"N.C. ATTORNEY GENERAL ROY COOPER, WHO HEADS THE SBI, SAID HE HAS ORDERED A REVIEW TO MAKE SURE PROSECUTORS AND DEFENDANTS RECEIVED CRITICAL INFORMATION. "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."
REPORTERS MANDY LOCKE AND ANNE BLYTHE: THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER;
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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. During several days of testimony, a parade of witnesses poked holes in the original evidence against Taylor. A SBI agent testified that while initial tests on some items from Taylor's sport utility vehicle were positive for blood, follow-up tests were negative. Those negative tests were not revealed to the jury that convicted Taylor. A dog training expert testified that the bloodhound that investigators said found the scent of the victim on Taylor's SUV was not trained in scent identification. A jailhouse snitch who said that Taylor confessed his involvement in Thomas's killing to him stood by his original testimony, but did admit that Taylor got the method of killing wrong. Johnny Beck, the man who was in Taylor's SUV on the night of the murder, testified neither he nor Taylor were involved in Thomas's death. 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.
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"RALEIGH The State Bureau of Investigation will examine thousands of old cases analyzed in its forensic lab two decades ago to look for crucial evidence that may have been withheld from defendants," the Charlotte Observer story by reporters Mandy Locke and Anne Blythe, published earlier today, begins.
"The review comes on the heels of the exoneration of Greg Taylor on Feb. 17," the story continues, under the heading "SBI told to re-examine old cases: Crime lab failed to turn over key results in murder case against Taylor, recently cleared."
"A three-judge panel convened by the N.C. Innocence Inquiry Commission found that the Wake County man had spent 17 years in prison for a murder he did not commit.
Duane Deaver, a veteran SBI crime lab analyst, presented a report to prosecutors in 1991 that said a test of a substance found on Taylor's truck indicated that it was blood. At trial, a prosecutor repeatedly told jurors the substance was blood.
But Deaver actually had done a test that indicated the substance was not human blood, a result never shared with prosecutors or defense lawyers. Deaver testified recently that it was SBI policy to handle reports the way he did.
N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper, who heads the SBI, said he has ordered a review to make sure prosecutors and defendants received critical information.
"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."
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/02/28/1278489/sbi-told-to-re-examine-old-cases.html
