Marcus Robinson Wins Historic NC Racial Injustice Case! Receives Life NOT Death But Still Imprisoned!

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.

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."

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.


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Marvin Williams: Mentally Retarded BLACK Inmate On NC's Death Row

Man could escape execution due to NC law


A man convicted of murder in Wayne County more than 20 years ago could get off death row Thursday because of a North Carolina law that says mentally retarded defendants can't be executed.

If a Wayne County Superior Court judge declares Marvin Williams mentally retarded, he would be the 17th death row inmate to escape execution since the law passed in 2001.

Williams killed Theron Price, a World War II veteran and security guard at Dewey Brothers in Goldsboro, where both men worked, during a robbery in 1989. Price died of blunt head trauma.

The legal battle became an emotional one Monday as Price's family sat on one side of the courtroom, hoping for what they see as justice, and Williams' family sat on the other side, hoping that his life will be spared.

Price's family and others are concerned that many judges are rubber-stamping the issue, simply letting people off death row. Attorneys who defend death row inmates say that's not the case.




Williams, 50, sat quietly in the courtroom with his mother behind him as attorneys debated whether he fits the definition of mental retardation.

Defense attorneys acknowledged that mental health experts and advocates prefer to use the term "intellectual disability," rather than "mental retardation." However, that is how North Carolina law words it.

"(Williams) meets both criteria of the statute, that he was mentally retarded at the time of the crime, and therefore, the death sentence that was previously entered should be vacated," said defense attorney Glenn Barfield.

Under North Carolina law, a judge can declare a person mentally retarded if he or she scores 70 or below on an IQ test and shows poor basic life skills before the age of 18.

Those determinations are up to the discretion of judges and what weight they give to IQ tests. Williams has taken multiple tests and has scored above and below 70.

Wayne County District Attorney Branny Vickory argued that Williams knew exactly what he was doing when he repeatedly hit Price over the head, dragged his body into a nearby shed and tried to get into the company's safe with a blow torch.

"It might not have shown (he was) a rocket scientist, but I would contend to you that it didn't necessarily show someone who is mentally retarded, either," Vickory said.

The victim's nephew, Jerry Price, spoke at Monday's hearing and asked the judge not to confuse mental retardation with "cold-hearted meanness and laziness and a total disregard for human life."

"Putting someone to death is a very serious issue. There were laws in place in 1989 when Marvin Williams committed this murder. He violated those laws. A jury of his peers convicted him of his crime," Jerry Price said. "There has never been any doubt that he murdered my uncle. To date, he has shown no remorse whatsoever."

Ken Rose, an attorney with the Death Penalty Litigation Center in Durham, says that inmates were removed from death row in about half of the cases where they claimed mental retardation in the past decade.

None of the 16 people taken off death row under the mental retardation statute have been released from prison. The law also applies to other states, since the U.S. Supreme Court made a decision, after North Carolina's law passed, banning the execution of people with mental retardation.





Judge rejects delays as first hearing opens under N.C.'s Racial Justice Act

Change is coming to North Carolina through a new law that lets death row prisoners challenge their sentences if race was a significant factor at sentencing, a defense attorney said Monday of the first case involving the state's Racial Justice Act.

The hearing involving death row prisoner Marcus Robinson opened Monday afternoon in Cumberland County Superior Court after Judge Greg Weeks handled motions earlier in the day and turned down prosecutors' request for extra time.

They wanted a break of eight weeks to finish a statewide survey of prosecutors about their capital cases because not all district attorneys have responded to their requests for help.

Weeks refused, saying he had continued the case in September and November. "The fault in the incomplete study ... is in the prosecutors who have not complied with your request to do what you asked them to do," the judge said.

"It has been a long time coming, but finally change is coming," defense attorney James Ferguson of Charlotte told the judge, who will decide the case without a jury.

In 2009, the Legislature approved the act, which allows death row prisoners and defendants facing the death penalty to use statistics and other evidence to show racial bias played a significant role in either their sentences or prosecutors' decision to pursue the death penalty.

The law says that the prisoner's sentence is reduced to life in prison without parole if the claim is successful.

This hearing, expected to last about two weeks, addresses Robinson's claim that race was a factor in prosecutors' decisions to reject potential jurors who were black. Robinson also claims that race was a factor in the prosecutors' decisions to seek the death penalty against accused murderers and that the victims' race was a factor in whether juries issued death sentences.

Robinson is black. His victim, 17-year-old Erik Tornblom who was killed in a robbery in 1991, was white. A co-defendant, Roderick Williams, is serving a life sentence.

Ferguson showed a statewide map of North Carolina's prosecutorial districts at he said showed race was significant factor in prosecutors' decisions to use peremptory challenges to eliminate black jurors in almost every district.

Black jurors were at least 1.2 times more likely to be rejected than non-white jurors in counties that had applicable death row cases, he said. The range went to more than 3.1 percent, he said, basing his numbers on a study by researchers at Michigan State University.

The study by two law professors also showed that of almost 160 people on death row at the time of the study, 31 had all-white juries and 38 had only one person of color.

"This case is important because it provides an opportunity for all of us to recognize that race far too often has been a significant factor in jury selection in capital cases," Ferguson said.

One of the researchers, Barbara O'Brien, was the first witness, testifying about the methodology of the study.

During a break, Tornblom's stepmother said it was Robinson who brought race into the case because he said he was looking for a white person to target. "The racial part was on his side," said Patricia Tornblom of Hope Mills.

Tornblom gave Robinson and Williams Jr. 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 is attending the hearing with restraints after Weeks ruled Monday that he should be unshackled in the courtroom. Members of Robinson's family, including his mother, also were in the courtroom.





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

NC Spends $11M Annually On Death Penalty Cases...Black Inmates

Study: End Death Cases, Save Money


If the state stopped trying to execute killers, it would free up $11 million a year, according to a study by a Duke University Economist published this month.

There is little return on the dollars spent on seeking the death penalty, says Philip Cook, an economist at Duke's Sanford School of Public Policy. Of the 1,034 people charged with murder in North Carolina in 2005 and 2006, prosecutors initially sought the death penalty against about a quarter of them. Only 11, though, were sentenced to death for their crimes.

"The idea that the state could spend so much money on someone they think is completely undeserving is very interesting," Cook said. "I have to believe that there are some people that would find this cost issue irritating."

Cook's study was published this month in American Law and Economics Review. Cook's last study on the cost of the Death Penalty in North Carolina was published in 1993. In that study, he estimated an annual savings of $4 million if the death penalty were not an option.

Cook's findings will be presented to lawmakers, and opponents of the death penalty will likely use them to argue that it isn't cost-effective.

Death penalty debates typically focus on questions of morality and justice. Proponents argue that ending a life for taking a life is a punishment rooted in ancient religious philosophy. They also say that the mere threat of being executed is a strong deterrent to committing murder and cite studies suggesting that the murder rate has escalated in recent years, since the death penalty has been halted in North Carolina by a series of court challenges.

Cook argues that the rarity of death sentences undermines the deterrent factor. By his math, the odds of a killer getting the death penalty are less than 1 percent.

Rep. Paul Stam, a Wake County Republican, said criminals don't calculate odds and aren't swayed by them.

"Criminals pay more attention to TV and newspaper headlines than to statistics," said Stam, a proponent of the death penalty. "Maybe that is why many of them get caught."

Here and across the country, the death penalty is on the decline. No one has been lethally injected in North Carolina since August 2006, and the 163 inmates now on death row face an uncertain end.

Cook's $11 million figure is a net savings. He assumed everyone currently on death row would be imprisoned for all of their living days, and also factored the estimated costs of appealing convictions of life in prison. Cook did not, however, include savings by prosecutors being spared additional preparation and court time of a capital trial.

It's unclear what bearing, if any, a cost analysis of the punishment will have on its future.

"Whenever it comes to reducing or changing punishments, there's a lot of politics and public opinion involved," said Rep. Deborah Ross, a Wake County Democrat. "It's never, ever a dollar-and-cents issue."

At least two states, New Jersey and New Mexico, have abolished the death penalty in recent years, citing cost as a primary reason. Maryland, too, has considered eliminating the death penalty; officials there have significantly limited the number of murders that can be prosecuted capitally in hopes of reducing costs.

Capital trials cost five times more than first-degree murder trials in which the death penalty is not pursued. A trial averages $116,400 in costs for the defendant, Cook found, compared with $18,600 for a non-capital murder trial. Trials also hijack a prosecutor's office for weeks, a cost that's hard to estimate because it involves salaries for people who handle other matters besides capital murder trials. The average capital trial lasts nearly three weeks, compared to a week for murder trials without the death penalty.

"It's not an ideal use of resources to have so much time devoted to such a small number of cases if your goal is to reduce crime rates," Cook said.

Part of the expense is tied to protections that state and federal law offer those facing execution. Each defendant put on death row is guaranteed at least six layers of appeals to courts as high as the U.S. Supreme Court. Over 2005 and 2006, taxpayers paid at least $8.1 million toward these appeals.

To spend less or offer less scrutiny would be foolhardy, because juries sometimes put innocent people on death row, legal experts argue. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, seven people have been taken off North Carolina's death row since 1973 after courts found evidence of their innocence.

"We know how that story goes," said Tye Hunter, director of the Center for Death Penalty Litigation, a nonprofit focused on defending those facing the death penalty. "That is just a recipe for disaster. We can't have innocent people put to death."

Bargaining Chip

Prosecutors often argue that the option of pursuing the death penalty is a bargaining chip that allows them to secure a plea to the lesser punishment of life in prison without setting foot in a courtroom. Cook found, however, that it was cheaper to try a case in which prosecutors never sought the death penalty than to negotiate a capital case and avoid going to trial. That is due in part to a North Carolina law requiring defendants facing the death penalty to have at least two attorneys.

A savings of $11 million may not seem significant in the scheme of what the state spends each year. But, as revenues have plummeted and the need for social services escalated, legislators are scrutinizing every dollar.

"As lawmakers, we're not supposed to worry about costs when deciding what is the right thing to do," said Rep. Jimmy Love Sr., a member of the House Appropriations Committee. "But, really, you can't help but think about robbing Peter to pay Paul in these times. This is no different."



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Sources: McClatchy Newspapers, News & Observer, WRAL, American Law & Economics Review, Duke's Sanford School of Public Policy, Creepygif.com, Google Maps