North Carolina Racial Justice Act Struck Down By State Legislators: BLACK Suspects & Death Penalty Cases

NC Lawmakers override veto of Racial Justice Act overhaul

State lawmakers voted Monday to override Gov. Beverly Perdue's veto of a bill that overhauls the landmark Racial Justice Act.

About 90 minutes after the Senate voted 31-11 to override Perdue's veto, the House followed suit with a 72-48 vote.

The measure now becomes law.

The original version of the 2009 law allowed defendants to challenge their death sentence based on statistical data.

Now, statistical data alone is no longer enough to convert sentences to life in prison, and defendants would have to show details particular to their case in order to be successful.

"It's time to go froward with real justice," House Majority Leader Paul Stam said, adding that justice "is about individuals, not groups."

Opponents of the revision, mainly Democrats, say that the changes gut the landmark bill, but backers say the law has been abused.

“What we’re doing today is turning our back on the only sensible remedy that has been devised for racism in court as it relates to the death penalty, and I think that’s a sad thing for us to do in North Carolina," House Minority Leader Joe Hackney said.

"We’re supposed to be progressing, rather than regressing," said Rep. Larry Womble, D-Forsyth. "We can still kill people if we want to kill them.

It does not get rid of the death penalty.

These people (who are successful in a Racial Justice Act appeal) will not walk the streets. They will not be your neighbors. They will not walk beside you. They will be incarcerated for life."

"This is nothing but a backdoor attempt, as we all know, to get rid of the death penalty," said Sen. Thom Goolsby, R-New Hanover.

Judges and prosecutors could be trusted, Goolsby said. "Who I don't trust are Statisticians," he said.

The Senate also voted 29-13 to override Perdue's veto of a bill that would allow natural gas drilling in North Carolina.

The House hasn't yet taken up the veto.

Perdue, a Democrat, vetoed the bill Sunday.

The legislation would begin the process of opening the state to natural gas exploration, including the controversial method known as hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking.".

"This bill does not do enough to ensure that adequate protections for our drinking water, landowners, county and municipal governments, and the health and safety of our families will be in place before fracking begins," Perdue said in her veto message.

Sen. Bob Rucho, R-Mecklenburg, told members that the environmental protections in the bill would avoid any ill effects from the horizontal drilling and fracturing processes.

But opponents said the bill would leave landowners vulnerable to abuses by energy companies.

Sen. Martin Nesbitt, D-Buncombe, said one part of the measure would allow gas drillers to force some landowners to sell their mineral rights.

"You're going to find that people don't like being told their land can be taken without due process," Nesbitt said.







Judge: Race 'significantly' influenced inmate's murder trial

A Cumberland County Superior Court judge made history Friday morning when he commuted a death row inmate’s sentence in the first test of North Carolina’s fledgling Racial Justice Act.

Superior Court Judge Greg Weeks ruled that race significantly influenced jury selection in Marcus Robinson’s 1994 trial in the 1991 shooting death of a white 17-year-old, Erik Tornblom.

The ruling means Robinson, a 38-year-old black man, will be taken off death row and will serve life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Weeks said Robinson's attorneys "presented a wealth of evidence showing the persistent, persuasive and distorting role of race in jury selection in North Carolina."

"When the government's choice of jurors is tainted with racial bias, that overt wall casts down over the parties, the jury and the court to adhere to the law throughout the trial," Weeks said. "The very integrity of the court is jeopardized when a prosecutors discrimination invites cynicism respecting the jury’s neutrality and undermines public confidence."

The case is the first of more than 150 pending cases to get an evidentiary hearing before a judge under the Racial Justice Act, a 2009 law that allows death row prisoners and capital murder defendants to challenge their sentences or prosecutors' decisions with statistics and other evidence.

Weeks said that, by enacting the Racial Justice Act, the General Assembly made clear that North Carolina's laws reject the influence of race discrimination in the administration of the death penalty.

"It’s a widely accepted truth that race discrimination has historically had an impact on state policy in every aspect of our private and public lives, including education, housing, employment and criminal justice, " Weeks said in his ruling. "Race still divides us, and the Racial Justice Act recognizes that the justice system is not immune from this legacy of discrimination in our nation."

Prosecutors said Friday they planned to challenge Weeks' decision, and Cumberland County District Attorney Billy West declined further comment while the case was being appealed.

"There's justice at last," Weeks' mother, Shirley Burnes, said. "It's bittersweet, because I think about the family (of Erik Tornblom) and my son, but you've got to treat people right. You've got to treat people fair. That's what we depend on when we go through the system."

Tornblom's family left the courtroom visibly upset without commenting on the ruling.

Robinson and co-defendant Roderick Williams Jr. murdered Tornblom in 1991 after the teen gave his killers a ride from a Fayetteville convenience store. Tornblom was forced to drive to a field where he was shot with a sawed-off shotgun.

Robinson came close to death in January 2007, but a judge blocked his scheduled execution.

During a hearing in February, Robinson's defense team argued prosecutors' decisions to reject potential jurors who were black were influenced by race.

They cited a Michigan State University study that concluded black jurors were more likely to be dismissed than white jurors.

The study found that, of almost 160 people on North Carolina's death row, 31 had all-white juries, and 38 had only one person of color. A defendant is 2.6 times more likely to be sentenced to death if at least one of the victims is white, the study also found.

Union County prosecutor Jonathan Perry, who helped the Cumberland County District Attorney's Office argue the case against Robinson, said the study was untrustworthy because it was based on a too-limited sample of death penalty cases to provide meaningful results. The study also failed to detect numerous nonracial reasons that a person might be peremptorily struck from a jury, Perry said.

In his ruling, Weeks reiterated the study's findings, calling it very reliable and an example of the continued role of race in the justice system in Cumberland County and across the state. According to the court, prosecutors deliberately excluded black jurors from service in Robinson's case.

"The state's evidence not only failed to rebut Robinson's evidentiary showing, but in many respects, it reinforced and strengthened it," Weeks said. "The evidence should serve as a clear signal of the need for reform in capital jury selection proceedings in the future."

Weeks also noted that discrimination in jury selection across the state undermines the ability of the justice system to appear unbiased in capital cases.

"The very integrity of the court is jeopardized when a prosecutor's discrimination invites cynicism respecting the jury’s neutrality and undermines public confidence," he said.

Weeks' ruling prompted responses, both applauding the decision and speaking out against it.

People of Faith Against the Death Penalty, one of the most noted advocates for the Racial Justice Act, released a statement calling Weeks' ruling "a huge victory for justice, for the people of North Carolina, for the South and the country as a whole."

"This historic victory for justice would not have come about if not for the courage and persistence of ordinary North Carolina citizens who challenged these legacies of discrimination and demanded passage of the RJA," the nonprofit group said in a statement."

The North Carolina Chapter of the NAACP also released a statement: "Today is a day where we must reflect on a dual tragedy. The loss of life of the Tornblom family is a tragedy that should grieve us all, and the Court's finding is a reminder of the tragedy that racial bias still affects and impacts the judicial process."

The North Carolina Conference of District Attorneys said it wasn't surprised but "respectfully disagreed."

"Race should never play a role in the criminal justice system; not in decisions made by prosecutors, nor rulings made by judges," it said. "Claims of racial bias are best addressed by the trial judge hearing the case, not by generalized statistics presented more than 20 years after conviction."

Last year, the Republican-led Legislature tried to repeal the Racial Justice Act, but Gov. Bev Perdue vetoed the effort. A subsequent vote in the General Assembly fell short of the required number of votes to override the veto.

A House committee is now looking at ways to narrow the scope of the law.

Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger responded to Friday's ruling, saying he's "deeply concerned" that it could make Robinson eligible for parole. He was convicted prior to a 1994 change in state law that allowed prisoners serving life sentences to be eligible for release.

"We cannot allow cold-blooded killers to be released into our community, and I expect the state to appeal this decision," Berger, R-Rockingham, said. "Regardless of the outcome, we continue to believe the Racial Justice Act is an ill-conceived law that has very little to do with race and absolutely nothing to do with justice."

House Minority Leader Joe Hackney, D-Orange, also released a statement, saying the law has worked as it was intended.

"Mr. Robinson will spend the rest of his life in prison without parole for the crimes he committed," Hackney said. "That is appropriate. The courts corrected a death sentence in which race played a significant role. That is also appropriate."



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Greg Weeks Black North Carolina Judge vs Marcus Robinson (BLACK Inmate) Black vs BLACK!

Ruling allows black judge to hear NC Racial Justice Act case

A Black Superior Court judge will be allowed to hear the first appeal under the state's Racial Justice Act after another judge on Thursday ended prosecutors' attempts to call him as a witness in the case.

Superior Court Judge Greg Weeks was assigned to hear Marcus Robinson's appeal because he is the senior resident judge in Cumberland County.

Prosecutors wanted to use his position against him, saying they might call Weeks to testify because he has presided over several death penalty trials during his 23 years on the bench. As a witness, he wouldn't be allowed to handle the case.

"We do not think that he's not an appropriate judge to be hearing cases," Cumberland County Assistant District Attorney Calvin Colyer said. "Just not this one because he is more important to us ... as a witness than he is as our judge."

Legal experts and Robinson's attorney questioned that move, saying they thought Weeks' race played a role in prosecutors' efforts to stop him from hearing the case.

"We never expected we'd be standing before a court ... trying to prevent the state from disqualifying an African-American judge," said James Ferguson, an attorney for the Durham-based Center for Death Penalty Litigation, which is handling Robinson's appeal.

Weeks didn't attend Thursday's court hearing, but his attorney, Fred Webb, called the subpoena "frivolous."

Ferguson said the move was "unprecedented" and called for it to "be denied on the spot."

"It should be denied unequivocally so that we can proceed with the merits" of Robinson's appeal, he said.

Superior Court Judge Quentin Sumner ruled that prosecutors failed to show that Weeks is a necessary witness for their case, and he quashed the subpoena.

After the hearing, all of the attorneys shifted to Fayetteville, where Weeks presided over a hearing at which he delayed Robinson's hearing until January. It had been scheduled to begin next week.

Robinson, 38, who is black, was sentenced to death after being convicted of shooting and killing Erik Tornblom, a white man, during a 1991 robbery.

The Racial Justice Act allows death row inmates to challenge their sentence on the grounds of racial bias. Robinson has alleged that prosecutors excluded a disproportionate number of blacks from his trial jury.

Almost all of the 157 inmates on North Carolina's death row have filed appeals under the 2-year-old law. Winning an appeal under the law commutes a death sentence to one of life in prison without the possibility of parole.





NC judge weighs death row inmate Marcus Robinson's racial claims


The first Appeal under North Carolina's Racial Justice Act, which allows death row prisoners a chance to argue that race was a significant factor in their case, went before a judge in Fayetteville Monday.

Marcus Robinson was sentenced to death in Cumberland County for the 1991 murder of Erik Tornblom, but his attorneys say race was a factor in jury selection.

Superior Court Judge Greg Weeks has set up to two weeks aside to hear Robinson's case.

Prosecutors filed a motion Monday to delay the hearing so they could have more time to prepare, but Weeks denied the motion, saying the case will move forward.

Defense attorneys then filed a motion to ban any gruesome crime scene photos from being shown in court.

Death penalty opponents say the prosecutors who won Robinson's conviction in 1994 dismissed qualified black jurors more than three times the rate of white jurors.

Almost all of the 157 inmates on North Carolina's death row have filed appeals under the two-year-old law. Winning an appeal under the law commutes a death sentence to one of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

It was unclear in the fall if Weeks would be allowed to preside over the case after prosecutors attempted to call him as a witness. They said it would help refute the statistics and evidence showing racial bias during jury selection.

Robinson's lawyers believe it was a power play prosecutors used to try and remove Weeks, who is black, from the case.

In November, Superior Court Judge Quentin Sumner ruled that prosecutors failed to show that Weeks was a necessary witness for their case, quashing a subpoena to have him testify.

Gov. Bev Perdue vetoed a bill in December that would have essentially repealed the Racial Justice Act, saying it is essential the legal process isn't tarnished by prejudice.

Perdue signed the Racial Justice Act into law shortly after taking office in 2009. North Carolina and Kentucky are the only states in the country with these types of laws.


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Marcus Robinson (BLACK NC Death Row Inmate) Revised Racial Justice Act Guinea Pig

NC judge weighs death row inmate Marcus Robinson's racial claims


The first Appeal under North Carolina's Racial Justice Act, which allows death row prisoners a chance to argue that race was a significant factor in their case, went before a judge in Fayetteville Monday.

Marcus Robinson was sentenced to death in Cumberland County for the 1991 murder of Erik Tornblom, but his attorneys say race was a factor in jury selection.

Superior Court Judge Greg Weeks has set up to two weeks aside to hear Robinson's case.

Prosecutors filed a motion Monday to delay the hearing so they could have more time to prepare, but Weeks denied the motion, saying the case will move forward.

Defense attorneys then filed a motion to ban any gruesome crime scene photos from being shown in court.

Death penalty opponents say the prosecutors who won Robinson's conviction in 1994 dismissed qualified black jurors more than three times the rate of white jurors.

Almost all of the 157 inmates on North Carolina's death row have filed appeals under the two-year-old law. Winning an appeal under the law commutes a death sentence to one of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

It was unclear in the fall if Weeks would be allowed to preside over the case after prosecutors attempted to call him as a witness. They said it would help refute the statistics and evidence showing racial bias during jury selection.

Robinson's lawyers believe it was a power play prosecutors used to try and remove Weeks, who is black, from the case.

In November, Superior Court Judge Quentin Sumner ruled that prosecutors failed to show that Weeks was a necessary witness for their case, quashing a subpoena to have him testify.

Gov. Bev Perdue vetoed a bill in December that would have essentially repealed the Racial Justice Act, saying it is essential the legal process isn't tarnished by prejudice.

Perdue signed the Racial Justice Act into law shortly after taking office in 2009. North Carolina and Kentucky are the only states in the country with these types of laws.


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NAACP vs North Carolina's Corrupt SBI Lab (Imprisoning BLACK Men)

NAACP calls SBI report 'disturbing'


North Carolina NAACP President William Barber called a report on work by the State Bureau of Investigation "a disturbing reminder of the old times that are not forgotten" Thursday.

The scathing report released Wednesday says analysts at North Carolina's crime lab omitted, overstated or falsely reported blood evidence in dozens of cases, including three that ended in executions and another where two men were imprisoned for murdering Michael Jordan's father.

Click here to read story.

"We believe the agencies involved have forfeited the trust and faith which people should have in them," said Barber in a written statement. "The conclusion is inescapable from these devastating revelations of deliberate wrongdoing. Every resident of North Carolina has been hurt by these malicious abuses of authority and we all remain potential victims."

But Barber also cautioned against swift action, saying: "There will be time to consider carefully the policy reforms that will be necessary to rebuild confidence in the Justice Department that Attorney General Cooper has promised."

Barber said he planned a news conference Monday to talk about how the revelations may affect law enforcement efforts in North Carolina and what it may mean for death penalty cases and those on death row.








SBI review renews call for death penalty moratorium


Two groups called for more investigation Monday following last week's scathing report on the investigative work done by the SBI's state crime labs.

The audit revealed flawed laboratory work performed by SBI analysts in criminal cases. According to the findings, the SBI withheld evidence, which may have tainted as many as 190 cases over a 16-year time span.

Eighty of the people convicted in those cases are still in prison, four are on death row, three were executed and five died in prison.

The NAACP and the People of Faith Against the Death Penalty are just two of the organizations that participated in a joint news conference Monday in Raleigh.

The groups say the SBI review should lead to more actions by state leaders.

Backed by several death penalty opponents, NC NAACP President Reverend William Barber spoke bluntly.

He says state authorities should go beyond the SBI lab report that shows sloppy SBI lab work may have led to wrong capital crime convictions.

"We have watched several African-American men, at the last minute, be released from death row and sent out of prison doors without a dime for their time, without so much as an official apology, a collective apology, from our elected officials," Barber said Monday.

Also in attendance at Monday's news conference was Pat McCoy, the brother of murder victim Kathy McCoy. He is upset because NC Attorney General Roy Cooper announced a re-investigation of several convictions based on the lab investigation results.

"My heart goes out to victims and their families who will now have to hear that justice wasn't done, and that the case they thought was closed must be reopened," McCoy said.

He's especially worried about findings that show omission of key crime lab work during murder investigations.

McCoy says families and victims suffer as a result. "Please don't dishonor their memory by building cases based on pseudo-science, sloppy work and misconduct," he added.

FBI agents, who examined more than 15,000 cases between 1987 and 2003, found that the SBI withheld blood evidence that may have kept convicted defendants out of prison.

"The full case files of each of these cases should be reviewed by both prosecutors and appropriate defense counsel," AG Cooper said.

Barber says the findings in the report are only the beginning.

"We believe that in some ways because it's preliminary, this is only the tip of the iceberg -- he and his co-investigator audited only one of five of the SBI labs, and so there's still much more work to be done," Barber said.

Baber says he wants NC to end its death penalty policy.

"We're calling the state to reflect, to repent and then to begin a movement toward repeal and a movement toward reform," he added.

Barber and supporters of a moratorium want all six of the SBI's crime labs investigated, not only the ones that were investigated in the report.

They also want Governor Bev. Perdue to commute all death penalty sentences to life sentences while lab work for those convictions is reviewed.

Finally, the group wants does not want any additional death penalty sentences during the expanded investigation.




Questions about SBI lab free Durham man

A judge ordered the release Friday of a Durham man convicted in 1998 in the sexual assault and murder of a 2-year-old girl.

According to ABC11 archived stories, Derrick M. Allen, 31, was 19 when Durham police charged him in the death of Adesha Sikia Artis. According to the transcript of a 911 call made by Allen, he claimed the child passed out while he was getting her dressed in a home they shared off Garrett Road.

An autopsy later revealed she'd been sexually assaulted.

Allen has always maintained he was innocent, and family members said in interviews with ABC11 in 1998 that they believed someone else in the home hurt the child.

Now, an audit of SBI crime lab cases has revealed that a key piece of evidence in the case against Allen - bloody undergarments - actually tested negative for blood.

Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson ordered Allen released without bond on Friday. A date for his new trial has not been set.


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North Carolina's Corrupt SBI Lab & Death Row Moratoriums (Imprisoning BLACK Men)

SBI review renews call for death penalty moratorium


Two groups called for more investigation Monday following last week's scathing report on the investigative work done by the SBI's state crime labs.

The audit revealed flawed laboratory work performed by SBI analysts in criminal cases. According to the findings, the SBI withheld evidence, which may have tainted as many as 190 cases over a 16-year time span.

Eighty of the people convicted in those cases are still in prison, four are on death row, three were executed and five died in prison.

The NAACP and the People of Faith Against the Death Penalty are just two of the organizations that participated in a joint news conference Monday in Raleigh.

The groups say the SBI review should lead to more actions by state leaders.

Backed by several death penalty opponents, NC NAACP President Reverend William Barber spoke bluntly.

He says state authorities should go beyond the SBI lab report that shows sloppy SBI lab work may have led to wrong capital crime convictions.

"We have watched several African-American men, at the last minute, be released from death row and sent out of prison doors without a dime for their time, without so much as an official apology, a collective apology, from our elected officials," Barber said Monday.

Also in attendance at Monday's news conference was Pat McCoy, the brother of murder victim Kathy McCoy. He is upset because NC Attorney General Roy Cooper announced a re-investigation of several convictions based on the lab investigation results.

"My heart goes out to victims and their families who will now have to hear that justice wasn't done, and that the case they thought was closed must be reopened," McCoy said.

He's especially worried about findings that show omission of key crime lab work during murder investigations.

McCoy says families and victims suffer as a result. "Please don't dishonor their memory by building cases based on pseudo-science, sloppy work and misconduct," he added.

FBI agents, who examined more than 15,000 cases between 1987 and 2003, found that the SBI withheld blood evidence that may have kept convicted defendants out of prison.

"The full case files of each of these cases should be reviewed by both prosecutors and appropriate defense counsel," AG Cooper said.

Barber says the findings in the report are only the beginning.

"We believe that in some ways because it's preliminary, this is only the tip of the iceberg -- he and his co-investigator audited only one of five of the SBI labs, and so there's still much more work to be done," Barber said.

Baber says he wants NC to end its death penalty policy.

"We're calling the state to reflect, to repent and then to begin a movement toward repeal and a movement toward reform," he added.

Barber and supporters of a moratorium want all six of the SBI's crime labs investigated, not only the ones that were investigated in the report.

They also want Governor Bev. Perdue to commute all death penalty sentences to life sentences while lab work for those convictions is reviewed.

Finally, the group wants does not want any additional death penalty sentences during the expanded investigation.




Questions about SBI lab free Durham man

A judge ordered the release Friday of a Durham man convicted in 1998 in the sexual assault and murder of a 2-year-old girl.

According to ABC11 archived stories, Derrick M. Allen, 31, was 19 when Durham police charged him in the death of Adesha Sikia Artis. According to the transcript of a 911 call made by Allen, he claimed the child passed out while he was getting her dressed in a home they shared off Garrett Road.

An autopsy later revealed she'd been sexually assaulted.

Allen has always maintained he was innocent, and family members said in interviews with ABC11 in 1998 that they believed someone else in the home hurt the child.

Now, an audit of SBI crime lab cases has revealed that a key piece of evidence in the case against Allen - bloody undergarments - actually tested negative for blood.

Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson ordered Allen released without bond on Friday. A date for his new trial has not been set.





Under Fire, NC SBI Blood Analyst Suspended


Duane Deaver, a veteran SBI analyst at the center of a growing controversy on how the agency reported blood evidence, has been suspended pending further investigation.

The move came Wednesday afternoon, hours after Attorney General Roy Cooper revealed an audit of the crime lab's serology unit calling into question convictions in 230 criminal cases, involving 269 people.

Deaver performed the work in the five cases an independent auditor deemed most troubling.

Deaver's work - and the practices of the NC SBI - came under fire in February when Greg Taylor, a Wake County man, was exonerated after 17 years in prison. Deaver withheld results of more sophisticated blood tests that yielded negative results. He reported to prosecutors that Taylor's SUV gave chemical indications for the presence of blood.

Deaver testified in February that supervisors told him to report his findings that way. According to the audit released Wednesday, the practice was widespread. Eight analysts completed their reports in a similar fashion.

"This is a damning indictment of the entire serology section," said Mary Pollard, executive director of Prisoner Legal Services. Her agency will begin reviewing the cases of 80 defendants who are currently in prison. "It is absolutely horrifying."

The criminal convictions or sentences of three people who have since been executed in North Carolina, and four more cases in which the defendants are now on death row, are may be in doubt because of flawed reports.

Chris Swecker, a former FBI agent who audited serology work from 1987 to 2003 said in the report that the questionable work is the result of "poorly crafted policy; lack of objectivity; the absence of clear report writing guidance; inattention to reporting methods that left too much discretion to the individual Analyst; lack of transparency; and ineffective management and oversight..."

According to the review, the cases involved SBI lab reports that were overstated, misleading or omitted important information about negative test results that would have been favorable to the defendants.

The SBI's lab work is often powerful evidence in criminal cases, shaping decisions at the heart of a defense that include decisions about plea bargaining or how to cross examine witnesses.

The SBI has followed more updated procedures on blood analysis since 2003, and more recent work is not under scrutiny. "The tests that are examined in the bulk of this report are no longer in use," the agents wrote.

The serology unit has been under intense scrutiny since February when, in the case of Taylor, it was shown that SBI agent Duane Deaver reported to prosecutors that the fender of Taylor's SUV gave chemical indications for the presence of blood.

But according to lab notes discovered in 2009, Deaver had performed more specific tests, which registered negative results for the presence of blood. He never mentioned those results or the additional tests; at Taylor's hearing in February, Deaver testified that his superiors taught him to write his reports like that.

The new report says that Deaver gave "inaccurate" testimony before the Innocence Commission in the hearings that resulted in Taylor's exoneration when he testified that he was following policies. There were no such policies then, the report says, though it was the SBI's practice at the time to omit negative results in some cases. It became the agency's actual policy in 1997.

One of the defendants who has been executed is Desmond Keith Carter, who had confessed to a March 1992 murder. The report says Deaver in that case "confirmed the presence of blood despite a negative confirmatory test." The questionable evidence wasn't introduced at the trial, according to the report.

Preliminary, or presumptive, blood tests can give false reads; those tests often give positive results for substances such as metals, plants and animal matter. More sensitive tests are seen as confirmatory.

Swecker and Wolf examined more than 15,000 old cases involving serology work to identify the cases similar to the Taylor case.

The former agents said they could not conclude that each case has a wrongful conviction, but said each will need to be reviewed by defendants, prosecutors and, in some cases, the courts.

"This will require an in depth review of investigative case ... files that are located in the records of law enforcement departments across the state, court records, trial transcripts, laboratory files, appellate records, records of the Administrative Office of the Courts and any other relevant material," they wrote.






Ex-SBI agent Deaver's testimony could lead to reviews


Duane Deaver's work paved the path for Michael Peterson's new trial. His testimony also could force another look at the sentences of several other convicted murderers.

Judge Orlando Hudson ruled last month that the former State Bureau of Investigation agent delivered "perjured testimony" in Peterson's 2003 murder trial, where he was qualified as an expert and testified about why he believed Kathleen Peterson died from a beating. Peterson, the former novelist convicted of killing his wife, is out of prison and headed for a new trial, pending the state's appeal.

Three cases examined by The News & Observer show conduct by Deaver similar to that presented during Peterson's hearing in December: Deaver exaggerating his experience as a bloodstain pattern analyst and using methods that experts deemed unacceptable.

In one Wake County capital murder case, Deaver testified that he discarded the measurements and notes that formed the basis for his expert opinion - conduct an expert called "totally insane."

The cases, two of them involving inmates on North Carolina's death row, do not involve questions of innocence. But Deaver's testimony was important in helping convince jurors that the defendants committed first-degree murder - which requires proof that the crime was deliberate and planned - or that their crime was brutal enough to deserve the death penalty.

Lawyers for the killers likely will file challenges.

David Rudolf, Peterson's lawyer, investigated some of Deaver's work and methods in preparing for Peterson's hearing. He has written to state Attorney General Roy Cooper, asking Cooper to open an independent investigation into bloodstain pattern analysis cases worked by Deaver and the SBI agents he trained.

Rudolf noted that in 2010 Cooper suspended the work of the SBI's bloodstain pattern analysts and confirmed that there were no written policies or procedures to govern them. The SBI eventually ended its bloodstain pattern analysis.

"All of this occurred before the evidence introduced during the Peterson hearings this month, which indicate the problems with Deaver and bloodstain analysis by the SBI are far deeper than was previously known," Rudolf wrote.

Cooper responded late last week in a letter to Rudolf, saying the internal investigation into Deaver has not stopped.

"The SBI director has informed me that the SBI is continuing this investigation into Agent Deaver's other cases and blood spatter cases in general and the SBI would be glad to accept any information which you believe would be helpful to them," Cooper wrote. "In the past, I have not hesitated to utilize outside expertise when it is warranted and I will continue to monitor these matters to determine if it is necessary."

Deaver, 52, worked for the SBI for more than 20 years before being fired last January. He has a degree in zoology, and had two outside courses in bloodstain pattern analysis. He had never joined major associations of professionals who worked in that field.

Over the past two years, a barrage of damaging information has emerged about Deaver. A Wake County man, Greg Taylor, was exonerated of murder based in large part on Deaver's work in the case. Taylor's exoneration led Cooper to contract an independent review of the lab's reporting of blood test results.

That review by former senior FBI officials found more than 200 cases where official SBI lab reports did not reflect the results obtained in the lab. It singled out Deaver as the analyst in the most troubling cases.

In August 2010, as The News & Observer was about to publish a series about problems with Deaver and other SBI agents, Cooper ended the work of SBI bloodstain pattern analysts who were trained and led by Deaver.

Deaver's attorney, Philip Isley, said his client has done nothing wrong and deserves his job back. "I disagree with Judge Hudson's decision" in the Peterson case, Isley said.

Untested science

Rudolf identified at least seven capital cases where Deaver testified about bloodstains. One was George Goode, whose death sentence was commuted to life by a federal judge who in 2009 found Deaver gave false and misleading testimony in 1993.

A review of the transcripts of three murder cases shows similarities to Deaver's conduct in the Peterson case. In each of the cases, Deaver repeated his claims about his bloodstain experience - numbers discredited by an internal SBI investigation.

In 2001, Deaver testified in the Wake County death penalty case of Sharoid Wright, who was sentenced to life in prison for stabbing a friend to death.

Wright testified at trial that he was drinking malt liquor and smoking marijuana in a Raleigh park with his friend, Roshaun Floyd. They began arguing over who should accept blame for robberies they committed the day before in Orange and Chatham counties, and started fighting. Wright testified that he was losing the fight and pulled out a knife and stabbed Floyd repeatedly.

Wright said he began driving Floyd to WakeMed hospital but panicked and dumped him on the side of Interstate 40 instead.

Deaver's expert testimony contradicted Wright. Deaver testified that he found a pattern of six droplets on the inside roof of a car, above the driver's seat. Deaver said he was able to measure the droplets and identify the precise "point of origin" of the spatter, where the weapon came into contact with the blood: "four inches forward of the back of the door, three inches inside of the automobile, and two and a half inches down from the top of automobile."

That led Deaver to conclude that at least two blows were struck in the driver's seat. That indicated Floyd was stabbed in his car, contradicting Wright's account of a fight in the park and supporting a verdict of first-degree murder.

The concept of "point of origin" has long been unacceptable in bloodstain pattern analysis, said national expert Tom Bevel, who testified at Peterson's hearing. There is no way to look at bloodstains and arrive at a precise point in space, he said. The accepted term is an area in space - for example, a sphere-shaped area with a diameter of 12 inches.

On cross-examination, Wright's lawyer, John Britt, asked Deaver for the measurements he used to calculate that precise point of origin.

Deaver didn't have the measurements and couldn't remember them.

"Our policy is that we take our notes and when our - when our report comes back, we throw our notes away, and they were destroyed."

Britt was skeptical: "You make a report and destroy the data that you use to generate the report?"

"Yes sir."

"And that's your policy?"

"Well, they were notes," Deaver said. "I mean, yeah."

SBI Director Greg McLeod backed that up last week.

"From 1999-2004, Agents were authorized to destroy handwritten notes only after they verified that their final reports accurately reflected the notes, including all exculpatory information," McLeod said in a written statement.

Stuart James, one of the country's foremost bloodstain pattern experts, said he was appalled when he read Deaver's testimony.

"It's totally insane," James said. "He's throwing away scientific data so no one can go back and replicate his work."

At trial, Wright's lawyers questioned whether Deaver could be certain that the tiny stains were indeed blood.

"Based on my experience, they're blood, and I've looked thousands and thousands and thousands of stains," Deaver said.

But Deaver acknowledged he could not be certain. He had never tested the stains.

Inflated experience

Deaver's testimony at Wright's trial caught the attention of other Wake County prosecutors, who called on him to do some last-minute work during the death-penalty phase of the trial of Fernando Garcia, who beat a Raleigh woman to death in a North Raleigh apartment complex.

"It was only after seeing you testify in State vs. Sharoid Wright days earlier that we determined that the evidence missing in our presentation could be overcome with your knowledge and your ability to educate a jury on blood spatter," prosecutor Susan Spurlin wrote later in a letter. "We thank you and credit you with the presentation at sentencing that gave us the evidence to convince a jury that Fernando Garcia is not worthy of another chance in society."

Garcia did not deny killing Juliann Bolt, a stranger who was exercising in the apartment clubhouse. Garcia told police he forced her at gunpoint into a bathroom and tried to rape her. When she fought back, kicking him, Garcia told police that he lost control.

He beat her so badly that first responders thought she had been shot.

Deaver testified in the sentencing phase, when the jury chose to sentence Garcia to death instead of life in prison. After inflating his credentials and being qualified as an expert, Deaver testified that the blood stains showed the attack was sustained and that Bolt was conscious through much of it.

Superior Court Judge Howard Manning, who presided at the trial, said he thought Deaver's testimony in the Garcia case was probably not that important to the jury, given the viciousness of the assault.

Wake County District Attorney Colon Willoughby said it was unlikely that he would reinvestigate the Wright or Garcia cases unless a defense attorney files a challenge.

'It is like Voodoo'

Deaver also testified at the 1996 trial of Angel Guevara, who was sentenced to death for the 1995 killing of Paul West, a Johnston County sheriff's deputy.

Thomas Manning, Guevara's defense attorney, objected to Deaver testifying as an expert, calling him a "purported expert" with a "purported opinion" whose scientific conclusions were based on obscure and vague foundations. "It is like voodoo," Manning said. His objections were overruled.

Guevara testified that he shot West and beat him with a rifle butt and the deputy's pistol after the deputy entered his home without a warrant. Guevara testified that the second and fatal shot occurred when he and West were struggling over the rifle.

Deaver testified again about the "points of origin" of two bloodstains. The first, 27 inches off the floor and eight inches from a wall, was consistent with a beating. The second, a fine mist low on the wall, indicated West was shot at close range while lying on his back, Deaver said.

Johnston County District Attorney Susan Doyle said the case against Guevara was overwhelming, including ballistics, hair and fiber evidence, eyewitness testimony by a second deputy and Guevara's testimony. "The testimony of SBI Agent Duane Deaver was not critical to the prosecution," Doyle said.

But SBI agent David McDougal praised Deaver's work in a 1995 letter put into Deaver's personnel file: "Duane took time last Wednesday to do a bloodstain examination which will be an important part of the evidence entered in this case as it proves one deputy was beaten while he was on his hands and knees prior to being shot execution style."


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Sources: ABC News, McClatchy Newspapers, Newsobserver, Google Maps

Roy Cooper's North Carolina SBI Lab Changes Yet To Come: Imprisoning Black Men

North Carolina's SBI Lab Transformation Moving Far Too Slowly


One day last summer N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper faced a bank of cameras and vowed to make reforms and change practices to restore the reputation of the State Bureau of Investigation and in particular to clean up significant problems at the SBI crime lab.

It was an impressive performance. Cooper had commissioned an audit of the agency's practices, brought in former FBI agent Chris Swecker to examine the lab's blood analysis unit and released information that showed hundreds of defendants may not have gotten a fair chance in court to prove their innocence. The audit's findings backed up investigative reporting by the News & Observer of Raleigh, and Cooper vowed to act on a number of fronts to fix the problems. Now there is new leadership at the crime lab and at the head of the SBI.

Yet an update last week indicated that the SBI's transformation has moved slowly. Some of the changes Cooper promised, including posting SBI lab policies on the Internet, have yet to be made. Other promised reforms now appear to be under internal debate, the N&O said. And state prosecutors who had asked for a full-scale audit of the crime lab are disappointed with the slow response.

What's more, an SBI lab analyst who has been suspended from case work said in court last week she had little interest in the FBI agent's scathing report on lab practices, including the withholding of test results favorable to defendants in more than 200 investigations. She described them only as one person's conclusions, and declined to say why she had not read the report.

Her testimony came in a hearing for Derrick Allen, who had served 12 years in prison on murder, sex assault and child abuse charges. Allen has always maintained he was innocent. He said he agreed under pressure to a plea deal only because he feared the death penalty. Allen's lawyer argued the state withheld blood test results, polygraph tests of a witness and other information that would have helped Allen defend himself.

Last week Superior court Judge Orlando Hudson dismissed the case against Allen and threw out all charges. He said the SBI's withholding of evidence was "extremely disturbing" and said Allen's rights had been violated by the crime lab's work.

While Cooper has taken steps to restore the SBI's reputation and make sure that its practices are based on a pursuit of truth and not just on convictions, Allen's story and those of other defendants wrongly convicted in North Carolina's courts demand swifter and firmer action. We must not tolerate a criminal justice system that condones withholding evidence, tampering with confessions, manufacturing of bogus scientific tests to support predetermined conclusions and otherwise trampling on the rights of the accused to defend themselves in court.






Fixing North Carolina SBI Lab Will Cost Money


Restoring the credibility of the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation's crime laboratory after a blistering review of the lab's policies and procedures will cost the state, officials said Thursday.

An independent review found 190 cases that resulted in convictions from 1987 to 2003 in which SBI agents in the crime lab's blood-stain analysis unit omitted, overstated or falsely reported information about blood evidence.

Since the report was released last month, the crime lab director has been replaced, and Attorney General Roy Cooper has ordered audits of other parts of the lab. Defense attorneys say they will question the credibility of the SBI in court, and some lawmakers have said that they lab might need to be removed from SBI control.

"I was heartened by the actions that were taken, but it's also clear we have a long way to go," Rep. Rick Glazier, co-chairman of a special legislative committee looking into policy and procedure issues at the SBI, said Thursday.

The Joint Select Study Committee on the Preservation of Biological Evidence was formed last year to examine more technical evidence-preservation procedures. The committee, which also includes current and former district attorneys, court administrators and law enforcement authorities, heard Thursday from Cooper, new SBI Director Greg McLeod and Chris Swecker and Mike Wolf, the two former assistant FBI directors who conducted the independent review.

The committee expects to recommend changes in SBI operations to the General Assembly, which reconvenes in January. Glazier, D-Cumberland, said lawmakers should be prepared to spend money to carry out any needed reforms.

"The costs of not doing that are far greater than whatever those costs are going to be," he said.

McLeod said more training and more personnel will probably be needed to correct the deficiencies.

Cooper said it's too early to address the issue of an independent crime lab.

"I think that's an issue for tomorrow. That's an issue for the next legislative session. Today, I'm concentrating solely on fixing the problems," he said.

"We don't have all of the facts yet," he continued. "We haven't looked at all the other states and compared it to what North Carolina is doing. The key right now is for us to concentrate on the problems and get those problems fixed as quickly as possible and making sure the work that is done at the SBI is accurate and fair."

Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers say, however, that making the crime lab independent could remove perceptions that lab workers are aiding prosecutors seeking evidence to build their cases. Twelve other states already have independent crime labs.

“There is a cloud hanging over the SBI, and the only way to remove that cloud is to remove the crime lab from the SBI,” Senate President Pro Tempore Marc Basnight said in a statement this week.

"This is simply inexcusable," Rep. Nelson Dollar, R-Wake, said when the report was released in August. "We have to consider whether or not the SBI should remain under the Attorney General's Office or whether it should be an independent agency."

The special committee's co-chair, Sen. Ed Jones, said that quality control is his top concern. He suggested that another approach could be for other people in the SBI lab to double-check reports for accuracy.

“I’m open to any suggestions,” Jones, D-Bertie, said Monday. “I’m going in with an open mind to find out what happened and to keep it from happening again.”

House Minority Leader Paul Stam, R-Wake, a committee member, said he wants more information before deciding on lab independence but said there has to be some working relationship between lab workers and law enforcement because their charge is to solve crimes with integrity.

“These are the practical problems,” Stam said. “We want the final work product of the SBI lab to be beyond reproach all the time.”







North Carolina's SBI Lab Culture Resists Change


After an Independent Audit found that the North Carolina State Crime Lab had withheld or misreported test results in more than 200 cases, Attorney General Roy Cooper promised to change the culture at the State Bureau of Investigation.

"The lab cannot accept a lack of thoroughness,"Cooper said in August. "It cannot accept attitudes that are not open to the possibility that a mistake has been made. It cannot ignore criticism and suggestions from the outside." He and SBI Director Greg McLeod have vowed to fix problems throughout the bureau highlighted by a News & Observer series.

Cooper has a long way to go, as shown by the events that unfolded late last week in two courthouses across the state.

In Durham, a lab analyst testified that she viewed the state as her client, casting doubt on assertions that the lab serves both the state and the defense.

A defense lawyer complained that the SBI lab refused to answer a simple question in a 12-year-old murder case: Did the SBI lab still have possession of critical evidence?

In Charlotte, lawyers for the SBI downplayed allegations that an SBI agent had caused a mentally disabled man to be jailed for 14 years on a fabricated confession; they said it really didn't matter whether the SBI agent "elaborated" or "augmented" or even "smoothed out" the alleged confession.

But perhaps the biggest challenge toCooper's call to accept criticism and suggestions from outside the bureau came from testimony given by one of his agents.


No admission of error

SBI agent Jennifer Elwell, testifying in Durham about the case of Derrick Allen, rejected the audit that Cooper has embraced while admitting she had only read bits of it. She criticized the two former FBI supervisors who did the work, saying they didn't understand forensic science.

She refused to acknowledge that either she or SBI policy was in error, but Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson ruled otherwise. He threw out charges that Allen killed and sexually assaulted 2-year-old Adesha Artis and specifically cited how Elwell's report was used to extract a guilty plea from Allen.

In 1998, Allen was charged with the murder and sexual assault of his girlfriend's daughter. The lead prosecutor said in court that the "most significant" piece of evidence in the case was the girl's "bloody panties."

Elwell conducted presumptive tests that indicated the stains could be blood. She ran two confirmatory tests on the underwear. In a positive test, microscopic crystals form on the item to confirm the presence of blood.

Sometimes tests were inconclusive, Elwell said: "Crystals did not form; they tried to form, but nothing happened."

And sometimes the tests were negative, as in Allen's case.

Her report did not say the test was negative. It said her test "gave chemical indications for the presence of blood."


Audit's criticism rejected

Elwell rejected all criticism of her work, saying the audit was just one person's opinion and not the opinion of the scientific community.

Allen's lawyer, Lisa Williams, asked whether the attorney general had hired two incompetent auditors.

"I am not going to speak for the attorney general," Elwell said. "If you like, you can call him and subpoena him and ask him."

During the hearing, Williams complained about how the SBI lab refused to answer simple questions.

Earlier this year, a private investigator for Allen called the lab to ask whether it still possessed evidence collected in 1998: the rape kit items collected from the girl and samples taken from Allen.

Williams said employees at the lab refused to answer.

The hearing in Durham also touched on the issue of whether the laboratory is independent or whether it tips the scales of justice in the courtroom by favoring prosecutors and police over defendants. A benchmark national report on forensic science has recommended that labs be removed from the control of police or prosecutors.


Different views of Agency's role

Joe John, interim director of the SBI crime lab, said his impression after a month on the job was that lab workers were not puppets of law enforcement. Lab analysts universally told him they believed "their customer was the criminal justice system as a whole."

But Elwell identified a different client Friday. She said the lab was drawing new guidelines to provide "a stricter standard of customer service for our client, that being the state of North Carolina."

Williams, Allen's lawyer, said the misconduct in Allen's case hurts everyone: Her client didn't get his day in court and neither did the victim and her family.

"If everyone does their job well, 12 jurors get to decide," Williams said. "Mr. Allen will not get an opportunity to be declared innocent by a jury" and Adesha's family won't know who's responsible for her death.

On Friday in Charlotte, lawyers for the SBI tried to win dismissal of a lawsuit filed by Floyd Brown, a mentally disabled man jailed for 14 years on murder charges. Brown's lawyers contend that SBI agent Mark Isley fabricated an elaborate six-page confession.


Defense says SBI Leaders Failed

If the state gets the case thrown out, Brown's attorney cannot inspect internal records at the Attorney General's Office to determine exactly what former SBIDirector Robin Pendergraft and other supervisors knew about Isley's actions, and when they knew it.

David Rudolf, Brown's lawyer, said the SBI had a track record of ignoring problems with agents and promoting them instead. He said that reflects a failure of leadership from Pendergraft and others.

"This went on for years under her watch," Rudolf said. "She enabled this kind of conduct to go on by not taking steps to stop it." Attorney General Cooper removed Pendergraft as director in late July, moving her to another job. Isley, the agent in Brown's case, hasn't seen any change in his job as a result of the lawsuit.

Last week, SBI leaders reiterated that they are moving methodically to carry the changes recommended in the audit.

After the audit, which included 32 of Jennifer Elwell's cases, she was prohibited from examining more cases at the lab. She is now helping rewrite lab policies.


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Sources: McClatchy Newspapers, WRAL, Google Maps