IAPE Evidence Blog

The Times-Tribune, http://www.thetimestribune.com, The Asso­ci­ated Press State & Local Wire

Whit­ley County, KY

A south­east­ern Ken­tucky sheriff’s office says a break-in at the depart­ment has pre­vented it from respond­ing to an open records request from a news­pa­per about how the agency han­dled seized guns. 

The Corbin Times-Tribune reported that the Whit­ley County Sheriff’s Office declined to respond to a records request because some­one broke into the depart­ment on Dec. 21, leav­ing some records in dis­ar­ray and oth­ers in pos­ses­sion of the Ken­tucky State Police.

The paper reported that it asked for records on Dec. 15 to show whether 18 guns seized dur­ing an arrest in 2004 were still at the sheriff’s depart­ment or had been trans­ferred to another agency.

Ken­tucky State Police Det. Bill Cor­rell, who is lead­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion into the break-in, said he’s wait­ing for a list of guns that were taken from the sheriff’s department.

Under state law, a gov­ern­ment agency has three busi­ness days to respond to an open records request, though they may take longer to actu­ally pro­duce the records if needed.

Whit­ley County Sher­iff Lawrence Hodge failed to for­mally respond dur­ing the three-day period, and on the fourth busi­ness day after the request was filed, the evi­dence locker inside the sheriff’s office was burglarized

Josh Price, an office worker at the sheriff’s depart­ment, told the news­pa­per the open records request could not be com­pleted because of the ongo­ing break-in case.

“What’s going on with that is of course, you know, our office was bro­ken into, all of our records as of this point are involved with that case with the state police, so I don’t know, as far as a time to give you, on when that will be com­pleted, when they’ll have that all fin­ished,” he said.

Cor­rell said Hodge has been coop­er­at­ing with the investigation.

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

kxl.com

Salem, OR

The Ore­gon attor­ney general’s office said Mon­day that an investigator’s search has failed to turn up miss­ing evi­dence in a triple mur­der case, a find­ing that makes it doubt­ful pros­e­cu­tors will seek to retry the case.

Philip Scott Can­non, who claimed he was wrongly con­victed of the triple mur­der more than a decade ago, was freed Dec. 18 after pros­e­cu­tors said key evi­dence needed for a retrial was unavailable.

The attor­ney general’s office said Mon­day that spe­cial inves­ti­ga­tor Den­nis Car­son couldn’t track down any of the miss­ing evi­dence used against Can­non. The evi­dence likely was destroyed, Car­son said.

In his report, Car­son said he inter­viewed for­mer Polk County Dis­trict Attor­ney John Fisher, who told Car­son he might have signed an order to have the mate­r­ial purged in 2005, and that he had no idea where the miss­ing items ended up.

Can­non, 43, who was serv­ing a life sen­tence, had main­tained he did not mur­der Jason Kinser, Suzan Osborne and Celesta Graves. Each was shot once in the head at a mobile home in a rural area west of Salem in Novem­ber 1998.

Ear­lier this year, the state approved a new trial for Can­non after he claimed foren­sic evi­dence was flawed. How­ever, plans to retry Can­non were dropped after pros­e­cu­tors were unable to locate evi­dence that was used as trial exhibits.

Stan But­ter­field, the cur­rent county dis­trict attor­ney, said Mon­day he was aware of Carson’s find­ings when he issued a Dec. 18 state­ment say­ing that “dis­missal is in the best inter­est of jus­tice” in view of the miss­ing evidence.

But­ter­field said it’s pos­si­ble his office could refile the case against Can­non. He also said he has insti­tuted new poli­cies to try to avoid sim­i­lar mis­takes with evidence.

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

Pitts­burgh Tri­bune Review, Tri­bune Review Pub­lish­ing Com­pany
BYLINE: Adam Brandolph

Pitts­burgh, PA

Pitts­burgh City Coun­cil yes­ter­day approved spend­ing nearly $4 mil­lion to set­tle civil law­suits at its last meet­ing of the year. 

The largest set­tle­ment was $3.8 mil­lion for a Home­wood man wrong­fully impris­oned for nearly 19 years after being con­victed in 1986 of rape. Thomas Doswell, 50, was released from prison in 2005 after being exon­er­ated by DNA evidence. 

Down­town attor­ney James E. DePasquale, who rep­re­sented Doswell in his crim­i­nal case appeal, said no amount of money could replace the years Doswell spent “caged up like an animal.” 

“The Amer­i­can jus­tice sys­tem isn’t mag­i­cal, so the only imper­fect way to give him back those years is through money dam­ages,” DePasquale said. “It’s a lot of money, but I wouldn’t want to trade places with him.” 

The city’s pay­out will include pay­ments total­ing $1.26 mil­lion a year to Doswell, his attor­ney and Lib­erty Life Assur­ance Co. of Boston in 2010, 2011 and 2012, accord­ing to city doc­u­ments. Doswell’s civil attor­ney, Peter J. Neufeld of the New York law firm Neufeld Scheck & Brustin, did not return calls seek­ing comment. 

U.S. Dis­trict Judge Donetta Ambrose dis­missed part of Doswell’s 2007 civil law­suit against the city and police in June, but refused to dis­miss vio­la­tions of Doswell’s rights to due process and against cruel and unusual punishment. 

“(These pay­ments) will take care of him for the rest of his life,” DePasquale said. 

Attor­neys for the city declined to comment. 

Coun­cil also approved set­tle­ments for two for­mer city employees. 

It agreed to a $40,000 set­tle­ment with John Moon, a for­mer assis­tant chief of the city’s Emer­gency Med­ical Ser­vices. Moon, who is black, retired in Octo­ber as part of the set­tle­ment of a case in which he alleged he was passed over for a 2005 pro­mo­tion to deputy chief because of racial dis­crim­i­na­tion. Moon’s attor­ney, Paul G. Kay, did not return calls seek­ing comment. 

Coun­cil approved a nearly $10,000 set­tle­ment with Mer­cedes C. Tay­lor, a retired police offi­cer, for pen­sion, longevity and ben­e­fits, after a dis­pute over the num­ber of years she worked for the city. Taylor’s attor­ney, Jon Pushin­sky, said she was employed by the city for 24 years up until her retire­ment in 2003, but only received retire­ment ben­e­fits for 23 years of employment. 

“It’s impor­tant to keep the city hon­est,” Pushin­sky said. 

Legal set­tle­ments are paid out of the city’s oper­at­ing bud­get. It bud­geted $1.74 mil­lion for legal judg­ments for 2010, the same as 2009.
The city spent $1.55 mil­lion on set­tle­ments in 2008.