The government-ordered inquest by two former FBI officials found that agents of the State Bureau of Investigation repeatedly aided prosecutors in obtaining convictions over a 16-year period, mostly by misrepresenting blood evidence and keeping critical notes from defense attorneys.
Although he could not be contacted this morning at his officet, Robeson County District Attorney Johnson Britt, who won convictions and life prison terms against Larry Martin Demery and Daniel Andre Green for the 1993 murder of James Jordan, told The Fayetteville Observer that there was no conspiracy between his office and the SBI.
Demery and Green were convicted of shooting basketball superstar Micheal Jordan’s father to death during a robbery July 23, 1993, as he slept in his car at a rest stop off of Interstate 95 near Lumberton. Jordan’s body was found in a Bennettsville, S.C., swamp on Aug. 3, 1993.
According to the recent report, a review of the Demery and Green cases show that analysts failed to mention that, while the original test indicated presence of blood at the crime scene, four other tests were inconclusive.
Britt told the Observer that there is no need to review either case.
“I won’t be looking back into the Jordan case,” he said. “There was a great deal of evidence that connects those two individuals to the murder and the robbery.”
Michael Jordan, now owner of the Charlotte Bobcats, couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
The review of blood evidence in cases from 1987 to 2003 by two former assistant directors of the Federal Bureau of Investigation calls for a thorough examination of 190 criminal cases, stating information that could have helped defendants was sometimes misrepresented or withheld.
“It impacted the decisions that were made — it could have,” report author Chris Swecker said Wednesday. “Let me step back and make sure you understand: It could have resulted in situations where information that was material and favorable to the defendant was not disclosed.”
Britt, however, told the Fayetteville newspaper that the public should not assume that all cases called into question were false convictions. He noted that in the Jordan case conviction did not hinge on blood evidence. There were statements by defendants, the recovered murder weapon and a video showing one of the defendants wearing jewelry that James Jordan was known to have owned, Britt said.
“A single blood test isn’t going to lead to someone being convicted or pleading guilty,” said Britt.
The report does not conclude that innocent people were convicted, noting the evidence wasn’t always used at trials and defendants may have admitted to crimes. But it states prosecutors and defense lawyers need to check whether tainted lab reports helped lead to confessions or pleas.
Attorney General Roy Cooper ordered the review in March after an SBI agent testified the crime lab once had a policy of excluding complete blood test results from reports offered to defense lawyers before trials. The existence of the policy was later confirmed by a former SBI director. Agent Duane Deaver’s testimony led to the exoneration of a murder convict imprisoned nearly 17 years.
Cooper said Wednesday that he will send the cases cited in the report back to the counties where they were tried for review. “This report is troubling. It describes a practice that should have been unacceptable then and is unacceptable now,” he said during a news conference.
The review found 230 cases in which eight SBI analysts filed reports that, at best, were incomplete. Of those, 190 resulted in criminal charges. The report says the lab may have violated federal and state laws mandating that evidence favorable to defendants be shared with their lawyers. It also bolsters defense attorneys’ long-held argument that the lab is in the pocket of law enforcement.
Four of the eight analysts named in the report, including Deaver, still work at the SBI in some capacity, said new SBI Director Greg McLeod, adding that an internal review of their work continues. McLeod said later Wednesday that Deaver had been placed on “investigatory placement,” meaning he cannot work but is being paid.
Deaver didn’t return a message left at his office, and nobody came to the door of his home Wednesday afternoon.
Besides the executions, the report urged a closer look at the cases of four people on death row and one whose death sentence was commuted to life.
The problems detailed in the report follow similar story lines: Lab results that contradicted preliminary tests indicating blood at a scene were routinely kept from defense lawyers. Those secondary results were in analysts’ handwritten notes, but not in evidence presented at court.
The report blames the flaws on factors including poorly crafted policy and ineffective management. There was no written policy on how to report results until 1997, according to Swecker.
“Before that, how analysts reported results depended on the analyst’s subjective judgment,” he said.
The lab’s operations have changed substantially since 2003, when it began using more modern blood testing.
Deaver is linked to the five cases the report characterizes as the most egregious violations, and it accuses him of overstating or falsely reporting blood test results, including one in the case against Desmond Keith Carter, who was executed in 2002. In two of the cases, including Carter’s, Deaver’s final report on blood analyses said his tests “revealed the presence of blood” when his notes indicated negative results from follow-up tests. His notes indicate that he got a negative result because he didn’t have enough sample left for the confirmatory test.
In three other cases, the review said Deaver’s reports stated further tests were “inconclusive” or “no result” while his lab notes reflected negative results.
The Attorney General’s Office said Carter confessed to the crime, and the evidence in question wasn’t introduced at trial, the report said.
Swecker and co-author Mike Wolf reported they couldn’t determine how Deaver’s mistakes happened, and they leave open the possibility that he didn’t purposely misreport results.
Attorney David Rudolf, who has represented clients who have sued the SBI and tangled with Deaver in a famous murder case, said new trials should be given in all cases in which Deaver’s testimony played a significant role.
“Justice is the cornerstone of our society, and it can’t be done on the cheap,” he said in an e-mail.
Attorney Diane Savage, who has complained about the SBI and Deaver for years, said she supports replacing the SBI-run lab with an independent one. Those who omitted information from reports “should be prosecuted, and they should be fired,” she said.
Cooper said the SBI is implementing the report’s recommendations, including the automation of historical lab files; posting of lab policies and other rules on a public website; and the appointment of an ombudsman to review lab issues or mistakes.
In addition to the Deaver cases, the review found 36 cases where a report states there were indications of blood and that no further testing was done. But handwritten lab notes reflect confirmatory tests got negative or inconclusive results.
In a third category, the review found 104 cases in which reports omitted negative or inconclusive results, instead saying there were chemical indications for the presence of blood.
The review found 85 cases in the least serious category, which involved reports that didn’t mention negative or inconclusive confirmatory tests but did ultimately state that the presence of blood wasn’t conclusive.
— Associated Press Writers Martha Waggoner, Gary D. Robertson and Mike Baker contributed to this report, as did Bob Shiles, a staff reporter for The Robesonian.
Online: Review of SBI forensic laboratory: http://tiny.cc/znrz7
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