case in legal circles. The signers included appointees of every president from Lyndon B. Johnson to Bill Clinton, including 17 from Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Since the mid-1980s, Congress has passed a series of anticrime measures, including the 1987 federal sentencing guidelines, and has added escalating mandatory minimum prison terms for a number of crimes. Congress argued that the changes were a reaction to disparities in sentencing among federal judges. But many judges have said the laws limited their discretion to impose sentences tailored to the individual before them.

In January, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the federal sentencing guidelines were advisory, making it easier for judges to depart from them.

The father of two young children, Angelos was a producer of rap records. He was convicted in 2002 of selling marijuana to a police informant - two half-pounds at $350 each - and faced a likely eight years in prison. But three gun counts involving a concealed handgun in an ankle holster he wore during the sale and guns found later by police in a search of his home, triggered escalating, mandatory and consecutive prison terms that boosted Angelos' sentence to 55 years.

The U.S. attorney in Utah argued that the sentence was authorized by Congress and was constitutional.

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THE COPS CAN DO NO WRONG IN JAMAICA

And you risk prosecution if you say so

The Jamaican Government is exploring what legal action can be taken against an Amnesty International official who argued, in Monday's Observer, that Reneto Adams - like other Jamaican lawmen before him - will be acquitted of murder. The comments made by Piers Bannister, according to Justice Minister and Attorney-General A J Nicholson, amounted to contempt of court. Said Nicholson: "This statement. purports to prophesy what the result of the trial will be and to assert, in effect, that this result will not only be a miscarriage of justice in itself but will be typical of the way in which certain categories of cases are dealt with by our judicial system." He added: "This official would not have dared to make such a comment in England in respect of a case pending in their courts."

Bannister is the London-based researcher on Amnesty International's North American/English-speaking Caribbean team. His original comments were made in an exchange of emails with Desmond Allen, whose extensive interview with Adams was carried in the Sunday Observer on June 5 and 12. Bannister had argued that the ground was being prepared for Adams' return to front-line duties.

Adams, the former head of the now-disbanded Crime Management Unit, was given a desk job after he and other CMU members were charged with murder after a May 2003 shooting in Crawle, Clarendon, left two women and two men dead. "I think that everyone knows that Mr Adams and his colleagues will be found not guilty in September just as (in the case of) the Braeton Seven," Bannister told Allen via email.

On February 11 of this year, six police officers were freed of the March 2001 murder of seven young men at a home in Braeton. The cops were also members of the CMU.

Arguing that no police officer had been convicted of murder in Jamaica in the last six years, the Amnesty official said Jamaican police are "immune from effective prosecution and are allowed to carry out killings with impunity".

Bannister's comments, Nicholson said yesterday, were a " kind of broadside attack upon the integrity of the judicial system" and also threatened Adams' ability to get a fair trial. Though there was "an absence of specific statutory enactment in Jamaica", the justice minister said, there is a remedy for this swipe at the country's judicial system at common law. "I am therefore considering," Nicholson said, "along with the legal officers of the government, what steps may be taken in order to protect the good name of our country, its reputation for strict adherence to the rule of law and to prevent this kind of mischievous and damaging allegation being made in the future."

Source



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  Blogger.com seem to have had another one of their glitches. All users of the template I was using have suddenly found their posts headed by at least a page of blank space! So I have chosen a new but similar template which seems to be OK so far.  ¶ 6:35 PM 0 comments links to this post

 

The $200 Billion Miscarriage of Justice

Asbestos lawyers are pitting plaintiffs who aren't sick against companies that never made the stuff--and extracting billions for themselves.

"You indicated that you walked three or four miles a day?" a defense lawyer asked plaintiff James Curry this past October in a rural courthouse in Lexington, Miss.

"Correct," answered Curry, a 65-year-old former railroad worker in seemingly good health. Curry and five co-plaintiffs were in court seeking compensation for exceedingly mild cases of asbestosis and other "asbestos-related conditions." Such conditions--scars, marks, opacities, and other imperfections in the lungs that show up in X-rays--are not necessarily accompanied by any impairment or symptom severe enough to spur someone to see a doctor. Nevertheless, most state courts recognize these conditions as "compensable injuries," that is, the proper subject of lawsuits.

Like most asbestos plaintiffs today, Curry and his co-plaintiffs were never asbestos workers per se. They were, rather, laborers, janitors, plant workers, or general maintenance men who, once in a while during their long working lives, allegedly either handled asbestos-containing products or worked in the general vicinity of others who did.

"And you also jog?" the defense lawyer asked Curry.
"No, I don't jog anymore.... I stopped after '96."
"Did you tell them at your deposition [in March 2001] that you jog?"
"Possibility that I did.... Just made a mistake."

This past Oct. 26 the jury returned a verdict for Curry and his five co-plaintiffs against three defendant corporations of $150 million--$25 million per plaintiff--in compensatory (not punitive) damages. Four defense doctors had testified that none of the plaintiffs suffered from any asbestos-related condition whatsoever, but the plaintiffs' doctor, a Jackson pulmonologist, had disagreed. None of the plaintiffs claimed to have incurred any medical expenses or to have ever lost a day of work due to asbestos exposure.

The prospect of winning verdicts like Curry's has turned the original mass tort--asbestos litigation--into the ultimate mass farce. There are now about 49,000 asbestos plaintiffs awaiting trial in Lexington, Fayette, Port Gibson, Pascagoula, and other propitious plaintiffs' venues in Mississippi, and at least 200,000 more cases nationwide--mainly concentrated in other favorable plaintiffs' locales sprinkled across such states as Texas, Louisiana, West Virginia, New York, and California. The nation's dockets are now so jammed with asbestos suits being brought on behalf of minimally injured people that lawyers who represent the truly ill are teaming up with asbestos defendants to demand reform.

More here





PAKISTANI JUSTICE

In 1985, one Muzaffar Ali Shah was released from Lahore Mental Hospital after 37 years of confinement. On migration to Pakistan in 1947, Muzaffar had opened a shop. Some time later, his shop was burgled and when he went to file a report, he was arrested under the Lunacy Act. Record, or rather the lack thereof, showed that he was wrongly arrested and never produced before a court.

One Mukhtar, a former subedar-major in the British Indian Army, was arrested and convicted for attempted murder in 1952 in Kohat and sentenced to seven years, but spent the next 18 years in jail. Released in 1970, he was arrested again in Karachi, and was not released until 1987. Mukhtar, who had land and business in Kohat, said he was framed by someone on the attempt to murder charge, which led to his conviction in Kohat. The same man later followed him to Karachi and had him arrested again, without any lawful authority whatsoever.

In acquitting Mukhtar, a district bench of the Sindh High Court, observed: "There is no mention of any remand order having been issued by any court. Therefore, the detenue has been kept in detention without any lawful authority. It has also been stated that he is under trial, but no documents to that effect have been shown by the Advocate General or the Home Department".

Then there is the case of Meher Din, who came out of jail in 1987. He was arrested by Lahore Police in 1966, when he was 20, falsely accused of murder. His two-decades incarceration began thus: "Are you Meher Din?" the Lahore Police asked. "Yes", he replied. "Where do you live?" "In Badami Bagh", he answered. "Is not your father's name Imam Din?" "No, my father's name is Yameen". "You are not Meher Din, son of Imam Din, who has committed a murder?" "No, I am Meher Din, son of Yameen, and I have killed no one." "Well," said the policeman, "you come with us anyway."

Meher Din was arrested, prosecuted and acquitted. But instead of being released, he was handed over to Karachi Police, who were also looking for the elusive murderer Meher Din, son of Imam Din. Having failed to catch him, the police put poor Meher Din, son of Yameen, in jail for the next 17 years in jail.

The above happy endings, for lack of a better word, should draw attention to the scale of lawlessness of the law-enforcing agencies in Pakistan. The few cases of illegal detention that have come to light represent merely the tip of the iceberg.

More here


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AMAZING: THE GUY CONFESSED TO MURDER YEARS AGO AND THEY STILL HAVE NOT GOT AROUND TO PROSECUTING HIM

But they sent someone else to death-row for the crime!

In a stepped up effort to secure an indictment of Brian Dugan in the 1983 Naperville murder of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico, DuPage prosecutors will be presenting evidence to the grand jury in weeks ahead, State's Atty. Joseph Birkett said Monday. "I've said it before that Brian Dugan is the target and he remains the target," said Birkett. Birkett noted that grand jury proceedings are secret, "but I think people will soon be seeing a lot of familiar faces in the courthouse. The investigation has been ongoing, and the presentation of evidence to the grand jury is part of that."

The strongest reported evidence against Dugan is DNA samples that link him to the crime. Birkett declined to give a date when he would seek an indictment.

Thomas McCulloch, Dugan's attorney, said Monday that he hadn't heard anything specific about a current DuPage County grand jury investigation. "I assume there will be an indictment at some time," said McCulloch, who added he last talked to his client, who is in Pontiac Correctional Center, late last year.

Birkett has said previously that he would seek the death penalty against Dugan if he is indicted and convicted of the Nicarico murder. Dugan, 49, of Aurora, is currently serving two life sentences for the murders of a Geneva woman and a Somonauk child. He has been at the center of a 20-year firestorm since he confessed to killing Nicarico in a statement that couldn't be used against him in a criminal court. Dugan claimed that he was the sole perpetrator of the murder, kidnapping and sexual assault of the girl who was abducted from her Naperville home on Feb. 25, 1983, when she stayed home from school because of illness.

Three other men were indicted and tried for the crime: One eventually had charges dropped against him. Two were convicted and sentenced to death. Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez were both eventually freed from Death Row by judges who ruled there was a lack of evidence needed to convict.

Also, seven former prosecutors and police officers involved in the Nicarico death investigation were eventually charged with, and later acquitted of, malfeasance in Cruz's and Hernandez's prosecution.

Dugan has never been indicted in the Nicarico murders, but the possibility has been discussed for years. Some evidence in the case over the years has been presented to the grand jury. "We are still waiting for the results of some tests," said Birkett. "We want to be able to deal with every piece of evidence." The potential indictment comes as Birkett has announced that he is considering running for governor in next March's Republican primary. He lost the 2002 election for Illinois attorney general.

More here




AND HERE IS THE STORY OF THE GUY THEY DID CONVICT

Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez were wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death for the 1983 kidnaping, rape, and murder of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico in DuPage County, Illinois.

Prior to their 1985 trial the lead detective in the case resigned in protest that prosecutors were proceeding against innocent men. Nonetheless, prosecutors continued and won convictions, thanks to the testimony of officers who falsely claimed that Cruz had told them details of the crime that only the killer would have known.

Shortly after the trial, a repeat sex offender and murderer - Brian Dugan - confessed that he alone had committed the crime, as well as a series of other crimes, including two rape-murders and three rapes. Many of these crime were similar to the crime for which Cruz and Hernandez were sitting on death row, and several witnesses established conclusively that Dugan was the sole perpetrator in the other crimes he had described.

Although Dugan's confession that he alone killed Jeanine Nicarico was corroborated by overwhelming evidence - as shown by a Chicago Lawyer investigation headed by Rob Warden - prosecutors steadfastly refused to acknowledge that they had put the wrong men on death row. And, after the Illinois Supreme Court reversed the convictions, prosecutors retried Cruz and Hernandez and again won - largely because much of the evidence proving that Dugan had committed the crime was excluded from the courtroom.

In 1990, a volunteer legal team led by Lawrence C. Marshall agreed to represent Cruz on appeal. After four years of arduous litigation, the Illinois Supreme Court reversed Cruz's conviction in 1994, and granted him a third trial. Prior to that trial, newly available DNA testing excluded Cruz and Hernandez as the child's rapists and linked Dugan to the crime. Even so, prosecutors refused to drop the case.

At trial, Cruz was represented by a team of four lawyers, including Marshall. During the trial, a police officer admitted that he had lied under oath in relation to testimony about Cruz's purported statement. After hearing all of the prosecution's evidence, the trial judge directed a verdict of not guilty. Prosecutors later dropped charges against Hernandez.

The story of the Cruz-Hernandez case is told in a book by Thomas Frisbie and Randy Garrett - Victims of Justice, Avon Books (1998).

In the aftermath of the Cruz trial, a special grand jury indicted four sheriff's deputies and three former prosecutors for their roles in the Cruz case. Charges included perjury and obstruction of justice. Although a DuPage County jury acquitted these men of those charges, the County later agreed to pay $3.5 million to settle the civil rights claims that Cruz, Hernandez, and Stephen Buckley (a third defendant who had been charged in the crime) had filed in federal court.

In December 2002, Cruz received a pardon based on innocence from Illinois Governor George H. Ryan.

Report here

Fuller details here


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ROY MEADOW FACES AT LEAST SOME JUSTICE AT LAST

He has put more innocent people in jail than anyone outside a police force

Professor Sir Roy Meadow, whose evidence helped to send three innocent mothers to jail for killing their babies, misled a murder jury by giving naive and grossly misleading evidence as an expert witness, the General Medical Council was told yesterday. The retired paediatrician who, over decades, has convinced courts that at least 81 infant deaths were murders, told jurors that the chances of two cot deaths in a family were as unlikely as an 80-1 horse winning four consecutive Grand Nationals.

Professor Meadow was a witness in the trials of Sally Clark, Angela Cannings and Donna Anthony, who were each convicted of murdering two of their babies but later cleared on appeal. He also gave evidence against Trupti Patel, who was found not guilty of killing her three babies.

Details of the charge, which may mean one of medicine’s most distinguished careers ending in disgrace, were disclosed for the first time. Professor Meadow is being tried over a single claim of “gross professional misconduct” arising from his evidence against Mrs Clark, a 35-year-old solicitor from Wilmslow, Cheshire. The case against the former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health revolves around his use of statistics to explain in court how remote the possibility was that Mrs Clark’s sons, Christopher and Harry, died of natural causes. Eminent statisticians will be called to dispute his figures.

Professor Meadow told a jury that the chances of two cases of sudden infant death syndrome, or “cot death”, in one family were 73 million to one, or once every 100 years. He obtained this figure by looking at the probability of a single cot death in a family like Mrs Clark’s. Because the Clarks were non-smokers, were employed and the mother was over 26, the chances were calculated at 8,543 to one. Professor Meadow multiplied this figure by itself to reach his “astronomically increased improbability” for two such deaths. Using a National Lottery analogy, he said it was like “winning the jackpot”. Yet Professor Meadow was aware of findings which showed that if there is one cot death in a family the likelihood of a second is actually increased, the GMC disciplinary panel was told. The correct “odds” were nearer 75 to one.

He also failed to mention evidence which might help the defence — that babies who died without obvious cause were 25 times less likely to have been murdered than to have died of natural causes.

Robert Seabrook, QC, for the GMC, said:“This charge relates to his giving of evidence for the prosecution in a double murder trail in 1999 when it is alleged that he gave seriously misleading and flawed evidence and thereby was in breach of his duties as a medical expert witness.” His evidence was grossly imbalanced and extravagant. Mr Seabrook added: “When doctors offer themselves as forensic medical experts, increasingly a feature of consultant practice, they must be scrupulously fair. They are not hired guns. They are not advancing their own pet theories. Like all expert witnesses they must remember their duty is to assist the court by putting all relevant factors fully and frankly before the court. This is especially if the expert is a man of great eminence and therefore likely to be respected, effective and persuasive.”

From The Times



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ANOTHER VICTIM OF THE COMMON POLICE "GRAB ANYBODY NEARBY" TACTIC

Jurors in the Sion Jenkins murder trial at the Old Bailey were told today that they could be witnessing a historic miscarriage of justice. Jenkins, 47, a former deputy head teacher, is being retried for the murder of his foster daughter Billie-Jo, 13, who was battered to death as she painted patio doors at the family home in Hastings, East Sussex, in 1997. Jenkins, now of Belgravia, central London, was jailed for life in 1998 but the Court of Appeal ordered a new trial last year.

Christopher Sallon, QC, making his closing speech for the defence, said the case had the features of a miscarriage of justice. These included pressure being put on police to solve the crime quickly because of the public outrage.

Scientists and medical experts had been unwilling to admit they could have been wrong in the light of new findings, he said. Mr Sallon said that it appeared some of the investigators had put their careers and reputations first. He told the jury: “We say that a grave doubt has been established as to whether Sion Jenkins committed this crime. “In this investigation there have been oversights and mistakes which makes your task an extremely difficult one.”

The jury had heard evidence not heard by the first trial and he listed 12 reasons why jurors could not be sure of Jenkins’ guilt. These included lack of motive, the time-factor of three minutes to commit a “frenzied and psychopathic” murder, a history of prowlers in the area and inconclusive scientific evidence. “The prosecution have totally failed to produce any evidence which begins to explain why Sion Jenkins should have hit his daughter with such terrible force,” he said.

Current report here


Background report:

"The Court of Appeal has ordered a new investigation into the actions of a mentally ill man who was the police's first suspect for the murder. Lawyers for Jenkins have also obtained expert forensic analysis that challenges the prosecution's key evidence about bloodstains found on the teacher.

The third plank of the Court of Appeal challenge by Jenkins' legal team is two of his daughters, who the defence claim can provide their father with an alibi. They will be cross-examined and will give live evidence for the first time at the appeal hearing later this year. The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which investigates suspected miscarriages of justice, referred the case to the Court of Appeal last year after re-examining the evidence given at the trial, and the fresh evidence produced by the defence. Nevertheless the police are adamant that they got the right man and the Crown Prosecution Service will be defending the conviction in court.

If Jenkins were to be freed at the hearing, which is expected to take place in the summer, it will be hugely controversial and lead to the obvious question: if he did not murder Billie-Jo, then who did? The brutality and apparent randomness of a crime committed by a churchgoer and a respected member of the community shocked the nation. At his trial in Lewes Crown Court, the jury heard that Billie-Jo's body was discovered on the patio at the back of the family home, where she lived with her foster family: Sion, his wife Lois, a social worker, and their four daughters.

The prosecution successfully argued that Jenkins, now 46, had returned to the house in the afternoon of Saturday 15 February 1997 with two of his daughters, Annie and Lottie. He entered the house, where Billie-Jo had been painting the patio doors, and in an uncontrollable rage bludgeoned her death. He then took his two daughters out to a DIY store in order to create a false alibi for himself. On their return to the house he found the body and called 999 for help.

The prosecution was unable to suggest any reason why Jenkins might have committed the murder, although after his conviction it emerged that he had struck out at his wife on a number of occasions and had once kicked his stepdaughter. The police suggested that he simply lost his temper, possibly provoked by Billie-Jo playing loud music.

The crucial forensic evidence against Jenkins at his trial was the discovery of 158 microscopic bloodspots on his clothing. A forensic scientist successfully argued that the thin mist of droplets was created as Jenkins swung the 18in tent peg, striking his foster daughter at least nine times.

Jenkins' legal team challenged the forensic evidence in an appeal in 1999, but the court rejected the challenge. Since then, fresh evidence has emerged following inquiries by the defence team, headed by the lawyer Neil O'May, and investigators from the CCRC.
One of the principal issues surrounds a paranoid schizophrenic man who had been seen sitting in a park within eight minutes' walk of the murder scene at the time of Billie-Jo's death. The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was arrested by the police after a guesthouse owner living on Jenkins' road reported that he had been behaving strangely on the night of the murder. He was later eliminated from the inquiry after Sussex Police found at least three witnesses who said he was in the park at the time of the murder.

But it has since emerged that when the man was arrested and placed in cells he tried to stuff into his mouth a piece of plastic that he had been keeping hidden in his clothing. It was later confiscated by police. This is considered potentially significant because part of a plastic bin liner was found buried deep in Billie-Jo's left nostril. The CCRC has now been asked to investigate whether the man had a fixation with plastic bags.

The man, who resisted arrest, was never questioned because he was considered medically unfit. Items of his clothing were forensically tested, but no bloodstains were discovered. But the defence believes that he may have destroyed some clothing. There are also questions being asked about the accuracy of the timings given by witnesses who saw him in the park.

There is also a dispute over the evidence given by Jenkins' daughters, Annie and Lottie, now aged 19 and 17.
Neither the police nor the defence called the girls to give evidence at the trial, instead relying on a police video interview, which was interpreted as giving Jenkins a few minutes' opportunity to murder Billie-Jo.

The CCRC re-interviewed the girls in 2002 and the defence now believes that the original defence team were "wrong-footed" or misled at the trial and that the teenagers' testimony provides their father with an alibi for the time of the murder. Annie and Lottie will be cross-examined at the Court of Appeal in the summer and it will be up to the judges to decide whether their evidence is admissible.

The third area of dispute is over
the forensic evidence. In the appeal court, two professors from Sheffield University will argue that evidence given at the original trial was wrong. The forensic specialists will say that air trapped in Billie-Jo's dead body, possibly by a blood clot, could have been released by her foster father as he attended her, and thus have produced the thin mist of blood droplets. They will also question why Jenkins did not have more blood on him considering the huge amount of fluid lost during the savage attack.


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DENIAL OF JUSTICE NOW OFFICIAL BRITISH POLICY

Scotland Yard failed to investigate fully an allegation by a white woman of a rape involving an officer from an ethnic minority because of concerns that it would be accused of racism. Despite a secret two-year investigation into the woman's complaint, the officer, who was accused of being party to an incident in which the victim claims she was drugged before being raped, has never been interviewed or questioned because of fears that an inquiry would be seen as "a racist witch-hunt".

In cases of rape allegations it is normal procedure for anyone involved in the alleged incident to be interviewed under caution before a decision is taken on whether to press charges. In this instance, however, the Metropolitan Police was said to have been "walking on eggshells" in the wake of the Macpherson Report, published in 1999, which said that the force was "institutionally racist". As a result, the matter was never put to the officer - who serves with the Metropolitan Police and whose identity is known to this newspaper - because of fears that he would accuse the force of pursuing him for racist reasons.

The revelation of the woman's claim comes after a week in which the Metropolitan Police has faced multiple accusations of racism. At an industrial tribunal last week, the Commissioner Sir Ian Blair faced accusations of "politically correct meddling" in a disciplinary case involving white officers. He was said to have been keen to make examples of the officers, who faced charges of racist behaviour, even though an inquiry had already cleared them.

That charge is overshadowed by the latest unprecedented revelation, however, which demonstrates the extraordinary lengths to which the Metropolitan Police is prepared to go to accommodate officers from ethnic minorities. The rape complaint, which the force has attempted to keep secret for four years, was considered so sensitive that Sir Ian, then Deputy Commissioner, oversaw the inquiry himself. It was formally made by the woman, now 35, in 2001 and relates to an alleged incident which she said took place 13 years earlier. She said that she had not reported it at the time because she was afraid that the man would come after her. She claimed that the man, who she had been seeing for a few weeks, invited her to an address in west London where she began drinking with him and another man, whom he identified as his cousin.

She believes that she passed out after a drug was placed in her drink and says that when she awoke, she was being raped by the other man. She passed out again, waking to find the man naked beside her and her boyfriend lying on the floor nearby. She says that when she complained to her boyfriend that she had been raped he told her she had imagined it. She ended their relationship immediately.

Following her complaint in 2001, during which she made a full statement, Scotland Yard detectives spent two years secretly investigating the allegation. Several people gave the police statements, but detectives were told not to approach the officer and in 2003 the case was closed. The failure to question the officer because of the sensitivity over his race was confirmed by several sources. One said: "Scotland Yard was treading on eggshells with this and the feeling at the top level was that even putting the rape to this man would be too much."

The woman, who cannot be identified, said: "Due process has not been served. This man, who is now a serving officer, was party to my rape." Scotland Yard said that the allegation had been "thoroughly investigated". While awaiting their response, a man identifying himself as the officer's solicitor called the offices of The Sunday Telegraph in a state of agitation. Attempts to contact him subsequently failed, but Scotland Yard admitted that after this newspaper's inquiry, it contacted the officer. "We have a duty of care to him," said a spokesman, who declined to comment on the duty of care to the alleged rape victim.

The officer's solicitor said his client had been previously aware of the rape allegation, which he denied, and confirmed that he had never been interviewed formally or informally over it. He said that he took this as proof that the allegation was groundless.


Report here



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THE DARRYL HUNT CASE

Report from 2004:

Gov. Mike Easley pardoned Darryl Hunt yesterday in the 1984 rape and murder of Deborah Sykes, proclaiming Hunt innocent of the crime for which he served 18 years in prison. The pardon entitles Hunt to $20,000 for each year he was wrongly imprisoned, or about $360,000. Coming more than two months after a Superior Court judge vacated the murder conviction in the case, the pardon also gives him another chance to clear his name, Hunt said. "Finally, my innocence is recognized," Hunt said in an interview at his home, "in the sense that for so many years I have been trying to prove my innocence only to be told I was lying, and to finally have it official means a lot."

Easley issued a brief news release about 5:30 p.m., after notifying Sykes' mother and Hunt's attorney of his decision. "After careful, extensive review and consideration, I am granting a pardon of innocence for Darryl Eugene Hunt," Easley said in a statement. "This pardon exonerates Mr. Hunt of his October 1990 first-degree murder conviction. All parties have been notified of this decision and the facts and circumstances surrounding this case.".....

Hunt was freed Dec. 24 after DNA testing in the Sykes case identified the new suspect, Willard Brown, who authorities said later confessed to having committed the crime by himself. Brown has since been charged with murder, rape, kidnapping and robbery. No court date has been set for Brown, who is being held without bond.

Tom Keith, Forsyth County's district attorney, praised Easley's decisiveness on the pardon. "He knows it's a tough case, and he made a quick decision," Keith said last night. "I don't think there's anything he could do but that. "I think it was quickly done - in Mike's case, probably courageously," he said. "He could have waited until his last day in office. Politically, there's fallout on both sides."

Easley and his legal counsel, Reuben Young, declined to discuss the case yesterday. But the three-page document granting the pardon makes it clear that Easley accepts the recent developments in the case. He refers to testimony at Hunt's court hearing in February by Detective Mike Rowe of the Winston-Salem Police Department and Scott Williams, an agent with the State Bureau of Investigation, who both said that there is no longer any evidence that Hunt was involved in the rape or murder of Sykes.....

The Sykes murder and imprisonment of Hunt has long raised questions, largely along racial lines. Many people believe that Hunt was wrongly singled out in the brutal attack, while others believe that Hunt, who was found guilty by two juries, received special consideration because his supporters always raised race as an issue. The police never had any physical evidence to tie Hunt to Sykes' death, which occurred after she parked her car on West End Boulevard about 6:30 a.m. on Aug. 10, 1984.

The police relied on eyewitnesses, including a man named Johnny Gray, who first called 911 to report the attack using a false name - that of Sammy Mitchell, a friend of Hunt's. When Gray came forward to acknowledge making the call two weeks later, he identified not Hunt, but another man as the attacker. And that person was in jail at the time. Authorities later came to believe that Gray himself may have been involved in the attack on Sykes.

After being convicted at his first trial in 1985 in Forsyth County, where one black man served on the jury, Hunt won a second trial. That trial, in 1990, was moved to Catawba County, and an all-white jury convicted him a second time. He appealed that conviction, arguing first that prosecutors had withheld evidence and later that the DNA evidence developed in 1994 - excluding him as the source of semen found on Sykes - entitled him to a third trial. Hunt lost his last appeal in federal court in 2000. Judges ruled that the fact the DNA evidence did not match Hunt did not necessarily exclude him from having participated in the attack on Sykes.

Further testing of the semen sample showed that it failed to match Mitchell or Gray, the state's two other suspects in the case. Neither prosecutors nor police ever ordered a new investigation to try to find the person responsible for raping Sykes. Last April, a Superior Court judge approved, without opposition from Keith, a request to compare the DNA evidence in the case against state and federal databases of convicted felons.

An eight-part series by the Winston-Salem Journal last November documented flaws in the case against Hunt, showing that police used questionable tactics and witnesses to focus on him as a suspect. The series pointed out another downtown rape in 1985, which had characteristics similar to the attack on Sykes, a copy editor for The Sentinel newspaper. In that case, the victim had identified Brown, but decided not to press charges.

Under state law, Hunt is eligible for compensation from the state for wrongful imprisonment, but he must apply to the N.C. Industrial Commission, which routinely hears worker-compensation and other types of compensation cases. His attorneys said they will apply for Hunt's compensation immediately, and they plan to help him put the money in trust for a house, his education and his future financial security.


May 19, 2005 report:

The House unanimously agreed Thursday to require the criminal records of a person who receives a pardon of innocence from the governor be eliminated from the court system. The measure was filed in response to the case of Darryl Hunt, who spent 18 years in prison for the slaying of a Winston-Salem woman before DNA evidence exonerated him. "The state took away 18 years of his life," said Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, before the bill passed by a vote of 112-0. "This is a chance to give some of (his life) back to him."

Last year, Gov. Mike Easley issued Hunt a pardon of innocence, which means Hunt was officially cleared in the slaying. But a pardon doesn't mean the records chronicling the case automatically are removed from the official court files. If it becomes law, the bill would delete the records for Hunt and other individuals who have received such pardons. The expunction also would allow Hunt or others pardoned due to wrongful conviction to state truthfully in court or on a job application that they haven't been charged or convicted of a crime.



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SCOTSMAN STILL NOT CLEARED

"The system" is still covering up for corrupt police. Once again "beyond reasonable doubt" is forgotten

One of the longest alleged miscarriages of justice cases took another twist this morning when Appeal Court judges rejected Stirlingshire man Stuart Gair's claims of innocence. Campaigners immediately expressed their disbelief at the decision in a case that is one of the highest profile in Scottish criminal history.

Stuart Gair arrived at the Court of Appeal today hoping his 16 year old murder conviction would be quashed. He said: "I'm hoping for the full justice, and I'm hoping that at the end of the day, the corrupt police officers involved are somehow, in some way, dealt with." Gair was accused of murdering Peter Smith in a Glasgow lane in 1989. At his trial, the key prosecution witness, William McLeod, said he saw Gair with a knife in the lane. Other witnesses, David Smith, Brian Morrison and Alan Gillon all put Gair at the crime scene. All four have since retracted their evidence claiming police officers blackmailed them into giving perjured evidence. Those retractions were effectively rejected in less than 20 seconds at the Appeal Court this morning.

Stuart Gair said: "I'm absolutely stunned that these people have refused an appeal that was absolutely solid. I'm absolutely stunned and shocked." John McManus from the Miscarriages of Justice Group said: "I must admit, I think we're all very shocked. I mean, Paddy Hill said something about 14 years ago, it was "it looks that these people can't spell justice, never mind dispense it", and I think that's what we've seen in there today. If this was about justice, then sure Gair would have won this today. I don't know what they're playing at. They seem to be scared of opening up the can of worms that shows the corruption that goes on in the convicts court."

The case does not end today. The judges will hear further grounds of appeal in the future.

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GROSS PROSECUTORIAL INCOMPETENCE NOT TERRIBLY SURPRISING IN STILL-COMMUNIST CHINA

The children of a Chinese butcher executed for murdering a waitress have appealed against his conviction after the "victim" turned up alive, the second such judicial blunder to be made public in recent weeks. Shi Xiaorong was 18 when she disappeared in 1987 at the same time as six pieces of a woman's body, sliced off "in a professional manner," were found in a river in southern Hunan province, a newspaper said Thursday.

Police arrested Teng Xingshan because he was a butcher by trade and because of rumors he used to go to the hotel where Shi worked to find prostitutes, the Beijing News said. Hunan Provincial Court sentenced Teng to death for murder despite an appeal and a signature campaign by hundreds of local villagers and officials. He was executed by gunshot in 1989. "He cried out he was innocent until he was at the execution ground," the newspaper quoted one of Teng's lawyers as saying.

Waitress Shi was later found to be serving a prison sentence with her husband for selling drugs, the newspaper said.

Wrongful convictions are not uncommon in China where a campaign has been launched to clean up the interrogation and trial process. In April, She Xianglin was freed after serving 11 years of a 15-year jail sentence in central Hubei province for murdering his wife when she turned up not only alive but with another man.

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TRINIDAD LAWYER SAVED BY BRITISH PRIVY COUNCIL

Convicted on the word of a crook who owed him money!

Attorney Jagdeo Singh, who has had the ominous cloud of a corruption scandal over his head for almost six years now, had his conviction quashed by the Privy Council yesterday. The attorney, who had been behind bars since 2001 on two seven-year terms, was released around 7 p.m. yesterday when the Director of Public Prosecutions intervened. He's now free to practise.

Singh was convicted of corruptly soliciting $40,000 from the wife of one of his clients, Sherry Ann Basdeo, between October and December 1999. The money, Singh had allegedly told Basdeo, was to be used to pay then Deputy Chief Magistrate Deborah Thomas-Felix to grant bail to Basdeo's common-law husband, Rudolph John, who was before the magistrate on a drug charge.

Singh was arrested in a sting operation on December 2, 1999, at the Curepe KFC outlet, along the Churchill Roosevelt Highway, when an undercover police agent, WPC Lystra Bridgelal, handed him the $40,000.

Singh's appeal was heard over two days, and the five Law Lords delivered their decision around midday, after about 15 minutes of deliberation ..... One of the Law Lords, Lord Bingham was reported to have said: "This was not an overwhelming case against (Singh), despite the fact that it could have been. "It was primarily the word of (Singh) against that of (Basdeo) who was not of good character and who had reason for fabricating a story. "On the other hand, all the appellant may have wanted was his fee which the complainant had admitted to owing."

Singh was represented by English lawyers Edward Fitzgerald QC and James Oury and local attorneys Desmond Allum SC and Rajiv Persad. Asked his personal views on the outcome of the appeal, Jairam said he never felt Singh should have been convicted. "He may not be without his faults, but he is a very good attorney and would have been nearing Senior Counsel status by now," he said. He said the criminal justice system had failed Singh, and asserted: "Given what has happened today, I don't think that we can abolish the Privy Council as our final appellate court".

The Court of Appeal, comprising Chief Justice Satnarine Sharma and Justices of Appeal Lionel Jones and Roger Hamel-Smith, dismissed Singh's appeal on November 16, 2002.

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SET UP BY A LYING COP AND STILL IN JAIL

I hope the cop ends up being put away himself. Fat chance, I suppose

Bob Lisker, Bruce's father, was visiting his son at juvenile hall just after the boy was booked for murder. Bob recalled a conversation he had with his wife, Dorka, the night before the murder. Dorka told Bob one of Bruce's friends, Mike Ryan, had come over, asking if he could do any odd jobs around the house in exchange for money. Bruce often did these odd jobs around his parents' home in Sherman Oaks, Calif., for money, and sometimes brought Ryan along so he could earn a few dollars as well. That particular day, Ryan showed up alone, and Dorka told him she had nothing for him to do.

Like Bruce, Ryan was also a drug addict going nowhere fast. The two had struck up a friendship while attending meetings for drug addiction rehabilitation in 1982. They shared a common bond: getting high. Ryan, also 17, was homeless and jobless. For half the rent, Lisker let his new friend sleep on his couch. The friendship ended after only a few months, when Ryan didn't pay his share of the rent as agreed and Lisker kicked him out. Ryan went to Mississippi.

Three weeks after the murder, ironically, on April Fools' Day, Van Nuys Police Detective Andrew Monsue paid a visit to Lisker at Sylmar Juvenile Hall. Lisker was desperate for the police to investigate Ryan for the murder; he had no evidence of his former friend's guilt, just a nagging suspicion. Bruce told the detective that Ryan had an unusual fascination with knives. Monsue said he would look into the whereabouts of Ryan on the morning of the murder. It was later determined that the detective did interview Ryan, but only so he could say he had cleared Ryan as a suspect so the prosecution of Lisker would not be derailed.

Ryan had been in Los Angeles for several days prior to the attack. He told Monsue that at the time Dorka Lisker was being beaten and stabbed to death, he was 12 miles away, in a knife fight with an unknown black male. He claimed to have stabbed the man in the shoulder. Ryan told the detective he had checked into a nearby motel that morning and hopped on a bus headed back to Mississippi the next morning. Monsue discovered that Ryan had checked in that afternoon, but had used the alias "Mark Smith." Unbelievably, Monsue never bothered to verify the alleged knife fight. The detective did do a records search on Ryan, but used the wrong birthdate. Had Monsue used the correct date, he would have found Ryan's conviction for a knifepoint robbery, committed 10 months before Dorka Lisker's murder.

Monsue never shared the contents of his interview and investigation of Ryan's story with the prosecutor assigned to the Lisker case, Phillip Rabichow. Subsequently, this information was never given to Lisker's attorney, Dennis Mulcahy, who could have possibly used it to free his client.

Mulcahy was not permitted to argue at Lisker's trial that Ryan was the real killer. No evidence had been presented to suggest that Ryan was even a suspect. The judge didn't believe there was a good-faith basis to allow the defense to pursue this theory. Alas, the jury never even heard the name Mike Ryan.

During Lisker's trial, prosecutor Rabichow relied heavily on the evidence given to him by investigators, in particular Monsue. Rabichow convincingly relayed to the jury that the bloody footprints at the scene "resembled quite closely" those of Lisker. He explained to the jury how it would have been impossible for Lisker to see his mother lying on the floor simply by looking in the window, as he had claimed. Conveniently, there was a jailhouse snitch who came forward to testify that Lisker confessed to him; but that was just icing on the cake. Rabichow truly believed Lisker killed his mother, and the prosecutor would see that justice was served. When the jury came back with a verdict of guilty, Rabichow considered his job done.

In 1995, Bob Lisker passed away. Bruce described his father as "a loving father and tireless supporter." On Bruce's website, www.freebruce.org, he writes, "My dad's memory fueled the next several years of progress towards justice in my mother's murder."

Lisker immersed himself in every legal document surrounding his case. In 2000, he discovered a 1998 letter to the parole board written by Monsue. In the letter, Monsue stated that the $150 missing from Dorka Lisker's purse—money that had allegedly been taken during the attack—had been discovered in the attic above Bruce Lisker's old bedroom. Lisker hired a private investigator, Paul Ingels, who contacted the homeowners. They stated they had never found any money and had never even heard of Monsue, much less spoken to him. Two years ago, Lisker filed a petition claiming wrongful conviction and lodged a complaint with the internal affairs division of the Los Angeles Police Department, along with an epilogue of his case to date.

Sgt. Jim Gavin was assigned in 2003 to look into Lisker's allegations. Gavin started from the beginning and attempted to reexamine all of the remaining evidence in the Lisker case.

He confirmed what private investigator Ingels had discovered: that the current owners of the Lisker residence had never found any money, and that Monsue had lied in his 1998 letter to the parole board. Once Gavin knew that Monsue had gone to such lengths to keep Lisker in prison, he started to question other facets of the case.

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And now for the coverup:

The Los Angeles Police Department's civilian watchdog has launched an investigation to determine whether an internal affairs sergeant was improperly ordered last year to shut down his probe of a questionable 1985 murder conviction. The sergeant uncovered new evidence that contradicted the prosecution's case against Bruce Lisker, 39, now serving a life sentence for murdering his 66-year-old mother in the foyer of the family's ranch-style Sherman Oaks home on March 10, 1983. The sergeant, Jim Gavin, also expressed concern that the LAPD detective who investigated the murder may have prematurely dismissed a second suspect and possibly lied to prevent Lisker's release on parole. But before Gavin could complete his work, he said he was ordered by his superiors to stop investigating.

Inspector General Andre Birotte Jr., who reports to the Police Commission, confirmed last week that LAPD officials had asked him to investigate the case because allegations of wrongdoing involved officers from internal affairs and the department wanted to avoid any perception of a "conflict of interest." Additionally, Michael Cherkasky, appointed by a federal judge to monitor the LAPD, said in an interview that he also was reviewing the department's handling of the case. LAPD Chief William J. Bratton, who has been briefed by senior police officials on the Lisker matter, declined to comment.

The high-level interest in Lisker's case comes after a Los Angeles Times investigation last month detailed new evidence and findings that contradicted a prosecutor's claim that a teenage Lisker beat and stabbed his mother, Dorka Lisker, after she caught him rifling through her purse for drug money. Based on the new evidence and findings, uncovered separately by Lisker's defense team, Gavin and Times reporters, the prosecutor, Phillip Rabichow, now retired, says he has reasonable doubt about Lisker's guilt. At least seven of the 12 jurors who voted unanimously to convict Lisker also now say they would have favored acquittal, had they known all of the evidence at the time.

Lisker, imprisoned for the last 22 years, filed a complaint with internal affairs two years ago against the detective, Andrew Monsue, who arrested him for his mother's murder. In the complaint, Lisker alleged that Monsue had failed to investigate another suspect, solicited perjured testimony from a jailhouse informant and lied about finding $150 supposedly stolen from Dorka Lisker's purse. Monsue denies any wrongdoing.

Assigned by internal affairs to investigate the complaint, Gavin took previously unexamined crime scene photographs to an LAPD analyst, who made a startling discovery: A bloody footprint left in a bathroom that was attributed to Lisker at trial did not match Lisker's shoes, suggesting that there was another person in the house at the time of the killing. During Gavin's investigation, police also discovered an autopsy photograph of what appeared to be a footprint on Dorka Lisker's shaved head. The mark was not recognized as a shoe impression at the time of the trial.

At The Times' request, the LAPD further analyzed the impression and determined that it matched the bloody footprint in the bathroom. Gavin also expressed concern that Monsue, the detective, may have prematurely dismissed a second suspect, a friend of Lisker's named John Michael Ryan, who lied about his whereabouts at the time of the killing, had a history of violence and left town the day after the murder. A telephone call from the Lisker home around the time of the murder was made to a number nearly identical to that of Ryan's mother — a call that Rabichow, the prosecutor, now acknowledges could be used to link Ryan to the crime. Ryan killed himself in 1996.

In his complaint to internal affairs, Lisker also questioned Monsue's claim that a couple who purchased the Lisker home after the murder had informed him that they had found $150 in the attic above Bruce Lisker's old bedroom. Monsue made the claim in a letter he wrote to the parole board in which he said that the discovery of the money "confirmed our initial theory" that Bruce Lisker had robbed his mother before killing her. But Gavin could find no evidence that Monsue had ever documented the development in writing. Gavin then contacted the man who Monsue said had reported finding the money. The homeowner later signed a sworn declaration that he could not remember finding money in the attic or ever contacting Monsue.

Gavin had more leads to pursue. But his supervisors had grown impatient and told him that internal affairs was not in the business of investigating homicides, he said. "I was told to shut it down," Gavin said in an interview with The Times. "I was told I was done."

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CROOKED PA COUNTY NOW DEADBEATS TOO

They are trying to discourage a lawyer who is the only hope of a man imprisoned on faked evidence

On Tuesday, attorney Noah Geary asked a visiting judge to put one of the Fayette County commissioners in jail until his counsel fees in a murder case are paid. And while Northumberland County Senior Judge Barry F. Feudale refused, the judge entered a judgment against the county to the tune of $123,232.49 plus 6 percent interest - and said he will sanction the cash-strapped county when he enters a ruling at a later date.

Geary, a Washington County attorney who successfully represented David J. Munchinski in a post-conviction appeal, has been trying to collect on court-ordered payments for his services since an order was handed down in December 2004. Six months later, Geary said, he has yet to see a penny from the county, so he went to court to get his payment......

Ferens called Geary's incarceration request "grandstanding," "ridiculous and ludicrous." He said Geary's court appointment to represent Munchinski 21/2 years after he took the case was akin to "giving him an open checkbook." "We feel this was improper, and that's why we aren't paying. We feel an obligation to the citizens of this county to protect their funds," Ferens said.....

"If they think $100,000 is a lot of money, wait until I file my (civil action)," Geary said. He indicated he intends to sue the county next month in federal court for Munchinski's wrongful conviction. "We'll see what 20 years of a man's life is worth," Geary said.

Munchinski, 52, was convicted of the 1977 shooting deaths of James Alford and Raymond Gierke. The men were shot and sodomized at a Bear Rocks chalet on Dec. 2, but police did not make any arrests in the case until 1982, when a witness came forward claiming to know details of what happened. Witness Richard Bowen first told police he was the getaway driver for Munchinski and Leon Scaglione, but later expanded his statement after prosecutors gave him immunity. Bowen told police he was inside the chalet when Munchinski and Scaglione killed the men. Munchinski and Scaglione were tried together in 1983, but jurors could not reach a verdict. Their cases were severed, and both were later convicted of two counts each of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.

Scaglione later died in prison, and Munchinski, who has continually proclaimed his innocence, has spent the past 19 years filing appeals and fighting to clear his name. In 2002, when Geary took over the case, he successfully petitioned for both county prosecutors and judges to remove themselves from participation. The state attorney general's office and Feudale were assigned to Munchinski's latest post-conviction appeal.

After a number of hearings, Feudale reviewed volumes of evidence and vacated Munchinski's conviction last October for a number of reasons, including questions about Bowen's first interview with prosecutors.

Geary contended a police report that was altered when given to Munchinski's former defense attorneys referenced a taped interview with Bowen. Prosecutors and police officers said no tape existed, but Feudale said he believed it did.

The report that referenced the tape was altered by former county prosecutor, now judge, Ralph C. Warman. He testified he folded the report and photocopied it because it said the interview was taped when it wasn't.

Feudale lambasted Warman and former district attorney, now judge, Gerald R. Solomon in his opinion, questioning if the men committed prosecutorial misconduct for not handing over the original police reports and several other pieces of evidence in the case.

Feudale's decision to vacate Munchinski's conviction is on appeal, and Munchinski remains in prison while that appeal is being resolved.

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Houston PD analysts faked drug evidence in four cases. How much more fraud has gone undetected?

The most recent chapter in Houston's crime lab drama prompts a question. Which is worse: officials who turned a blind eye to police misconduct, or the unguessable number of defendants who might have been wrongly convicted? Both injustices demand prompt redress, and accountability must be pursued up the full chain of command.

This week, an independent investigator reported that yet another Houston Police Department crime lab division — controlled substances — engaged in appalling, and possibly criminal, misconduct. Two analysts at the lab, which processes about 75 percent of HPD's forensics workload, allegedly took part in at least four cases of "drylabbing" — fabricating test results, twice without conducting tests at all. The fact that police have a term for it suggests that such misconduct is not that unusual.

In one 1998 episode, an analyst invented evidence to support an HPD investigator's thesis: "The analyst never tested the tablets recovered from the defendant, but rather, tested a standard sample ... and reported those results as though the tests related to the tablets possessed by the defendant," the outside investigator reported. In 2000, the same analyst didn't even bother fabricating, instead plucking test results from a colleague's case and presenting them as his own. When the misconduct was uncovered, the analyst resigned to avoid being fired.

The other accused analyst allegedly falsified results twice. In one instance, the analyst identified pills as a controlled substance without bothering to test them. Incredibly, this analyst received a mere reprimand — and still works at the crime lab today.

According to Chronicle reporters Roma Khanna and Steve McVicker, the analysts' supervisors caught each fraudulent finding before it could be introduced as evidence in court. But punishment for these grave misdeeds was mystifyingly squelched. To its credit, HPD forwarded findings about one analyst to the Harris County district attorney's office. But the DA chose not to prosecute.

If the lack of official follow-up is troubling, District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal's explanation is downright chilling. In a telephone interview with McVicker Wednesday, Rosenthal said the analyst reviewed by his office didn't merit prosecution, because his actions simply reflected improper procedure or sloppiness. But there is nothing sloppy about consciously crafting false evidence, knowing it could result in wrongful conviction. Presented in a courtroom, such false evidence might have been considered perjury. Left in the laboratory, both analysts' handiwork still might qualify as manipulated government records. Because the fabrications were allegedly deliberate, the two workers should have been subjected to legal scrutiny. That one of the analysts still has his job is incomprehensible.

In the aftermath, the decision-making process of the whole crime lab hierarchy, and of Rosenthal's staff, as well, merits scrutiny. Since civil rights questions could be involved, this might be a job for the U.S. attorney. Investigating why the analysts eluded prosecution is just the first step in fixing the drug lab debacle. It will take longer -— if it even is possible — to review all the convictions that may have resulted from drug lab foul play.


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RANDY STEIDL'S ORDEAL

The bathroom in Randy Steidl's two-bedroom Springfield apartment is about twice the size of the "filthy cage" where he spent 12 years on death row. On either side of the doorway hang two framed front pages chronicling May 28, 2004 — the day Steidl walked out of an Illinois prison with $23.90 and what was left of his life after being locked up for a total of 17 years. That's a lot considering Steidl, 53, fully expected to die at the sterile hand of the state for a crime he says he didn't commit. "I thought, 'They're going to murder me. They're going to strap me down and put that needle in my arm,'" he said. "... Every appeal that failed, I knew I was getting that much closer to being strapped down."

In 1987, Gordon Randall Steidl and co-defendant Herb Whitlock were convicted of murdering a Paris, Ill., couple in July 1986. The stated motive: a drug deal gone awry. Dyke and Karen Rhoads were stabbed to death and their apartment set on fire. Circumstantial evidence presented by police and prosecutors implicated Steidl and Whitlock, both of whom jurors found guilty. Steidl, who had previous assault convictions, was sentenced to death. "I went from my apartment to death row in 94 days, wondering, 'How did this happen?'" Steidl said in a recent interview with the News-Leader.

In 1999, Steidl's death sentence was commuted to life in prison when a judge ruled that his trial attorney — whose specialty was defending clients against drunken-driving charges — didn't adequately prepare for the sentencing hearing. And last year, a federal judge who reviewed Steidl's case ruled that a jury acquittal was "reasonably probable" had his attorney provided adequate legal counsel.

Prosecutors elected not to refile charges against Steidl, who moved to the Ozarks with his ex-wife eight days after reciting his prisoner number — N72890 — one last time and walking out the front door of the Danville Correctional Center.

On the one-year anniversary of his release, Steidl filed a federal lawsuit against city, county and state officials whose investigation led to his arrest and conviction. Defendants include a former police chief, former county prosecutor and state police officials who allegedly ordered one of their own to drop a 2000 investigation of the double homicide because it was "too politically sensitive."

Steidl's case was featured on the CBS newsmagazine "48 Hours" in 2001, and the show will run a follow-up story some time next month. A crew interviewed Steidl in Springfield three weeks ago.....

In the early 1990s, Steidl was stabbed seven times in the prison yard for refusing to take part in a hunger strike protesting the execution of serial killer John Wayne Gacy. Gacy, who lured young victims to his house by dressing as a clown, was convicted of killing 33 people. "I told one gang chief they should execute Gacy 33 times," Steidl said. "In my book, he was a poster child for death row." .....

While on death row, Steidl began the nightly ritual of praying he would die in his sleep. "I'd ask God, 'Please don't let me wake up. I'm tired of doing this,'" he recalled.....

Steidl said he sleeps only five or six hours each night. He thinks a lot about how his life turned out so different than expected. While he was on death row, 13 men were executed. Steidl knew seven of them pretty well. "I watched those seven walk to their death," he said. "It's a pretty surreal situation when you see that. You live with that every day."

Michael Metnick, Steidl's defense attorney in Springfield, Ill., said his client's inner strength and spirit of perseverance have been inspiring. "Randy has not ... walked around with outward anger, or expecting people to feel sorry for him," Metnick said.

Steidl hopes the lawsuit will finally reveal the truth and lead to his formal exoneration. Although technically a free man, he's been told he's still a suspect in the slayings. Illinois appellate prosecutor David Rands confirmed that Steidl is, in fact, a suspect and that the case is still under investigation almost 20 years after the murders. "You win, but you don't win," Steidl said. "You get your freedom, but we're gonna put the scarlet letter on you when you walk out."

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WHOOPEE! ARROGANT AND SECRETIVE BUREAUCRATS FOUND PERSONALLY LIABLE! IS THIS A FIRST?


Sometimes, despite the cliché, you can fight city hall. And sometimes you can win. Mario Moreno, an east Sacramento gardener and son of migrant farmworkers who lost his home-to-be when the city demolished it - but not his desire for vindication - won Friday when a federal court jury awarded him $717,000 in damages. The eight women and two men found that the 51-year-old Moreno was denied his constitutional right to due process on Jan. 31, 2001, when the city, with no final warning, knocked down a building he was renovating for his home. "The lowest point in my life was when I lost my building, and the highest is right now," Moreno said as he walked out of the courtroom after the verdict.

The jurors - some of whom said they easily arrived at the verdict - found that city policies led to the violation of Moreno's rights, and further held Max Fernandez, a director of Neighborhood Services; Josh Pino, the city's principal building inspector; and building inspector John Vanella individually responsible. The jury, which deliberated slightly more than five hours over two days, awarded Moreno $330,000 in connection with those findings. The jurors also found that Moreno's Fourth Amendment guarantee against unreasonable seizure was violated when the wrecking crew dropped the building on personal property he had stored there. Again, the jury found that city policies led to a constitutional violation and held Fernandez and Vanella individually responsible. The jury awarded Moreno $37,000 in connection with those findings. In addition, the jury found that Pino and Vanella intentionally inflicted emotional distress on Moreno. Based on that finding, the jurors assessed $200,000 in punitive damages against Pino and $150,000 against Vanella.

Thomas Cregger, the city's trial attorney, said after the verdicts that he and the three individual defendants had been asked by the city to defer comment because the city will release a prepared statement. Calls to city spokeswoman Liz Brenner asking for the statement went unanswered.

Moreno's attorney, Andrea "Andi" Miller, said, "My grateful thanks goes to this jury. I think they did a wonderful job."

Moreno missed several deadlines to complete the renovation of the one-time Elmhurst neighborhood grocery store at 1915 48th St. But, with the help of friends, neighbors and relatives, he continued the work when he had the money for materials and the time. "I put a roof on it, new insulation, steel framing, copper pipe, air conditioning and heating," he said of the one-story brick structure that dated to the early 20th century. Moreno had a special affection for the building, which, as a grocery store, had been the hub of the neighborhood. The sixth of 12 children, he had lived most of his life in the family's Discovery Way home on a lot that backed up to the store.

The building fell into disrepair and the store closed. In 1995 it was declared dangerous. The city took the position that once a building is declared dangerous, it stays that way until its condition warrants an occupancy permit, no matter how much it is upgraded in the meantime. Moreno and his helpers weren't moving fast enough to suit Pino, who pushed the City Attorney's Office to authorize demolition. In her closing argument to the jury, Miller said the evidence showed Pino gave the City Attorney's Office scant information about the extent of the building's improvements in order to mislead Deputy City Attorney Lan Wang as he made a decision. Pino also squelched Wang's wish to send Moreno a final warning letter that the building was coming down. Such a letter could have led to Wang learning of the building's true condition. Pino "knows if he gives Wang current information, there's going to be big questions," Miller told the jury in her closing argument.

The city based the demolition on Moreno's failure to comply with a 1999 repair order and a September 2000 agreement he signed to complete the project within 60 days.

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CROOKED POLICE IN NORTHERN IRELAND FORCE A FALSE "CONFESSION"

27 year wait for exoneration

A Belfast man last night spoke of his 27-year battle to clear his name after he was wrongfully convicted of being a member of the junior wing of the IRA in 1977. Pascal Mulholland finally had his conviction quashed this week at the Appeal Court after the case was taken up by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC). Mulholland was arrested on October 17, 1976, at the age of 16 and questioned for two days without an adult or a solicitor present. At midnight on October 18, he signed a confession admitting membership of Fianna na hEireann and a petrol bombing offence.

At his trial the following year the judge accepted alibi evidence from his mother on the petrol bombing charge but convicted him for membership. He was in custody for a year. The CCRC referred the case back to the Court of Appeal in 2003 on the basis that the circumstances of his detention and interview were oppressive and there were concerns about the absence of a solicitor or an adult. The CCRC also investigated disciplinary records for the two police officers who had interviewed Mulholland. They found they had been involved in a murder investigation in which a suspect claimed to have been physically assaulted. The murder charge was withdrawn and the defendant was paid £4,000 damages in a civil action.

The Court of Appeal ruled this week that there had been a clear breach of the judges' rules applicable to the detention of young persons and that the credibility of the two interviewing officers had been undermined.

Mr Mulholland said: "I have lived with this wrongful conviction since 1977. I am delighted with this result, it is just a pity that I had to serve a year in custody and wait 27 years for this result."

Patricia Coyle of Harte Coyle Collins solicitors, who represented Mulholland, said: "This is a very important judgement. It demonstrates that the behaviour and credibility of police officers in other cases may be relevant to unrelated defence cases. "Our client will now be considering his remedies in respect of the time he served in custody as a young man."

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NEW HOPE FOR GEORGE PITT

Looks like a coverup for lazy Canadian police work again

George Pitt never screamed his innocence, never said he deserved anything other than a fair trial. Again and again, the convicted child murderer has tried to kill himself in a New Brunswick prison because, he says, nobody bothered to take seriously his claims of wrongful conviction. Nobody could believe that the Saint John police were still quietly investigating the 1993 rape and killing of his girlfriend's six-year-old daughter months after Mr. Pitt was condemned to life in prison for the crime.

Last summer the Citizen publicized a secret Correctional Service Canada report, saying not only that police had been investiating the case months after Mr. Pitt's conviction, but that the police chief actually suspected someone else of the murder. Yesterday, the New Brunswick government re-opened the case, finally deciding to examine exhibits seized from the crime scene that somehow have gone untested until now. The case was introduced to Jerome Kennedy, a lawyer with the Association in Defence of the Wrongfully Convicted, known for freeing Guy Paul Morin, Donald Marshall and David Milgaard, last year after the Citizen investigated the case.

The Citizen investigation, which appeared last July 31 under the headline "Presumed Guilty," found that the Saint John police had seized seemingly key evidence from the crime scene, including four strands of hair on the girl's body, her nightie, and what appeared to be a bloodstain on a neighbour's apartment door, but for some reason didn't send it to the crime lab for analysis. The New Brunswick government announced yesterday that it will request that courts release the evidence to be tested. "It was a potential wrongful conviction," said Mr. Kennedy. " A lot of the systemic issues are present. Therefore, I have reason to doubt the validity of the conviction. However, the DNA testing may prove who the killer is. "My introduction to this case began with the Ottawa Citizen's story, and a year later, with all the work that we've done, it's amazing to me that there are still so many gaps in the case," he said. "It's the pursuit of the truth we're all interested in. Give George Pitt a chance to demonstrate his innocence," said Mr. Kennedy, who expressed cautious optimism.

The New Brunswick government agreed yesterday to start testing the first round of exhibits seized from the 1993 crime scene. The Saint John Police Department never bothered to test the exhibits they seized from the scene, including a used condom. But prosecutors still won a conviction in the highly circumstantial case that put Mr. Pitt's lifestyle on trial, rather than the evidence. The prosecution never gave the jury a motive.

Mr. Kennedy expressed surprise yesterday at the government's announcement and said it indicated a "new level of co-operation' for re-examining potential wrongful convictions in Canada.

Mr. Pitt, now 40, was convicted in 1994 for the rape and killing of young Samantha Toole, found dead behind her home at the edge of the Saint John River on Oct. 2, 1993. The police might have found her before she had been raped, beaten, choked, and then dumped at the river's edge to drown, but the two officers first dispatched didn't take seriously the missing-child report called in by Samantha's mother. In fact, according to 911 transcripts obtained by the Citizen, the police officers laughed about it and went about their business.

Gloria Toole, the mother of the dead girl, had to call police four times over two hours and 35 minutes before they finally responded and issued a citywide missing-child alert. Ms. Toole told police she couldn't find her little girl, gave her address and then explained that she had left the child with a sitter the night before and that when she woke up, Samantha wasn't around. The girl's mother had skipped line-dancing at her church for a night of drinking, and then slept in until noon. The police dispatcher never asked her for a description of the missing girl and said a cruiser, Car 109, was on its way. Behind the scenes, on the police radio, officers were having a good laugh. "Huh, I bet she had no babysitter, no doubt," replied Const. Tom Clayton, the responding officer.

The dispatcher later told the officer that Ms. Toole in fact had a sitter, and repeated there was a little girl missing. The constable laughed, and the dispatcher weighed in with: "Just f--king typical." "Really, eh? Unreal, isn't it?" Const. Clayton agreed.

Three hours after the police finally took the call seriously, a neighbour found Samantha Dawn Toole, with brown, shoulder-length hair and blue eyes, and a loose bottom front tooth. She had been in Grade 1.

Her body, somewhat stiff, lay face-up, with arms at a 90-degree angle, fists clenched. Inside them, seaweed. Her fingers, lips and earlobes were blue and her body was wet and cold. Her face was bruised and scraped. She was wearing a dirty nightie and soaked, muddy socks. Her left wrist had been fractured. Investigators later noted massive trauma to her vagina and rectum. She had been choked, and then she had drowned.

More here



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VIRGIL EASTER LOSES AGAIN

Unfair trial OK, apparently. Is a retrial so much to ask under the circumstances?

Jackie McMurtrie, assistant professor at the UW School of Law, believed two of her law students could help change the fate of a man who was sentenced to life in prison without parole. They were, in her opinion, his last option. As director of the Northwest Innocence Project, McMurtrie assigned the students to defend Virgil Easter in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals two weeks ago. Started in 1996, the project is made of a group of UW law students who try to prove the innocence of convicted felons by using DNA evidence to overturn a court's decision.

Easter, who was sentenced in 2001, filed an appeal with the Washington State Court of Appeals that the court rejected. He continued to file appeals and petitions in the Washington State Supreme Court for the next three years. Easter's case was finally granted another day in court on July 6, 2004.

McMutrie said when she first read the case, she thought it would be overturned. "When I read the case, there was something that jumped out of me," said McMurtrie. "He wasn't given his right to a fair trial. With the magnitude and the number of errors, it seemed like at every level [his counsel] didn't do what they were supposed to do." Her students would argue that Easter's counsel's "lack of investigation and deficient performance at trial deprived Easter of his constitutional right to effective assistance of counsel," according to court documents. They continued to argue that at "every step of the proceeding, counsel failed to completely investigate, prepare and present" Easter's case. The students pointed out that Easter's counsel failed to interview the detective who arrested Easter and nine of 11 state witnesses, failed to obtain a visible copy of the photomontage, and did not examine an expert on eyewitness identification. "We know that eyewitness identification is the leading cause for wrongful conviction," said McMurtrie. "It is so difficult to get a conviction overturned. The odds are all against you, but we were optimistic about the case."

The students made their argument in the courtroom. The appeal was rejected. Mike Pope, a UW senior who screens all cases mailed to Innocence Project, said the court's rejection was very hard for the clinic to take. "I walked in [to McMurtrie's office] and she looked horrible -- she said come back in a couple of hours," said Pope. "This has been a really tough thing for all the clinic students." "I think it's just heart breaking because he is going to spend the rest of his life in prison for a crime that was based on such weak evidence," said McMurtrie.

Pope believes the criminal system has some fundamental problems. "Our [judicial] system is focused on getting people in [jails] and off the streets," said Pope. "I think innocence is something that gets put along the side. If one out of a thousand is innocent, it's like, 'hey, oh well.'" McMurtrie called the court's opinion cursory and brief, and maintains Easter wasn't given his right to a fair trial.

She believes he may have very few options left. "From here there is really no other place to go," said McMurtrie. "We will ask the whole court to look at the ruling, but even I realize that that is a long shot." She said that they will continue to try to get Easter a new trial. "We are kind of the lawyers of last resort," said Pope.


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HOW TO FIND A MISSING PERSON

A student who was feared murdered after she disappeared seven years ago has been found alive and working under her own name as a manager at a cash-and-carry store. Brandi Stahr, then aged 20, vanished from the campus of Texas A&M University in 1998 after an argument with her family over poor grades and a $25,000 (£13,700) credit-card bill. She left with just an overnight bag and had had no contact with her family since.

When she did not return home, police launched a huge search, spending hundreds of hours combing local woodland with tracker dogs, interviewing boyfriends and publishing her details in prison newsletters in the hope of throwing up clues.....

Ms Stahr appears to have turned her life around. She is now the manager of Sam’s Club, a cash-and-carry store in Florence, Kentucky, 900 miles from her family home in Moody, Texas, and has invested in a pension plan and owns share options.

She never changed her name and continued to use her social security number — yet police failed to trace her. They said that they did not have access to such records because of privacy laws. An anonymous call to a missing persons helpline led police to her.

More here




DRUNKENNESS REWARDED

Another crazy case from Australia's California

Peter MacKenzie admits getting drunk, and letting his drunk mate ride his unregistered Harley-Davidson. However, a court ruled yesterday that he was entitled to compensation of almost $1 million - because he didn't know what he was doing. The Gilgandra man was left a quadriplegic when the motorcycle ran off the Newell Highway with him as a pillion passenger in December 2000. He sued the Nominal Defendant - a division of the Motor Accidents Authority which handles claims when a vehicle is unregistered - and they agreed his claim was worth $4.75 million.

However, the trial judge took the rare step of finding Mr Mackenzie 100 per cent responsible for the accident - a decision the Court of Appeal said yesterday was unfair. Justice Roger Giles said Mr Mackenzie had had no intention of driving or riding when he started drinking and that an 80 per cent reduction was more "equitable". "Deliberate drinking to the point of severe intoxication exposed him to acting impulsively and without full consideration of what might occur …The departure from the standard of care of the reasonable man at this point cannot be ignored in putting Mr Brown in the driver's seat," Justice Giles said.

He sent the case back to the District Court, where Mr Mackenzie will be entitled to a $950,000 payout on his recommendation. However, Matthew Seisen of the authority's legal firm, Dibbs Barker Gosling, said his client was expected to launch a defence of "circuity of action". This could return any money awarded on the basis that Mr Mackenzie had let Aaron Brown drive his Harley.

Mr Mackenzie, then 34, had known Mr Brown, 27, had no licence and had rejected his earlier pleas during their drinking session that they should "get the hog". Mr MacKenzie's blood alcohol level at the time of the accident was estimated at 0.25 per cent and Mr Brown's at 0.19. Judge Harvey Cooper decided Mr Mackenzie had still known what he was doing, was "the driving force behind the journey" and that it was a worst-case situation of contributory negligence. But Justice Giles said Judge Cooper was wrong "to have regarded [Mr Mackenzie] as having engaged in a deliberate act of negligence".

Original report here


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THE MURDER OF JESSICA LUNSFORD: LETHARGIC FLORIDA JUSTICE

Bill O'Reilly says:

Mark Lunsford was here in New York City on Wednesday and we spoke in private about his murdered daughter Jessica. I don't want to violate Mr. Lunsford's confidence, but I can tell you he is brokenhearted, as any loving parent would be. He wanted to thank me for keeping the heat on Florida authorities who have totally botched the case. And I told him that most Americans are with him and we will get something done. As you know, prosecutor Brad King will not charge three people who protected Jessica's killer, and helped him hide and flee from police. For three days, Jessica was alive in the trailer where those three were living. She was horribly abused during that time, and finally buried alive, clutching her stuffed dolphin.

Most legal experts I've spoken with have told me that King could charge these people if he wanted to. And it's now quite clear that Governor Jeb Bush will not involve himself with the case. Bush could force King to do his job.

Contrast this gross miscarriage of justice with the runaway bride situation in Georgia. Here we have a troubled woman charged with a felony to which she pleaded no contest today. Jennifer Wilbanks could have been allowed to walk. But the prosecutor, Danny Porter, wanted to send a message. If you abuse the police and the community, you will pay a price. So Ms. Wilbanks will pay a fine, continue to undergo therapy, and serve probation.

But the three people involved in the Jessica Lunsford murder have paid no price. Police say documents, police documents, I should say, say they all are involved with drugs. Certainly they aided a vicious child killer. Yet they skate, while Wilbanks is prosecuted. There's something desperately wrong here and every American should get involved. We've posted Brad King's information on www.billoreilly.com. And anyone can place a call to Governor Bush.

Maybe public pressure can force the Florida authorities to right a grievous wrong. But Talking Points is not confident that will happen. So later, we'll take a look at the federal option. Little Jessica was kidnapped before she was murdered. That's a federal offense. Nine year olds have civil rights, too. They're Americans, too. If Jessica's family had money and power, believe me, those three slugs would be in prison today.


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BILLY KENEALY IS STILL IN JAIL: WHY?

This case makes an absolute joke of the "beyond reasonable doubt" criterion

"Billy Kenealy was convicted in 1998 of 5 counts of rape and 1 count of indecent assault and sentenced to 5 life imprisonments and 5 years for indecent assault. However, we here at the campaign for 'Justice for Billy Kenealy', family, friends, believers and supporters strongly believe that one of the most sad and serious cases of miscarriages of justice has taken place. To this day, Billy, serving his wrongfully imposed prison sentence, protests his innocence and we, the supporters of Billy, believe he is an innocent man who has suffered at the hands of a poor defence and the serious, seemingly undetected flaws with police procedures and the criminal justice system. Whereas Billy has had previous minor convictions, they were nothing to the extent of these rape and indecent assault misconvictions which we strongly believe he is innocent of. Billy is a loving son, father, cousin, nephew, uncle, brother and friend.

We would like to point out that we do not for one moment suggest that these heinous crimes did not take place, they obviously did and we have full complete sympathy and understanding for the victims involved and their families. However, we do believe, that as a result, the wrong person has been convicted for these crimes, which not only means such a huge miscarriage of justice on Billy's and the victims' behalves, but also leaves the strong daunting prospect that the true perpetrator of these crimes is still free in the open, civilised world and that until Billy Kenealy's conviction and sentence is over-turned, then true justice will have never been achieved.

The first main flaw that exists within the evidence is that on the day and night of one of the attacks which is said to be linked by DNA, Billy had been drinking alcohol and smoking in large quantities and had eventually become "legless" and "worse for wear" as part of his family's Christmas celebrations. Witness statements confirm that Billy "smokes about 20 a day" and that he "could not stand on his own two feet" and that you would have "certainly recognised the fact that he was drunk and smelt alcohol on him".

However, the two victims of the first DNA linked attack both corroboratingly stated that they "couldn't smell anything on him, alcohol or tobacco or anything like that" and that they "know what it smells like, cigarettes and that, but he didn't smell of cigarettes or beer, nothing like that, he wasn't drunk".

This alone suggests some discrepancy in Billy's physical state on the night of these attacks. We believe from this that there is reasonable room to state, that the seemingly sober, alert attacker who struck was certainly not the drunken, heavy smoker Billy Kenealy who had just spent a lively, loving Christmas occasion with his family.

It is said to be believed by the prosecution that a condom was used in all of the attacks, bar the first. In the aforementioned attack above, both victims said they were certain that a condom wasn't used by the attacker, one saying, "I'm quite sure the man didn't wear one," and the other saying, "He wasn't, I know he wasn't." However, even so, DNA evidence that proved fatal in this case was taken from a condom at the scene of the crime, yet, it is evident in the Case Summary file that this was the house of a prostitute (although she was not present at the time of the rapes; it was her mother and sister who were attacked). What we suggest from this, is that in the house of a prostitute, the condom could have been from anyone, including sexual acts between the prostitute and clientele. There is also reasonable room to state that the attacker was aware the mother's eldest daughter was a prostitute and that he had therefore possibly come in contact with her before, it is said that he said, "She's a prostitute isn't she?". However, not only does Billy Kenealy deny these rapes and have a supported alibi for the times of occurrence but he also makes it clear that he has no past experiences with the prostitute, does not know her, who she is or where she lives and there is no such evidence to directly suggest that this is a lie.

As well as being an active prostitute, the eldest daughter from the above case was also having a relationship of "purely a sexual nature" with a male Police Constable (PC) who she had had full sexual intercourse with (using a condom) earlier that same day and location of the night of the attack on her mother and sister. Also, it was the Police Station that this PC worked for that the crime was reported to after it happened; it was officers from this same Police Station that sealed off the crime scene and collected all evidence (including the condom) which was taken back to the station. The PC in question also orginally made a statement saying that he had not been at the scene of the crime that day, however, he later changed his statement to say he had been there and had had sexual intercourse with the prostitute. Aren't all of these events which involve the same PC rather strange, and that this woman (the prostitute) was later found dead - did she know something or become aware of something that was vital to who the suspect was, vital in proving that it certainly wasn't the accused, Billy Kenealy?

One of the victim's description of the clothes of her attacker was that he was wearing a "blue USA jumper" and had a "jacket, black with yellow inside". Billy says he has never owned either of these items of clothing and so certainly wasn't wearing them on the night that this attack took place. On that night it is reported more than once from statements that Billy was wearing a "green jumper and a blue Nicholson jacket. The jacket had on the back Nicholson in large capital orange letters. The lining (inside) of that jacket was blue."

Billy Kenealy's alibi that on the night of one of the attacks that occurred just after midnight at Christmas, was that he was celebrating the occasion with family members, drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes ("Benson & Hedges"), including "wine, pints, vodka, brandies and bacardis". It has also been supported that he was there until well after midnight and verified that a cab had been booked from the address he was at at around 11:30 PM with at least an hour to an hour and a half wait. His statement also says that he spent the rest of the night upon arriving home asleep, in bed with his partner, again, this is corroborated by her. Something which is highly strange in all of this is that when the cab log booking records went to be obtained on behalf of Billy's alibi and defence, they had already been obtained by police. On later presentation of the log booking notes, it had appeared that the original cab destination had been scored-out and replaced with something else. Whilst police inferred that this was nothing to worry about as it still put Billy Kenealy away from the scene of the crime in question, it was later discovered that the amended destination was in close proximity to a site where someone was seen running away by an eyewitness shortly after the crime had taken place. It is still protested by Billy that this was neither where the cab went or was requested to go. Did someone who had access to the log booking notes make the amendment for some reason? Also, during the lead-up to Billy's conviction, the cab driver of his cab that night had disappeared and the cab office has no clear recollection of who he is, where he is or what has happened to him.

In reference to one of the other attacks, Billy Kenealy also provided an alibi that he had spent the night of this assault with his partner. This was verified by her. He said he remembered the night in question in particular because it was the night before his partner was due to attend a funeral the next day and also the night in which they were planning the venue for her up-coming birthday night (which was just under 2 weeks away).

Something which could have proved vital in the case was the fact that it is alleged one of the victims stated that her attacker had a well-spoken middle-class London accent. Billy does not have a middle-class accent to say the least and would find it extremely difficult in successfully faking one. However, the judge disallowed such a comment and said that the comment should be restricted to just "a London accent". But, of course, Billy Kenealy does have a London accent, he is from and resides in that area, but in no way is it posh or middle-class. And, it is understandable, surely, that London accents vary considerably.

Billy Kenealy's defence had 19 witnesses which were either character reference witnesses and/or in support of the alibis provided. However, these witnesses were disallowed by the judge to give evidence in court in support of Billy's defence case. It was this same judge in this and the previous point who openly admitted that he had not read the Case Files prior to the court proceedings because he'd been busy playing golf. Billy also reports that the elderly judge actually "nodded off" at moments throughout the court case.

From the scene of one of the crimes, it is said that a Higher Identification Officer retrieved one black handled kitchen knife and multiple finger marks. Also, a victim from one of the attacks is adamant that her attacker did not wear gloves, yet to date, there are no such reports from the fingerprints in the files.

The first time Billy Kenealy says he became aware of the allegation of rape was on 19th March 1998, yet the alleged supporting prosecuting evidence was destroyed in July 1997, 10 months before the prosecution of the same case number. Surely, it is such vital evidence and almost paramount that it should have been kept. Also, it is the destruction of such evidence which now makes it more difficult for Billy to appeal, who is anxious for a more advanced comprehensive re-test using the new 10 or 12 point DNA matching system. Also, whilst there is no substantiated proof and this is not a case in a court of law, but a reflection of events, keeping the evidence would have been much better for the police because it would have meant in the case of an appeal or re-trial, it surely would have dismissed any successful appeal? However, if there was something even slightly wrong with the evidence, i.e. some possible error or conspired, false validity, then it is very convenient that such samples were quickly irradiated.

During an arrest on Billy Kenealy, it is reported in part of Billy's statement that one of the arresting officers inferred an allegation that Billy was interfering with his daughter after picking up a picture of his daughter and saying, "What about her?". Now, in an emotional state, he apologised to his sister upon her entering the bedroom, apologised for the police being in the house and for all what was happening at the time. However, the police absurdly inferred that this apology was a verbal confession by Billy, even though he quite pointedly insists that it wasn't. On a similar occassion, a police officer gave a witness statement in court saying that Billy Kenealy had made a verbal confession to committing the crimes, however, not only does Billy call this a complete and utter lie but there is also no audio tape recording of this falsely alleged confession.

A second forensic scientist's opinion stated that the DNA profile matches were "fair or conservative," this implies by no necessary means that they are completely and flawlessly accurate. This same additional scientist also discredits the fact that the forensic scientist who gave the evidence "goes on to express an opinion on her statistical evaluations" which slightly overshadows the facts, and that "a further precautionary step" could have been taken by the profiles being "compared with profiles of scientists involved in handling the sample". Interestingly, although the 6 point DNA match is said to be found between that of the mouth swap (saliva) provided by Billy Kenealy and the DNA taken from one of the victims in the single dual rape attack, strangely, there was no evident match from the DNA taken from the condom and the other victim involved - this leaves room for some unclearness and doubt. Also, the unreliability of 6 point DNA tests and matches has been widely documented in recent years, not only this, but in the Case Summary, there is documentation of a previous DNA match in a different, separate case based on using the 6 point DNA system, but then a DNA mismatch when the suspect was re-tested using the 10 point DNA system; the mismatch revealed the arrest of an innocent man (2001)"


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NO SUGGESTION OF JAIL FOR THIS GARBAGE

Just banned from doing it again -- and then only for 3 years!

A mother wrongly jailed for the murder of her two sons has said she has "great regret" after the General Medical Council ruled a pathologist who testified against her was guilty of gross professional misconduct. Sally Clark, jailed for life in 1999 and cleared of the murders in 2003, said her family would have been spared "agonies" over the last seven years if the failings of Dr Alan Williams had not gone ignored. The Home Office pathologist, of Plumley, near Knutsford, Cheshire, was an expert witness in her murder trial but was today found guilty of misconduct over tests he carried out on 12-week-old Christopher Clark in 1996 and his eight-week-old brother Harry two years later.

The 58-year-old, a consultant histopathologist at Macclesfield General Hospital, was banned from undertaking any Home Office pathology work or coroners' cases for the next three years. He gave evidence at Mrs Clark's trial but failed to disclose microbiology results of blood samples from his post mortem on Harry that could have helped her defence. Dr Williams was found by the GMC previously to have failed in his duty as an expert witness in relation to the bacteria results, which showed the presence of staphylococcus aureus. The Court of Appeal later quashed Mrs Clark's conviction after hearing the tests showed Harry could have died suddenly because of the presence of that bacteria.

Delivering the GMC verdict today, chairman Peter Richards said: "In evidence to the panel you agreed that those test results might possibly have assisted the defence. "Whatever your own views, even if reasonable, you had a responsibility as an experienced forensic pathologist to consider whether test results might need to be openly discussed before being discounted, in order to prevent any risk of a miscarriage of justice."

Dr Williams told the panel he had not considered the tests to be relevant and said if experts for the defence had wished to see them they should have asked for them.

Mr Richards said: "Your responsibility as the pathologist with an overview of the whole case was to state and progressively review the facts or assumptions on which your opinion was based. "You should not have omitted mention of findings which might detract from your considered opinion, for which, by the time of the trial, there was diminishing evidence."

here



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COMPENSATION FOR DEDGE STILL POSSIBLE

This case was noted previously here on May 11th.

Wilton Dedge returned to the same courthouse Friday where two separate juries convicted him of a 1981 rape he didn't commit. This time, he asked that a third jury decide just how much those 22 lost years are worth. In a lawsuit filed in Brevard Circuit Court against the state of Florida and its Department of Corrections, attorneys said Dedge and his parents should be fairly compensated for the time he spent behind bars. "When a person offends against the laws of the state, he must 'pay his debt to society' because he was taken from society by misconduct," the suit states. "Conversely, when a person is entirely innocent of wrongdoing and is imprisoned, it is society that owes the debt."


The 22-page lawsuit does not specify a dollar amount. "Let a jury decide," said attorney Sandy D'Alemberte, a former president of Florida State University who took on Dedge's case for free. "Let them understand what he experienced and how it wiped out his parents' entire retirement account."


Dedge, 43, was finally freed last year when DNA evidence proved his innocence. State prosecutors immediately released him from custody, later apologized and said he deserved to be compensated. Dozens of state legislators agreed. But when the legislative session ended May 6, Dedge walked away with nothing because the Senate and the House failed to agree on an amount. "This is an American tragedy what happened to the Dedge family," Sen. Mike Haridopolos, R-Melbourne, said Friday. "Since we failed to do the right work in the Legislature, I support this [lawsuit]." Haridopolos, who pushed for a bill that the Senate passed and would have allowed Dedge and others like him to seek up to $5 million, vowed to introduce another bill next year.


According to the suit, Dedge's constitutional rights to liberty, to pursue happiness and to find a job were taken away from him by the wrongful conviction. "He was not permitted to start a family, acquire property, build a retirement fund, visit with friends or relatives, exercise his political and social rights," the suit says. "For more than 22 years, he was exposed to the severe psychological stress of imprisonment." At times, he was threatened and forced to live in isolation for his own protection, his attorney said.


Praised by officials as a model inmate, Dedge worked for the state for all those years without payment. His parents, Gary and Mary Dedge, spent their retirement and borrowed money to pay for his defense. While in prison, Dedge lost his grandparents and a couple of close friends. "You can't put a price on friendship, on family, on people I'll never see again," Dedge said Friday.


His confinement was "all the more cruel," D'Alemberte said, because the state refused to allow Dedge to demonstrate his innocence through DNA testing. If the state had agreed when it was first sought in 1988, the suit says, it would have saved Dedge from "16 additional years in prison, saved the state from the expense of imprisoning an innocent man and the expense of extensive litigation the state undertook to prevent the testing."


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16 YEARS AFTER A PLEA-BARGAIN OBTAINED BY DECEPTION

Who is the criminal when the prosecutor is dishonest?

Free after nearly 16 years in prison, former Mafia captain Vincent M. Ferrara strolled out of the federal courthouse in Boston yesterday holding the hand of his 20-year-old daughter, saying he felt vindicated by a judge's decision to cut several years off his sentence because of government misconduct. Prosecutors had argued that Ferrara, 56, will resume his leadership role in the New England mob, but the only family reunion he mentioned yesterday was a visit to his 90-year-old mother in a Worcester nursing home. ''I'm going to see my mother right now," said Ferrara, wearing sweats, a black Nike cap, and sunglasses as he climbed into a waiting black Cadillac, driven by his cousin, outside the John Joseph Moakley US Courthouse yesterday morning. Asked about plans by his daughter, Bianca, to open a restaurant with him, Ferrara said, ''That sounds good."

It was Ferrara's first taste of freedom since he was arrested in November 1989. Three years later, under a plea agreement with the government just as his case was about to go to trial, he pleaded guilty to racketeering, extortion, gambling, and ordering the 1985 slaying of Vincent ''Jimmy" Limoli. He was sentenced to 22 years. US District Judge Mark L. Wolf tossed out Ferrara's sentence in April after finding that a prosecutor, Assistant US Attorney Jeffrey Auerhahn, had withheld evidence during plea negotiations that a key witness had tried to recant his claim that Ferrara ordered Limoli's murder.

Wolf concluded that Ferrara was probably innocent of Limoli's slaying but pleaded guilty rather than risk a wrongful conviction. If Ferrara had been aware of the recantation, the judge decided, he may not have agreed to the deal that sent him to prison for 22 years. Prosecutors alleged that Limoli, a Mafia associate, was killed in the North End because he stole drugs from a mobster.

The US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit on Wednesday rejected a request by prosecutors to keep Ferrara behind bars while they appealed Wolf's ruling. The government is now awaiting a decision by the US solicitor general's office on whether to appeal Wolf's ruling ordering Ferrara's release. ''I feel vindicated, but in a sense I never felt I was all that wrong to begin with," Ferrara said outside the courthouse. ''They overplayed their hand."

Ferrara, a father of five, will be living in the suburbs with another daughter. He will be on supervised release for three years and prohibited from contact with any convicted felons during that time. US Attorney Michael J. Sullivan's office, which had opposed Ferrara's release because prosecutors believe he still poses a danger, declined to comment on his release yesterday. A spokeswoman for Sullivan's office said an internal investigation by the US Department of Justice into allegations of misconduct against Auerhahn is ongoing. Auerhahn is currently assigned to the US attorney's antiterrorism and national security unit.

Ferrara's attorney, Martin Weinberg, said the case was a textbook example of a judge ''standing between an unpopular defendant and an overaggressive government."

More here


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BENT RULES DESTROY HUGE FIRM

When I studied accounting at the University of Illinois, the pinnacle of the accounting profession was Arthur Andersen & Co in downtown Chicago. My accounting professor Arthur Wyatt later went to the firm. AA was a respected pillar of the Chicago business community. Until Arthur Andersen was mistakenly destroyed by the federal government.

Three years ago the Houston Chronicle asked me to write an Op-Ed piece on the criminal conviction of Arthur Anderson & Co. I predicted the firm would prevail on appeal. Arthur Anderson won in the U.S. Supreme Court. But the accounting firm was already dead, killed in a wanton act of revenge by federal prosecutors.

The "Department of Justice" (so-called) had persuaded the trial judge to permit Arthur Andersen to be convicted of federal criminal violations without any evidence of guilt! It seems strange, but it happened. Every day prosecutors are allowed to bend flexible federal criminal laws to make criminal that which is not criminal.

Today we see similar behavior in the way "anti-terrorism" laws are being used to harass innocent citizens, or to harass illegal aliens who are not terrorists but who are merely scooped up in some dragnet, or to grossly over-charge people by inflating their behavior into "terrorism." Muslims are a favorite target of such federal overreaching. Despite all of the post 9/11 prosecutions very little evidence of terrorism has been produced in court.

People often say to themselves, "Who cares. I don’t violate the law, so what do I care if some 'bad people' are convicted?" In fact, innocent citizens are accused of crimes every day. Families are destroyed. Innocent conduct is often criminalized by prosecutors. And judges often bow down to prosecutorial interpretations of legal issues even if these interpretations are nonsense.

Being charged with a crime can ruin an innocent person's life; the financial costs are horrible. People are often jailed pending appeal, and there is no financial remuneration for what the 'sovereign' government does to its citizens and residents.

Arthur Anderson was charged with crimes because the accounting firm supposedly sought to cover-up criminality in the Enron scandal. But AA & Co. was not directly accused of committing a crime, only of seeking to conceal evidence of other people's crimes. If guilty of such conduct, the accountants should have been convicted. But the Justice Department convinced the judge to let the jury convict Arthur Andersen even if the firm was innocent of any wrongful intent. The jury did what it was told to do (sounds like Russian justice, doesn’t it?) and convicted Arthur Andersen.

The accounting firm was destroyed. Prosecutors had bragging rights until the U. S. Supreme Court reversed the conviction on Monday. But it was too late for AA. A major Chicago firm had already disappeared. Oh, and thousands of people had lost their jobs. All because the judge made a mistake. For them, there is no compensation.

Congress needs to place new limits, more limits on the power of federal prosecutors to use "creative" lawyering to destroy innocent lives. When legislators pass vague laws, as they are now doing in the name of "anti-terrorism," it is the innocent who suffer the most. Sometimes people make a comeback from a wrongful conviction. It isn't easy. A few recover. Arthur Andersen will not be one of them. Chicago has suffered a great loss.

Article here


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  ¶ 6:48 PM 0 comments links to this post

 

HONG KONG SHOWS THE WAY

Not only was a wrongful conviction promptly reversed but the false accuser got a hefty fine which was paid to the accused. That is so much more just than other jurisdictions that it is almost like another planet

A domestic helper from Sri Lanka, who spent 19 days in custody after being arrested and falsely accused of theft, saw justice done Tuesday when the Court of Appeal upheld the conviction of her former employer for malicious prosecution. Cheung Kwan-fong was appealing against her conviction in December 2004 on a charge of malicious prosecution.

But vice-president of the High Court, Anthony Rogers, said that the principal ground for her appeal was ``just nonsense'' and he dismissed it without requiring the domestic helper to respond. Godagan Deniyalage Prema C was charged with stealing her former employer's sandals on March 31, 2002 and sentenced to three months' jail. However, it was later disclosed that Cheung had three months earlier falsely accused the maid of stealing a pair of earrings. That accusation was brought to the attention of the court and, on February 19, 2003, Deputy High Court Judge Michael McMahon quashed Godagan's conviction after ruling that it was unsafe.

Last December, District Court Judge Gerard Muttrie ruled Cheung had given false evidence against Godagan, and convicted her of malicious prosecution. The judge awarded Godagan HK$240,370. Muttrie found it was Godagan, in fact, who had contacted the police to help retrieve her luggage and her passport from her employment agency, Casa Care, which was holding on to her belongings after her employer had accused her of theft. ``The last thing she would want, if she had a pair of stolen sandals in her luggage, would be for the police to be there when she collected it,'' Muttrie said at the time.

Cheung had initially told police Godagan was wearing a pair of earrings she had stolen from her. She later conceded the earrings were a gift for good performance, but that she wanted them returned. However, the case was dropped when a police officer explained to Cheung that this could not be construed as theft.

Cheung's counsel Tuesday argued that the initial prosecution was reasonable, that there were still doubts as to Godagan's credibility and that her conviction had only been set aside on a technicality.

But High Court Judge Aarif Barma said the findings against Godagan were made without the disclosure of evidence from the team of police officers who knew that Cheung had made other claims of theft against her three months earlier. Rogers said it was quite clear it was a wrongful conviction. He also found Muttrie to have ``applied good common sense'' and made ``a good, robust judgment.''

``The simple fact is, the judge came to the conclusion that [the employer] had given the sandals to the [domestic helper],'' said Rogers. ``Has anyone ever done a Cinderella test to see whose feet these wretched sandals fit?'' Cheung's counsel replied that, incidentally, they did not fit the Sri Lankan. ``Well then, why would anyone steal sandals that don't even fit?'' said High Court Judge William Waung. He added, ``There goes your case.''


Report here


(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today)

  ¶ 4:46 PM 0 comments links to this post