"“DEAVER IS REALLY A LOOSE CANNON. HE SHOULD NOT BE TESTIFYING,” SAID DIANE SAVAGE, A CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY WHO REPRESENTED FORMER DEATH ROW INMATE GEORGE GOODE AND SUCCESSFUL HAD HIS SENTENCE VACATED. “HE SAYS WHATEVER HE WANTS TO SAY.”
IN A FEDERAL COURT ORDER ISSUED LAST YEAR IN THE GOODE CASE, A FEDERAL JUDGE SAID DEAVER’S TESTIMONY WAS FAULTY BECAUSE HE LED A 1993 JURY TO BELIEVE THAT HE FOUND BLOOD, WHEN HE HAD ONLY CONDUCTED A PRELIMINARY TEST THAT INDICATED THE POSSIBILITY IT WAS PRESENT.
“A REASONABLE CONSIDERATION OF THE RECORD DEMONSTRATES THE STATE, THROUGH AGENT DEAVER, PRESENTED MISLEADING EVIDENCE ABOUT THE TESTING DONE ON PETITIONER’S BOOTS BEING CONCLUSIVE FOR THE PRESENCE OF BLOOD,” U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE MALCOLM HOWARD WROTE IN HIS ORDER, WHICH VACATED GOODE’S SENTENCE BECAUSE OF INEFFECTIVE COUNSEL AT TRIAL."
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS;
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BACKGROUND: Seventeen years ago, Taylor was convicted of the September, 1991 murder of Raleigh prostitute Jacquetta Thomas, 26, whose body was found dumped on South Blount Street in Raleigh. Taylor, 47, said he spent the night of September 25, 1991 drinking and doing drugs with friends while he drove around southeast Raleigh to buy crack cocaine. Taylor said he believed police latched on to him for the murder because he and a friend drove along a dirt path off the same cul-de-sac where Thomas's body was found. Taylor and the friend smoked crack, but his SUV got stuck as they tried to drive away. They abandoned the SUV and walked to a nearby street to get a ride. Taylor testified they saw what they thought was a body but didn't report it to police. When Taylor returned in the morning to get the SUV, the police were already there. Taylor had exhausted his appeals, but the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission reviewed the evidence against him last year and recommended the case to the three judge panel for further review. The commission is the only state-run agency in the country that investigates claims of innocence. Now the Commission has declared him innocent - the first time an inmate has been freed through the actions of the state's Innocence Inquiry Commission. The focus now turns on the lab which failed to release crucial test results - and calls for reviews of blood analyst Duane Deaver's cases.
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"RALEIGH — Attorneys for a convicted murderer seeking freedom sought Wednesday to show that a state expert omitted crucial test results that helped unfairly sentence the man to life in prison," the Associated Press story, published on February 10, 2010, begins, under the heading "Expert questions SBI agent's work at hearing."
"Tom Bevel, a blood spatter expert, told a three-judge panel hearing the case of Greg Taylor that the evidence used to convict Taylor in 1993 was incomplete," the story continues.
"He said the first tests of substances on parts of Taylor’s sport utility vehicle tested positive for blood. But second tests used to confirm initial results came back negative and were not made public, said Bevel, an associate professor at the University of Central Oklahoma who analyzed the lab notes of Duane Deaver, a State Bureau of Investigation agent.
“You report what the results are, positive or negative,” Bevel said. “If you get a negative, you cannot say you have blood.”
The testimony on the second day of a sometimes emotional hearing during which the judges are being asked to consider whether to exonerate Taylor, who was sentenced to life for the murder of a prostitute in Raleigh and has always insisted he is innocent. The panel is meeting at the behest of the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission, a state-run agency that believes his claim has merit.
Meanwhile Wednesday, a lawyer who argued against Deaver’s testimony in a different case told The Associated Press that the agent’s work should be questioned.
“Deaver is really a loose cannon. He should not be testifying,” said Diane Savage, a criminal defense attorney who represented former death row inmate George Goode and successful had his sentence vacated. “He says whatever he wants to say.”
In a federal court order issued last year in the Goode case, a federal judge said Deaver’s testimony was faulty because he led a 1993 jury to believe that he found blood, when he had only conducted a preliminary test that indicated the possibility it was present.
“A reasonable consideration of the record demonstrates the State, through Agent Deaver, presented misleading evidence about the testing done on petitioner’s boots being conclusive for the presence of blood,” U.S. District Judge Malcolm Howard wrote in his order, which vacated Goode’s sentence because of ineffective counsel at trial.
Noelle Talley, a spokeswoman for the state Attorney General’s office that oversees the SBI, declined to comment on Deaver’s work, citing the pending Taylor case. She said he no longer works as an SBI blood spatter expert and now has the title of criminal specialist in the investigation and training support division.
Deaver did not immediately return a phone message left Wednesday night at a number listed in his name.
Also Wednesday, Gregg McCrary, a crime scene expert and former FBI agent, testified that investigators exhibited “tunnel vision and a rush to judgment” in the case.
McCrary also said he doubted that Taylor could have committed the crime without getting blood on his clothes or in his car.
Earlier in the day, Taylor took the stand for day two of cross-examination by Wake County Assistant District Attorney Tom Ford , who prosecuted him at trial. Ford questioned differences between Taylor’s current testimony and his previous statements to police and attorneys.
Discrepancies included how much money Taylor had with him and what sort of tattoo a woman had. Taylor, who says he used to be addicted to crack, admitted his memory differed, but insisted he didn’t kill Jacquetta Thomas, a prostitute whose body was found on a deserted cul-de-sac in 1991.
Ford has argued that Taylor and a friend, Johnny Beck, picked up Thomas that night and then killed her when she refused to perform a sex act. On Wednesday, Ford insisted Thomas was in the backseat of Taylor’s white Nissan Pathfinder that night and they went to the cul-de-sac because they didn’t want to take her home.
“That woman nor anybody else was in the backseat,” Taylor replied.
Ford also yelled at the expert witness at least once.
“I’m not following you,” Bevel said to a question.
“I know I’m not following you,” Ford shouted back, standing at the witness stand.
Superior Court Judge Howard Manning appeared impatient with the hearing’s slow pace. He interrupted Ford at one point, looked at his watch, turned his back to the courtroom and closed his eyes during the prosecutor’s questioning.
North Carolina remains the only state with a government agency solely dedicated to verifying claims of innocence. The commission, established in 2006, so far has moved only one other case to a panel of judges, who denied an exoneration."
The story can be found at:
http://www.rockymounttelegram.com/state/expert-questions-sbi-agents-work-hearing-16248
Harold Levy...hlevy15@gmail.com;
