IAPE Evidence Blog

The Boston Globe, http://www.boston.com/globe

Boston, MA

The Mass­a­chu­setts State Police crime lab­o­ra­tory still lags in test­ing DNA sam­ples con­nected to crimes, despite a crit­i­cal report two years ago that led to the fir­ing of some high-ranking lab employees.

The lab came under fire when it was revealed that more than 16,000 DNA sam­ples had not been ana­lyzed. But The Boston Globe reports that since 2007, only 500 of that num­ber have been ana­lyzed, mostly at the request of dis­trict attorneys.

John Gross­man, the Depart­ment of Pub­lic Safety’s under­sec­re­tary of foren­sic sci­ence and tech­nol­ogy, says the lab some­times tests sam­ples if the statute of lim­i­ta­tions on a case is about to expire.

In one case, author­i­ties did not get a blood sam­ple from a sus­pect in a Brook­line rape 13 years ago until 2005. That per­son was indicted this month.

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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment”
www.IAPE.org

The Asso­ci­ated Press State & Local Wire
WIS-TV, http://www.wistv.com

Pros­per­ity, SC

A South Car­olina police chief has resigned as state agents inves­ti­gate his department.

Act­ing Pros­per­ity Police Chief Benji Sease told WIS-TV that Craig Nel­son stepped down from his posi­tion with the New­berry County town last week.

Sease says the State Law Enforce­ment Divi­sion is inves­ti­gat­ing miss­ing money from a police evi­dence locker.

It isn’t the first time SLED has inves­ti­gated Nel­son. State agents checked reports last year that Nel­son ran over his ex-mother-in-law’s foot.

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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment”
www.IAPE.org

The Gazette (Mon­treal)
BYLINE: BRUCE OWEN, Win­nipeg Free Press

Win­nipeg, Canada

Miss­ing evi­dence: Judge may let man out on bail for Christmas

Con­victed mur­derer Frank Ostrowski could spend his first Christ­mas in 23 years at home in the com­pany of fam­ily and friends instead of inside prison walls.

The 60-year-old grand­fa­ther, con­victed of a 1986 drug hit and sen­tenced to life behind bars, likely will find out within two weeks whether he’ll be granted bail while Ottawa weighs whether he’s a vic­tim of a wrong­ful conviction.

“I know he’ll be home for Christ­mas,” Ostrowski’s daugh­ter, Amber, said out­side of the Law Courts Build­ing in Win­nipeg this week. “She’ll make the right decision.”

Amber Ostrowski was refer­ring to Jus­tice Colleen Suche, who presided over two days of sub­mis­sions from James Lock­yer of the Asso­ci­a­tion in Defence of the Wrongly Con­victed and Crown attor­ney Rick Saull.

The judge said she needed about 10 days to decide whether Ostrowski should be released on bail. Lock­yer said in court there’s con­sid­er­able — if not over­whelm­ing — evi­dence Ostrowski got a raw deal at his 1987 mur­der trial, in that impor­tant infor­ma­tion was not dis­closed by the Crown and police.

Ostrowski has main­tained his inno­cence since the day he was arrested.

One piece of evi­dence had to do with a secret deal key wit­ness Matthew Lovelace made with fed­eral author­i­ties to tes­tify against Ostrowski in order to get a cocaine-trafficking charge against him withdrawn.

Lovelace tes­ti­fied at Ostrowski’s trial the accused ordered two men to kill Robert Nie­man because Nie­man told police about Ostrowski’s cocaine business.

Lovelace told the jury he did not have a deal to get his drug charge wiped clean in exchange for his tes­ti­mony, but months later he was acquit­ted on the drug charge at a trial where no evi­dence was called.

Saull told the judge the secret deal was not dis­closed because chief pros­e­cu­tor George Dan­ger­field didn’t know about it Lock­yer said the secret deal and other evi­dence involv­ing Lovelace should have been dis­closed to the jury so they had a full pic­ture of Lovelace’s credibility.

Lock­yer said if Ostrowski is released on bail, he’ll be the fifth per­son in Canada claim­ing wrong­ful con­vic­tion to get such treat­ment. Two of the four are Man­i­toba cases, James Driskell and Kyle Unger, who were also pros­e­cuted by Dangerfield.

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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment”
www.IAPE.org