Freed ex-lifer settles with State of Pennsylvania over conviction

No sign that the lying bitch of a forensic chemist who put him away will suffer any sanction, though

A man who served 28 years in prison on a murder conviction but released after questions were raised about evidence has settled a federal wrongful-conviction lawsuit with the state. "I'm just thankful to God that the case concluded today," said Steven Crawford, 49. "Now my family and I can move on with our lives and I will be able to attempt to restore mine after 28 years living in a cage."

The terms of Monday's settlement, which also covered a second lawsuit he had filed, were not disclosed. Neither Crawford nor the state admitted any wrongdoing. But family members considered it an exoneration for Crawford, who was convicted three times in the bludgeoning death of a 13-year-old Harrisburg paperboy in 1970. "For us, this is a verdict of innocence," said Crawford's sister, Linda Thompson. "It's an admission that a wrong was committed."

The wrongful-death suit named the state, Dauphin County and the city of Harrisburg as well as a former state police chemist, a state police trooper, and the estate of a county detective who all testified about the validity of handprint evidence that was later contradicted by the chemist's notes. Janice Roadcap, the former chemist, declined to comment Monday. "It's settled. It's over. It's done," she told The Patriot-News of Harrisburg.

The other lawsuit, filed in Dauphin County, accused 13 state police commissioners of inadequately training and supervising the investigators who handled his criminal case. The body of the paperboy, John Eddie Mitchell, was found in a blood-spattered garage in an alley behind Crawford's Harrisburg home in 1970. Crawford was 14 at the time. Mitchell had been beaten on the head with a sledgehammer and he had been robbed of the $32 he collected on his paper route that day, police said.

Crawford's release on $1 bail came in June 2002, when a set of notes belonging to a since-deceased investigator surfaced, raising serious doubts about the validity of Roadcap's work. The following month, prosecutors dismissed charges, citing the Mitchell family's objection to a fourth trial and the time he had already served.

Report here

Background report on the case from 2002:

Summary: When 13-year-old John Eddie Mitchell was bludgeoned to death on September 12, 1970, investigators and prosecutors in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania spared no effort to convict 14-year-old Steven Crawford -- altered reports, junk science, manipulated and perjured testimony and lost evidence. Steven Crawford has spent the past 28 years in prison, even though authorities identified Mitchell's killers 25 years ago. The State has a conviction, and will fight all efforts to reverse it.

Last year, lawyers for convicted killer Steven Crawford found a copy of a secret police lab report that appeared to support his claims of innocence in a 1970 murder. The report, found in a briefcase belonging to an investigator, flatly contradicted the trial testimony of the forensic chemist who had examined a blood-specked palm print, the only physical evidence in the case. Now, lawyers for Crawford say another copy of the lab report, found recently in the state police archives, was altered in an attempt to make it conform to the prosecution's theory that Crawford, then 14, beat his friend John Eddie Mitchell, 13, to death with a hammer to steal $32.

In documents filed Friday, lawyers Jerry J. Russo and Joshua D. Lock asked Dauphin County Court to let them question the chemist, Janice Roadcap, under oath before any hearing on the case. "We merely are seeking to determine the truth," Russo said. "I hope this case doesn't get any dirtier ..."

Crawford has spent the last 28 years in prison. He was convicted in the Sept. 12, 1970, murder of Mitchell, whose battered body was found under a car in Crawford's family's detached garage on Atlas Street. Investigators tied Crawford to the scene of the crime by analyzing microscopic flecks of blood on a palm print he left on a car at the murder scene. Roadcap and two investigators testified the blood specks were only on the ridges of the print, not in the valleys between them, meaning blood was on Crawford's hand when he touched the car.

That theory, and their testimony, was contradicted by a photocopy of Roadcap's report, which surfaced in May after two youths in Lower Allen Twp. found a discarded briefcase belonging to former County Detective Walton D. Simpson, the lead investigator in the case. The report, made during a chemical test for the presence of blood, said "numerous particles in the valleys also gave positive reactions," which would support defense contentions that blood was spattered across an existing print.

When District Attorney Edward M. Marsico Jr. asked state police for the original report, the phrase about the particles in the valleys was blacked out. Where the report says the chemical reaction was greater along the ridges, the word "greater" is blacked out and "only" is written above it. A review of two years of Roadcap's reports surrounding the time period of the 1972 blood test showed no others were blacked out like the notes in Crawford's case, according to the court documents filed Friday. Furthermore, other notations by Roadcap call into question whether the microscopic flecks found on Crawford's palm print were even
blood.

Marsico's office conceded last month that Crawford, 45, deserved a hearing based on the discovery of the notes and defense contentions about their meaning. However, Marsico now says he can offer explanations for all the contradictions. He declined to detail the explanations, saying he would do so in an answer to the petition to free Crawfordordered Friday by President Judge Joseph H. Kleinfelter and at a hearing scheduled March 7. "We have conducted an extensive investigation into this matter including detailing two deputy district attorneys to it to ensure that the verdict is supported by the evidence," Marsico said, adding that he has turned over all new evidence to the defense. It was not clear when the notes were changed. Marsico said it wasn't recently, but he would not elaborate.

The testimony about the blood being only on the ridges led nationally recognized blood-spatter expert Herbert MacDonell to testify for the prosecution in 1978 that blood must have been on Crawford's hand when he touched the car. Last month, after being advised of Roadcap's lab notes, MacDonell said the blood had no evidentiary value because it could have been splattered across an existing print. Last week, however, MacDonell said the specks were too small to be blood spatter and should have been the same size as particles on the ridges. He said his opinion has changed with the different evidence he has been presented and that the latest is based on what he was told of Roadcap's explanation by Chief Deputy District Attorney Francis T. Chardo. He said he could make definite conclusions if he examined the original print but was told it was lost when it was sent out for DNA testing in 1996.

Roadcap told The Patriot-News in November that particles she observed in the valleys were so small they couldn't be seen unless magnified between 200 and 1,000 times under a microscope. However, in her trial testimony she said her microscope was only 100 power and that when she was observing the particles on the ridges she was focusing at between 30 and 70 power. She said she did not mention the particles in the valleys because she didn't want investigators to ask her to test them. Yet Simpson and State Police Cpl. John C. Balshy were present during the test and both received copies of the unaltered report.

Russo and Lock claim they need to question Roadcap before the hearing so MacDonell can give an accurate opinion. In their petition, Lock and Russo also ask that Roadcap be advised of her right to remain silent, if she has said anything that prosecutors believe is inaccurate. On the back of the original report are notes on other tests Roadcap performed. The first test -- a benzidine test -- only detects the possible presence of blood. A test to confirm that the substance is blood -- called a Takayama test -- was performed in 1974. At trial, Roadcap said she put some of the flecks in the solution and waited three hours before getting a positive reaction.

Other experts at the trial, including MacDonell, who was testifying for the prosecution, said if the reaction did not occur within 30 to 90 minutes the substance was not blood. Roadcap's notes indicated she let the test sit overnight before receiving a reaction. Last week, MacDonell said any substance would give a positive reaction if left that long. Roadcap did not return a telephone call last week. Marsico said it was unlikely that she would comment.

Crawfordwas first convicted in 1974, but the case was sent back twice because of trial errors. Before his third trial, Crawford rejected a deal in 1978 that would have set him free on time served. Former Dauphin County President Judge John C. Dowling, who heard the case against Crawford twice, told The Patriot-News last month that Crawford deserved a new trial.

Mitchell, 13, of the 500 block of Curtin Street, disappeared while making his Saturday newspaper collections for The Patriot-News on Sept. 12, 1970. The next day a neighbor found a bloody hammer in a row of garages on Atlas Street, behind Crawford's home in the 2300 block of North Fifth Street. Police searched all the garages and found Mitchell's body stuffed under a car in Crawford's father's garage.

In 1997, Frederick Kaeppel, who lived in the neighborhood at the time, told investigators he lured Mitchell into the garage, where he was killed by another man. However, he refused to testify after being read his rights at an evidentiary hearing.

Crawford is serving life without parole at the State Correctional Institution at Mahanoy. Crawford's sister, Harrisburg City Councilwoman Linda Thompson, urged Marsico to free her brother. "It is easy to do justice," Thompson said. "It is harder to do right, and I'm asking him to do right by my brother and my entire family and undo this criminal act."



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