Nearly 30 years later, murder case against Ralph Armstrong dismissed By ED TRELEVEN 608-252-6134 etreleven@madison.com Ralph Armstrong’s long wait for freedom, four years after his conviction for the 1980 rape and murder of a UW-Madison student was overturned, came closer to an end Friday after a judge dismissed the charges against him. Reserve Judge Robert Kinney, of Rhinelander, said a Dane County prosecutor in 1995 should have told Armstrong’s attorneys about a reported confession to the murder of Charise Kamps by Armstrong’s brother. He also said a prosecutor-ordered test in 2006 caused the destruction of a semen stain on a piece of evidence that could have eliminated Armstrong as a suspect in Kamps’ murder. “The facts of this case are as unusual as a 500 year flood,” Kinney said. “But the prejudice to the defense was not an act of nature. It stemmed from a series of conscious decisions that had very adverse consequences.” Jerome Buting, one of Armstrong’s attorneys, said Kinney’s decision is a “landmark” because it calls into question the relationship of the State Crime Lab to state prosecutors. In Armstrong’s case, a judge’s order barred access to physical evidence by prosecutors without notice to Buting. In 2006, now-retired Assistant District Attorney John Norsetter, who originally prosecuted Armstrong, ordered DNA tests on a semen stain found on a bathrobe belt, a key piece of evidence that the defense had hoped to use to exonerate Armstrong. “These were deliberate, repeated violations of court orders,” Buting said after Kinney’s decision. “It was deliberate use of supposedly objective, independent scientists as partisans for the state. That has to stop and hopefully the example of this case is going to cause some people to take a look at the whole way the crime lab is structured.” Assistant District Attorney Robert Kaiser, who is currently assigned to the case, wouldn’t comment after the decision. District Attorney Brian Blanchard said he and Kaiser will review Kinney’s decision and decide whether to appeal. Kinney’s decision does not mean immediate freedom for Armstrong. Kinney agreed to stay the signing of his order dismissing the case for 20 days to allow prosecutors to weigh their options. Also, New Mexico has a hold on Armstrong for violating his parole on a rape conviction there. If that hold was placed on Armstrong because of his involvement in the Kamps case, Buting said, New Mexico probably won’t return him to prison. Buting said Armstrong has always maintained his innocence. If Armstrong had confessed, Buting said, he likely would have been paroled after serving about 18 years under Wisconsin’s old sentencing laws. But his attempts to get parole were always denied because he would never admit to killing Kamps. The state Supreme Court cited the failure of DNA testing to link Armstrong to Kamp’s murder when it threw out his conviction in 2005. As a new trial approached, Norsetter ordered re-testing of the stain on the robe belt, a decision that Kinney said clearly violated a judge’s order and state law by failing to notify Buting. “The state knew the evidence was exculpatory, it re-tested it using a different test and in the process destroyed the stain ending any chance at replication,” Kinney said. The re-testing happened, he said, despite constant reminders from Buting about the court order. “In light of Buting’s constant letters and e-mails on this very subject, it is unreasonable to believe that Norsetter simply forgot about the requirement of notice to Buting,” Kinney said. “The June 26, 2006 directive for testing was just the latest in a perplexing series of unnoticed contacts that violated the court order, the Supreme Court rule and state law.” Kinney also said Norsetter should have disclosed to Armstrong’s attorneys a purported confession in 1995 by Armstrong’s brother, Stephen Armstrong. The confession, said to have happened in 1995 in New Mexico, was reported to Norsetter by two women, one of whom is a relative of the Armstrong brothers. Steven Armstrong died in 2005 and was cremated. Nobody ever investigated the claim. Kamps had been with Ralph Armstrong and others the night of her death and had told a friend that she was going out on a date with Steven Armstrong.

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