 SBI told to re-examine old cases Crime lab failed to turn over key results in murder case against Taylor, recently cleared. By Mandy Locke and Anne Blythe mandy.locke@newsobserver.com anne.blythe@newsobserver.com Posted: Sunday, Feb. 28, 2010
"If not, it gets fixed," Cooper said Friday. "If the crime lab was deficient, we need to know, and the public needs to know it will be remedied." Defense attorneys and forensic scientists demanded an extensive review last week. Defense lawyers in particular fear that Deaver's approach to the Taylor case might have been common at the SBI crime lab. "The SBI is not entitled to any trust right now," said Staples Hughes, the state's appellate defender whose office represents indigent clients appealing their convictions. "There needs to be a mass recall in which they are forced to reveal all of the cases that could be affected." The SBI review is being handled internally at the Attorney General's office. Cooper said he might call for an independent review depending on his staff's findings. No personnel or leadership changes at the SBI have been made in the wake of Taylor's exoneration, Cooper said. Rep. Deborah Ross, a Democrat from Raleigh and chairwoman of a House Judiciary committee, said legislators should consider calling for a review of the SBI lab by the state auditor or a legislative committee. "We don't have investigative subpoena power, but there are things that we could and should do," Ross said. Some prosecutors are launching their own reviews of old cases to identify any that might have been handled as Taylor's was. Jim Woodall, president of the N.C. Conference of District Attorneys and the district attorney for Orange and Chatham counties, has begun reviewing old cases that relied on blood evidence. He is calling on other prosecutors to do the same, though he cautioned against sweeping changes based on the results in one case. "If we have some that look questionable, we would do further testing," Woodall said, noting that the review will be a big undertaking because there is no database of old cases that will direct prosecutors to those needing review. No policy violated SBI Director Robin Pendergraft defended Deaver's work in Taylor's case, saying he violated no SBI policies. She explained that SBI forensic analysts report positive test results indicating a substance is blood, even if more specific tests call that result into question. In Deaver's case, his first and only positive result came through a phenolphthalein test, a preliminary test often performed at crime scenes to give investigators clues about where blood might be. Though the test is helpful in early stages, it sometimes yields positive results for other substances such as metals and plant or animal matter. Deaver performed tests needed to confirm the presence of blood. Those yielded negative results, according to Deaver's lab notes. He did not mention running those tests or the results in his report to prosecutors. Pendergraft called Deaver's additional tests "inconclusive" and couldn't explain why he wouldn't have extracted additional samples to clarify any questions raised by the result. Pendergraft said prosecutors should have asked for Deaver's notes if they had been unclear about his analysis. Some forensic scientists criticized Deaver's handling of crime scene evidence. "It is absolutely irresponsible to stop at (the presumptive test) and say it's blood, particularly when you've got better, conclusive tests casting doubt on that," said Heather Coyle, a forensic scientist who teaches at the University of New Haven and a former serologist at the crime lab in Connecticut. Pendergraft said she didn't know how many cases Deaver handled while working in the SBI laboratory in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Deaver says he has testified as an expert at more than 100 trials, though he was involved in far more cases that never went to trial. Efforts to reach Deaver, who now works as an SBI criminal profiler, were unsuccessful. His wife, Karen Deaver, defended her husband when reached this week, saying: "It's the media calling his credibility into question, not the SBI." Longtime criminal defense lawyers think the problem is not limited to Deaver. They point to a culture that allowed agents to offer opinions not supported by science for the sake of securing a conviction. "I think this is just showing the symptom of a major disease at the SBI," said Mike Klinkosum, one of Taylor's attorneys and an assistant public defender in Wake County. Coyle, the Connecticut forensic scientist, has been hired by defense attorneys to review more than 30 cases analyzed in the SBI lab. She said she has noticed significant problems over the years, including analysts confusing DNA samples from the suspect and the victim. Coyle has filed complaints about half a dozen times with the national organization that accredits the lab. "The national forensic community is disturbed. They seem to be bending the science often," Coyle said. "This is damning to the credibility of the lab and the field. They need to reclaim confidence." A push for change Many in the legal and science community have long wanted the forensic lab to be taken out from under the SBI and the state attorney general, a recommendation made by the National Academy of Sciences last year because of concerns that such labs work to support prosecutors' theories, not pursue truth. About half the states have independent crime labs. Taylor's exoneration has prompted renewed requests to move the N.C. lab. |
| Junk Science |
Police/Prosecutor
Misconduct |
