QUOTE OF THE DAY: "So far, Colorado district attorneys and law enforcement agencies — the only ones allowed direct access to CBI’s list of the 1,003 problematic cases — have requested just 14 retests in Woods’ cases. That translates to 1.3%. A retest, depending on the outcome, could either confirm an original conclusion — or trigger a fresh look and possibly free someone accused or convicted based on the compromised DNA evidence. “We just don’t know. It’s completely ludicrous. We’re either getting the slow drip, drip of information or we never get answers at all,” said state Rep. Michael Carter, a Democrat representing Adams and Arapahoe counties and a defense attorney. He also serves as vice chair of the House judiciary committee."
STORY: "Colorado's DNA scandal: Hundreds of cases affected, but very few retests ordered, by Senior Investigative Reporter Jenny Deam, published by TheDenver Gazette, on March 15, 2025.
It has been 17 months since a young forensic biology intern doing research at the Colorado Bureau of Investigation’s forensic lab noticed something amiss in data sets produced by Yvonne Woods, the state’s most prolific and revered DNA analyst.
She alerted supervisors.
What followed that September day in 2023 has grown into a scandal of unprecedented proportions in Colorado involving more than 1,000 past criminal cases, where irregularities in procedures and manipulated or deleted data were found in Woods’ work over her 29-year career at the CBI lab.
Woods, who goes by Missy, was charged in January with 102 felonies, including alleged cybercrime, perjury, forgery and attempting to influence a public servant. She is currently awaiting trial.
As 2023 turned into 2024 and then to 2025, the Colorado judicial system braced for what was widely expected to be an onslaught of reopened cases and challenged convictions based on the now suspect DNA evidence.
But it didn't happen — at least not yet.
Nearly a year and a half after the scandal broke, the true scope of the crisis remains mostly unknown, unclear or, at worst, hidden.
Critics allege it is intentional, as those with potentially conflicting interests — including the state’s attorney general whose office represents CBI — appear to be trying to limit the damage by finding ways to edit, delay, or outright block the release of needed information.
Missy Woods preliminary hearing delayed
So far, Colorado district attorneys and law enforcement agencies — the only ones allowed direct access to CBI’s list of the 1,003 problematic cases — have requested just 14 retests in Woods’ cases. That translates to 1.3%.
A retest, depending on the outcome, could either confirm an original conclusion — or trigger a fresh look and possibly free someone accused or convicted based on the compromised DNA evidence.
“We just don’t know. It’s completely ludicrous. We’re either getting the slow drip, drip of information or we never get answers at all,” said state Rep. Michael Carter, a Democrat representing Adams and Arapahoe counties and a defense attorney. He also serves as vice chair of the House judiciary committee.
It not only affects those who may have been wrongly arrested and imprisoned, but also victims of crimes who once thought their attacker was caught and now worry that the real one is still at large, Carter said.
The current system, he added, provides “zero incentive” for full transparency and relies on state officials to determine how and what information is shared and with whom.
'Concerns about trust'
Even some Front Range district attorneys have expressed frustration with the release of information, especially in the early days of the crisis.
“The initial dissemination of information from CBI was slow and created numerous concerns about trust in DNA testing and in the criminal justice process,” the Larimer County District Attorney’s office said in an emailed statement to The Denver Gazette.
However, that office said that more recently, due to pending criminal proceedings against Woods, CBI has “provided all they are able to.” Its statement added that the agency is “now working to correct their mistakes.”
Defense attorneys are less charitable.
“I think it’s a great system if you want to sweep all of this under the rug,” said Tristan Gorman, a Denver lawyer and director of the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar.
At a February joint budget committee hearing, lawmakers asked James Karbach, director of legislative policy and communications for the Colorado State Public Defender, if his office had the necessary information from CBI to determine which cases need further scrutiny and possible reopening.
“We do not,” he replied. “We don’t even know how they are identifying the cases that have problems.”
Woods worked on 10,786 cases at CBI and irregularities were found in roughly one in 10, CBI acknowledged.
Karbach said his office has only been able to piece together details in about 600 cases through public records requests — most of which were denied by CBI — and other sources.
Information regarded as confidential
CBI strongly disputes accusations of stonewalling.
In its statement to The Denver Gazette, the agency said it has been “committed to integrity and transparency” since the scandal first broke in 2023 and reiterated its conclusion that it “has found no evidence that Woods falsified any DNA matches.”
“The CBI understands the desire by affected parties including district attorneys, criminal defendants and their defense attorneys for timely information related to cases impacted by Woods’ conduct,” the emailed statement said. “Due to confidentiality requirements in CBI’s accreditation standards and policies, and CBI’s legal obligations to not interfere in the criminal investigation, we are limited by what we could share and when we could share relevant information with both the public and affected parties.”
The agency further said that its accreditation only allows the release of information about affected cases to district attorneys, and in some instances to law enforcement agencies. The state lab received its latest accreditation for forensic testing in 2023 by the ANSI National Accreditation Board (ANAB) and that accreditation remains valid until August 2027.
Except for what the district attorneys makes public or if there is an agreement between the district attorneys and CBI to release details, “all other information is considered proprietary information and shall be regarded as confidential,” the rules state.
Once information on potentially compromised evidence goes to district attorneys it is up to them to review the case and determine what, if anything, is relevant and warrants further action, CBI said.
Not all cases will meet that threshold, the district attorneys surveyed by The Denver Gazette said. Some cases were never filed. In others, there was an acquittal. And in still others, evidence beyond DNA was strong enough to support the original arrest or conviction.
It is also left to district attorneys to notify defendants or defense attorneys in affected cases. The eight district attorneys who responded to The Denver Gazette questions all said such notification is a priority and is ongoing when possible.
Jud Lohnes, a staff attorney with the Korey Wise Innocence Project at the University of Colorado Law School, said he believes that many Colorado district attorneys are, in fact, diligent in trying to notify those touched by the scandal.
But without a uniform system and full knowledge about which cases are affected, he worries defendants will slip through the cracks:
“I would like CBI and the DAs to show their work.”
Credit for time served
In early 2024, not long after the scandal broke, CBI asked for and received $7.4 million after telling Colorado lawmakers it was to offset the anticipated costs of retesting evidence and to reimburse district attorneys for time needed to review and potentially reopen old cases.
As of today, just $67,687 has been spent: roughly $59,000 for retesting at outside labs and about $8,000 for district attorneys to review cases, CBI said.
Of the 14 retesting requests from district attorneys, 11 were done or scheduled at CBI’s facility. The other three were sent to labs in Utah and Virginia.
Additionally, 34 other cases that Woods started but did not finish also went to the outside labs to complete, CBI said.
Results were not disclosed by the agency.
The Denver Gazette emailed 13 district attorney offices in the state, asking about the number of retests they requested:
In Jefferson, El Paso and Larimer counties officials said they asked for no retests. In Arapahoe County and in the newly created judicial district in Douglas County, there was one each. In Boulder County, there were two, and in Denver and Weld counties, there were three retest requests. Other offices did not respond or declined to answer.
Denver and El Paso counties both said they often used labs other than the one in which Woods worked, so there were fewer cases impacted by the scandal. In other counties, district attorneys said there may be more retesting requests in cases still under review.
The district attorneys said some of the retesting corroborated earlier results by Woods.
In the recent William Jefferson murder case in Douglas County, a retest of DNA evidence first analyzed by Woods further implicated the defendant, both the prosecutor and defense attorney said.
Jefferson was set to go to trial but because of the CBI scandal, District Attorney George Brauchler said it was too risky. Instead, Jefferson entered a plea for the lesser charge of conspiracy to commit murder and a sentence of 32 years rather than life in prison if convicted.
Similarly in a Weld County, James Herman Dye pleaded no contest to manslaughter in the 1979 death and sexual assault of Evelyn Day, rather than to go to trial for murder. District Attorney Michael Rourke said he “very reluctantly” made the choice of a plea deal because of the cloud of the CBI scandal.
In that case, Dye’s public defender said in court that the retest of DNA evidence showed different results than what Woods found. CBI has since disputed that but declined to elaborate.
Dye, who had been in jail awaiting trial since 2021, received credit for time served and was released.
And in Boulder County, the fate of Michael Clark, who is serving a life sentence for a 1994 murder he says he did not commit, could hinge on the results of a retest of DNA evidence.
In that case, Woods testified in the 2012 trial that Clark’s DNA matched the partial profile she developed from inside a jar of Carmex lip balm found at the scene. A University of Denver DNA expert later said Woods’ methods and conclusions were flawed.
Boulder District Attorney Michael Dougherty and defense lawyer Adam Frank agreed to have the DNA evidence retested by a lab in Virginia. A hearing is scheduled for May.
Clark is seeking to have his conviction overturned.
It was noteworthy, Dougherty said in an interview, that both retests ordered for Boulder County cases were not among CBI’s list of 1,003 “anomalies.” One was the Clark case; the other a sexual assault case already underway when the scandal broke and its results further implicated the suspect, he said.
But those omissions could signal a larger issue of CBI underreporting the true breadth of the crisis, said defense attorney Frank.
Also, in another Boulder County case, Dougherty said his office found that in one count of a multiple-charge aggravated robbery case, Woods had said there was no DNA found when, in fact, there was. The district attorney said his office did not ask for a retest since there was enough evidence in the other counts.
Nonetheless, he found it concerning, he said.
“For months and months, we were under the impression from CBI that Woods had only cut corners and misrepresented data to save time,” he said, adding that leaving out DNA evidence could have significant impact in either convicting or exonerating a defendant.
He called it “a different level of misconduct.”
Huge backlog in rape kit testing
Lawmakers said they were taken aback by the small number of retests.
“It was a surprise because they asked us for $7 million for retests and court costs according to what they said were their own expectations,” said state Sen. Jeff Bridges, a Democrat who represents Arapahoe, Denver and Jefferson counties and who serves as chair of the joint budget committee and vice chair of the appropriations committee.
Earlier this year, CBI asked lawmakers to roll $3 million of the unspent funding over for another year, this time to tackle a rape evidence backlog created because as much as half of its lab workers had been diverted to review Woods’ cases as part of last year’s internal investigation.
The backlog was first reported by The Denver Gazette Jan. 9.
While Bridges initially balked at the request because he said the agency had not given enough details of its plan, he said he later supported it after getting more information. The measure was signed by Gov. Jared Polis on Feb. 27.
According to a newly created public dashboard to track the rape kit backlog, as of Feb. 28, there were 1,462 cases pending with a wait time of 560 days.
CBI cautioned reductions in processing time may not show until July, and the agency may not reach its goal of a 90-day turnaround in testing until the spring of 2027.
Defense Attorney: AG obstructs information
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, who is running for governor, is the top legal officer for the state. His office also represents CBI along with all other state agencies.
While there is separation of duties, his office declined comment on questions emailed by The Denver Gazette about the scandal and if there was a potential conflict of interest or the appearance of one since it represents CBI.
The office also did not respond to a question about what legal guidance it gave to CBI employees, past and present.
In an emailed statement, the attorney general office’s spokesperson said the office could not answer any questions about the CBI fallout because of ongoing litigation and “our ethical obligations to not discuss the legal advice the state attorneys give to client agencies.”
It is a stance that defense attorneys say blocks not only transparency but also accountability.
“The AG’s office has obstructed the release of information at every turn,” said Mary Claire Mulligan, a defense attorney in Boulder County who is in private practice.
She pointed to what happened in the Garrett Coughlin case:
Her client, Coughlin, had been convicted in 2019 for a triple homicide in part because of evidence and testimony by Woods about DNA found at the scene of the murders two years prior. But Coughlin was granted a new trial because of juror misconduct in the first one.
However, before the new trial could occur, the CBI scandal broke, and the Coughlin case was among those in which Woods allegedly compromised evidence. Mulligan said she filed a motion to get more information from CBI but got nowhere.
The Boulder County District Attorney’s office agreed that Mulligan was legally entitled to the information and, in a rare move, went to court to subpoena fuller details both for itself and to share with the defense.
As part of its argument to the court, the district attorney said that while it had received some information from CBI, it was “very limited.” So, too, the filing said, were details given during an interview with a CBI lab supervisor. In both instances the agency was acting on advice from the attorney general’s office, court documents said.
The attorney general also asked that any information released be redacted to protect the identities of CBI employees and that details could not be disclosed to anyone outside the case, including the public and other lawyers who might have similar concerns.
Now-retired District Judge Patrick Butler ruled that both the defense and the prosecution were entitled to unredacted information but agreed it could be sealed.
Just before his retrial, Coughlin was offered a plea deal on the lesser charge of second degree-murder and his sentence was reduced from life in prison to 42 years. With credit for time served he could be released on parole in June 2048.
Questions about internal report
As part of the back-and-forth in the Coughlin case, Mulligan learned of a CBI internal investigation in which agency employees were questioned about lab procedures and Woods. Mulligan asked for that report and was told in a February 22, 2024 email from the attorney general’s office that the report was not yet complete and would be turned over only if subpoenaed.
“This is not the normal process for discovery,” she said.
The 94-page agency report, dated four days later on Feb. 26, was given to the Boulder County District Attorney’s office in March as part of its amended subpoena and then shared with Mulligan. Although it was supposed to be sealed, the document was later unintentionally released by the court, Mulligan said.
Also in March 2024, CBI announced a summary of findings from its internal investigation in a press release but denied an open records request from The Denver Gazette to view the full report, saying the investigation is ongoing.
Three months later, CBI, in consultation with the attorney general’s office, released the full report but with names blacked out. It did so, the agency said, because it learned members of the news media had obtained copies and were about to publish it.
The Denver Gazette was among those that acquired an unredacted version.
In that report, it was revealed Woods’ colleagues had raised concerns about her work to supervisors in both 2014 and 2018. Lab supervisors mostly downplayed the incidents at the time and there was no consequence to Woods other than briefly receiving mental health counseling, the report said.
The investigative report also included an interview with Jan Girten, former head of CBI forensic services, who said that, when she arrived at the lab in 2009, there were “a number” of scientists who were “dry-labbing,” a slang term for falsifying results for tests never performed.
Judge sides with defense, delays ensue
In another criminal case, this one in Douglas County, the attorney general’s office sought to block the release of CBI forensics information as requested by arguing it could not do so by law.
In 2021, Adetayo Sotade was accused of sexually assaulting and holding a co-worker against her will at the assisted living facility where they both worked.
Sotade’s public defender asked for CBI documents under the state’s open records act about any case Woods analyzed or otherwise worked on in the judicial district, saying the information could potentially impact its case.
When CBI did not comply fully, the defense asked the District Court in Douglas County for a hearing to “show cause,” which would force CBI to explain why not.
At a hearing on Dec. 23, 2024, assistant attorney general Kelley Dziedzic, on behalf of CBI, argued that any proceedings involving the release of information must occur in Jefferson County where the CBI lab is located.
The assistant attorney general also said that the defense had wrongly asked for information on cases outside the scope of its own.
District Judge Victoria Klingensmith sided with the defense, ruling from the bench that the CBI records should be turned over in Douglas County as part of the Sotade case because they could potentially benefit the accused.
The judge also raised concerns that separate action in Jefferson County would cause delays and potentially violate the defendant’s right to a speedy trial.
Eighteen days later, the attorney general’s office, on behalf of CBI, appealed the judge’s decision to the Colorado Supreme Court. A decision is pending.
Legislation would bring reforms
Last month, a bi-partisan measure, HB-1275, was introduced in the Colorado General Assembly to require mandatory reporting and investigation of any misconduct by crime lab employees within 14 days.
District attorneys would then be notified within 91 days and they, in turn, must notify defendants in any case in which the accused lab employee worked.
In addition, unlike the current system, the bill would establish a right to counsel for a post-conviction defendant and a right to full information about evidence stemming from the wrongful action.
CBI said it had no position on the proposed legislation.
Dougherty, the Boulder County District Attorney now running for state attorney general, said future retrials and possible overturned convictions stemming from the scandal cannot be ruled out.
“There are still questions that need to be addressed,” he said. “When the dust settles there has to be a look back to see how this happened.”
The entire story can be read at:
https://denvergazette.com/colorado-watch/colorado-dna-scandal-retests/article_fe34adc6-0061-11f0-9188-d368b5973f34.htmlhttps://authory.com/HaroldLevy
Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
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FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
