"It's terrifying enough to have a crooked officer in the system. It would be even worse to worry that other police officers might protect an investigator willing to manufacture evidence, in effect becoming judge and jury of a suspect's guilt. The case will haunt Douglas County for years. A civil rights suit filed by the innocent men who were jailed in the case is still pending. In the final analysis, the verdict against Kofoed should be seen as reassuring. Rooting out corruption from within has to be one of the most difficult challenges the criminal justice system can handle. Thanks to tenacious and aggressive prosecution by authorities, especially special prosecutor Mock, the system proved equal to the task."
Editorial; The Journal Star;
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BACKGROUND: (David) Kofoed's work came into question after his 2006 investigation into the slaying of a rural Cass County couple, Wayne and Sharmon Stock. Detectives zeroed in on the couple's nephew and his cousin, but found no physical evidence tying the two to the killings. They managed to get a confession from the nephew, but he retracted it the next day. A day later, Kofoed said he found a drop of one of the victims' blood in a car linked to the suspects that had already been combed over by another forensic investigator. The suspects were charged with murder and jailed for several months before being released because prosecutors determined the confession was unreliable and didn't fit the facts of the case. A man and woman from Wisconsin eventually pleaded guilty to murdering the couple and are serving life prison terms. The FBI began investigating Kofoed after the slain couple's nephew filed a lawsuit alleging civil rights violations. The agency's findings led authorities to charge Kofoed with evidence tampering in April. During his trial, Kofoed blamed the speck of blood found in the car on accidental contamination. But Cass County District Judge Randall Rehmeier said he didn't buy it, and that the evidence showed Kofoed intentionally planted the blood in the car...Kofoed has not been charged in any other investigation. He remained free on bond, but was due back in court for sentencing. He faced up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. ...Before issuing his verdict, Rehmeier said there were similarities between that investigation and one in which a man, Ivan Henk, was convicted of murdering his young son, whose body was never found. In both cases, there were confessions by the suspects and a lack of physical evidence to corroborate them until Kofoed found a speck of blood that had previously been overlooked, the judge said.
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"The conviction of the Douglas County CSI chief for evidence tampering is enough to send a chill down the spine of law-abiding people," the March 25 Journal Star editorial began, under the heading, "Justice wins in case of crooked CSI chief."
"For years the word of David Kofoed was enough to put men and women behind bars, possibly on death row," the editorial continued.
"Now we know that Kofoed planted evidence in a murder case that kept two innocent men in jail for several months.
Cass County District Judge Randall Rehmeier said Tuesday that it was true beyond a reasonable doubt that Kofoed placed a speck of blood in a car belonging to one of the early suspects in the case.
As happens too often, authorities were even able to wring a false confession from one of the innocent men after interrogating him for 11 hours and threatening him with the death penalty.
If not for a gold ring and a marijuana pipe the real killers left behind after shooting Wayne and Sharmon Stock in their rural home near Murdock, Kofoed's appalling actions might have gone undiscovered.
A lab at the University of Nebraska Medical Center determined that DNA found on the ring and pipe came from a pair of Wisconsin teens. Nineteen-year-old Gregory Fester and 17-year-old Jessica Reid later pleaded guilty to killing the couple while they were looking for money during a cross-country road trip.
Authorities should be credited with doggedly pursuing justice against Kofoed once discrepancies in the case came to light.
The first charges filed against the investigator came in federal court. Kofoed was found innocent of that set of charges, which targeted written records and evidence logs.
The second set of charges was filed in state court and handled by special prosecutor Clarence Mock, who specifically accused Kofoed of planting evidence in the case.
It's terrifying enough to have a crooked officer in the system. It would be even worse to worry that other police officers might protect an investigator willing to manufacture evidence, in effect becoming judge and jury of a suspect's guilt.
The case will haunt Douglas County for years. A civil rights suit filed by the innocent men who were jailed in the case is still pending.
In the final analysis, the verdict against Kofoed should be seen as reassuring.
Rooting out corruption from within has to be one of the most difficult challenges the criminal justice system can handle. Thanks to tenacious and aggressive prosecution by authorities, especially special prosecutor Mock, the system proved equal to the task.
The conviction will be a powerful deterrent to other investigators who might be tempted to take justice into their own hands."
The editorial can be found at:
http://journalstar.com/news/opinion/editorial/article_51a6a366-384e-11df-9571-001cc4c03286.html
Harold Levy...hlevy15@gmail.com;