IAPE Evidence Blog

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BYLINE: Doug Smith, FOX 13 Inves­tiga­tive reporter
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Man­a­tee County, FL

BRADENTON — The news came as a shock and embar­rass­ment: the Man­a­tee County Sheriff’s Office had lost or destroyed crit­i­cal evi­dence that could impact thou­sands of cases. As a result, crim­i­nals could go free and inno­cent peo­ple remain locked up.

For the first time, an employee with first-hand knowl­edge of what was hap­pen­ing behind the scenes in the prop­erty and evi­dence vault is speak­ing out.

“It was shred­ded. All of my records that would tell you or show you what was dis­posed of, where it was dis­posed of, how it was dis­posed of and if there was any wit­nesses who was present. The paper­work should have been kept,” said Jean Dixon, for­mer Direc­tor of Prop­erty and Evi­dence in Man­a­tee County.

Crim­i­nal defense attor­neys agree with the for­mer prop­erty director.

“It’s bet­ter to see, than be told. This is a CSI world,” says Sara­sota crim­i­nal defense lawyer Andrea Mogensen, ref­er­enc­ing the tele­vi­sion shows that fea­ture cops using high-tech equip­ment to solve the mys­tery mur­der of the hour. “Juries are look­ing for phys­i­cal evi­dence, the proof positive.”

There’s usu­ally no argu­ment among lawyers on this point: phys­i­cal evi­dence is the best evi­dence to put before a jury.

But in Man­a­tee County, some evi­dence is miss­ing. Hun­dreds of pounds of mar­i­juana, two kilos of cocaine, as well as DNA evi­dence that lawyers for the Florida Inno­cence Project argue would clear Der­rick Williams of a rape conviction.

Williams was con­victed of rape in 1993 and has been in prison ever since. The Florida Inno­cence Projects filed a motion in August 2010 to vacate his two con­sec­u­tive life sentences.

The Man­a­tee County Sheriff’s office admits it lost or destroyed the evi­dence in these cases and con­cedes there could be a whole lot more.

“Oh, it’s a mess. Yeah, it’s a mess and it has been a mess. It’s not really a mess any­more, but has been yeah.” Said Man­a­tee County Sheriff’s Office spokesper­son Dave Bris­tow, in Sep­tem­ber 2010.

“I took that per­sonal,” says Dixon.

Dixon worked for the county for 26 years, made a train­ing video and says she received excel­lent reviews before retir­ing in March of 2010 for med­ical rea­sons. Dixon believes the sheriff’s office is try­ing to make her the scape­goat, so she’s talk­ing for the first time to FOX13 Inves­tiga­tive reporter Doug Smith.

“I was very mad. If it was a bad place, why did we pass on every accred­i­ta­tion inspec­tion?” she asks.

Dur­ing her last inspec­tion in 2009, the Com­mis­sion on Accred­i­ta­tion for Law Enforce­ment, CALEA, which Man­a­tee County Sher­iffs Office is a mem­ber of, stated:

“Through­out these relo­ca­tion efforts, the evi­dence cus­to­dian has main­tained con­trol of each facil­ity regard­ing the secu­rity mea­sures and the nec­es­sary audits. Secu­rity to the cur­rent loca­tion was found to be excel­lent, as the area is acces­si­ble only by a key oper­ated ele­va­tor. A sam­pling of items revealed an orga­nized fil­ing sys­tem and cross-referencing sys­tem was in place to assist in locat­ing evi­dence. A pro­ce­dure for ref­er­enc­ing sys­tem was in place to assist in locat­ing evi­dence. A pro­ce­dure for accept­ing evi­dence was clearly defined and demon­strated. Both unan­nounced inspec­tions and annual audits were found to be sat­is­fac­tory regard­ing compliance.”

The pur­pose of CALEA’s Accred­i­ta­tion pro­gram, accord­ing to their web­site, is to improve the deliv­ery of pub­lic safety ser­vices, pri­mar­ily by:

main­tain­ing a body of stan­dards, devel­oped by pub­lic safety practitioners,covering a wide range of up-to-date pub­lic safety initiatives;

and rec­og­niz­ing pro­fes­sional excellence.

Dixon says it was dif­fi­cult man­ag­ing evi­dence kept at mul­ti­ple loca­tions, and in 2003, a water leak con­t­a­m­i­nated some evi­dence, cre­at­ing mold. That evi­dence, stored in a vault, was incinerated.

Dixon says she was out sick at the time, but says every­thing was cat­a­loged cor­rectly. She went out sick again in Novem­ber of 2009, and says when she returned, the new prop­erty super­vi­sor got rid of every­thing, includ­ing all of her notes and records dat­ing back to the 80s, as part of an effort to modernize.

So what does the Sher­iffs Office have to say about Jean Dixon’s claims? Nobody at the Man­a­tee Sheriff’s Office wanted to talk about it and declined our repeated requests for an interview.

The Sheriff’s Office says they were advised by their attor­neys not to com­ment until after a hear­ing in March on the Der­rick Williams rape case.

“If you can’t say some­thing that’s going to make it bet­ter, it’s prob­a­bly best not to say any­thing. Dis­cussing the errors and omis­sions prob­a­bly isn’t ben­e­fi­cial to the agency,” says defense attor­ney Andrea Mogenson.

Mogen­son isn’t sur­prised the sheriff’s office doesn’t want to talk about the lost evi­dence, because this embar­rass­ment has seri­ous consequences.

“Each indi­vid­ual case is going to have an indi­vid­ual prob­lem,” Mogen­son said.

And with the prob­lems with the miss­ing evi­dence in Man­a­tee County, could inno­cent peo­ple be locked up and inno­cent peo­ple set free?

“With­out a doubt,” Mogen­son said.

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

Asso­ci­ated Press, news.yahoo.com
By JEFF CARLTON, Asso­ci­ated Press

Dal­las County, TX

DALLAS – Pros­e­cu­tors declared a Texas man inno­cent Mon­day of a rape and rob­bery that put him in prison for 30 years, more than any other DNA exoneree in Texas.

DNA test results that came back barely a week after Cor­nelius Dupree Jr. was paroled in July excluded him as the per­son who attacked a Dal­las woman in 1979, pros­e­cu­tors said Mon­day. Dupree was just 20 when he was sen­tenced to 75 years in prison in 1980.

Now 51, he has spent more time wrongly impris­oned than any DNA exoneree in Texas, which has freed 41 wrongly con­victed inmates through DNA since 2001 — more than any other state.

“Our Con­vic­tion Integrity Unit thor­oughly rein­ves­ti­gated this case, tested the bio­log­i­cal evi­dence and based on the results, con­cluded Cor­nelius Dupree did not com­mit this crime,” Dal­las County Dis­trict Attor­ney Craig Watkins said.

Dupree is expected to have his aggra­vated rob­bery with a deadly weapon con­vic­tion over­turned Tues­day at an exon­er­a­tion hear­ing in a Dal­las court.

Photo 1:

Cor­nelius Dupree Jr., left, raises his hand to tes­tify while attor­ney Barry Scheck, right, looks on in Dal­las on Tues­day, Jan. 4, 2011. Dupree served 30 years for rape and rob­bery before being exon­er­ated by DNA evi­dence. (AP Photo/Mike Fuentes)

Photo 2:

Cor­nelius Dupree Jr., cen­ter, smiles while attor­ney Barry Scheck, right, speaks in Dal­las on Tues­day, Jan. 4, 2011. Dupree served 30 years for rape and rob­bery before being exon­er­ated by DNA evi­dence. (AP Photo/Mike Fuentes)

Photo 3:

Cor­nelius Dupree Jr., cen­ter, raises his hands in cel­e­bra­tion with his lawyer Nina Mor­ri­son, left, and attor­ney Barry Scheck in Dal­las on Tues­day, Jan. 4, 2011. Dupree served 30 years for rape and rob­bery before being exon­er­ated by DNA evi­dence. (AP Photo/Mike Fuentes)

Photo 4:

This undated hand­out photo pro­vided by The Inno­cence Project shows Cor­nelius Dupree Jr., right, and his wife Selma Perkins Dupree. Dupree, who made parole six months ago, was declared inno­cent Mon­day, Jan. 3, 2011 of a rape and rob­bery that put him in prison for 30 years, more than any other DNA exoneree in Texas. (AP Photo/Courtesy of The Inno­cence Project, ho)

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

Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Texas)
BYLINE: MITCH MITCHELL; mitchmitchell@star-telegram.com

Texas

More than a decade after his death and nearly 25 years since his arrest, the Texas Board of Par­dons and Paroles is rec­om­mend­ing clemency for a Fort Worth man who died in prison after being wrong­fully con­victed on rape charges.

The board sent a let­ter to Tim Cole’s attor­ney at the Inno­cence Project of Texas on Fri­day say­ing that it had voted to rec­om­mend clemency and for­warded its deci­sion to Gov. Rick Perry for his signature.

It would be the state’s first posthu­mous par­don, and Perry has indi­cated that he would sign an order clear­ing Cole’s name if rec­om­mended by the board.

“Gov. Perry looks for­ward to par­don­ing Tim Cole pend­ing the receipt of a pos­i­tive rec­om­men­da­tion from the Board of Par­dons and Paroles,” Perry spokes­woman Alli­son Cas­tle wrote in an e-mail to The Asso­ci­ated Press on Saturday.

Cory Ses­sion, who has been fight­ing to clear his brother’s name for years, said he antic­i­pates that the gov­er­nor will sign Cole’s par­don in March dur­ing a cer­e­mony in Fort Worth.

“To say that the wheels of jus­tice turn slowly would be an under­state­ment,” Ses­sion said Saturday.

“The ques­tion is: How many more Tim Coles are out there?”

As a Texas Tech Uni­ver­sity stu­dent, Cole became the tar­get of a ser­ial rape inves­ti­ga­tion in Lubbock.

While Cole main­tained his inno­cence, in 1985 he was sen­tenced to 25 years in prison.

He died in 1999, at age 39, from com­pli­ca­tions of asthma.

Jerry Wayne John­son, serv­ing life in prison for a series of rapes, was linked to Cole’s case by DNA test­ing in 2008, but only after writ­ing let­ters for years, while Cole was still alive, to Lub­bock County pros­e­cu­tors and judges con­fess­ing to the crime. Johnson’s let­ters were ignored.

The Inno­cence Project pressed for the DNA tests after John­son mailed a con­fes­sion to Cole’s fam­ily in 2007.

State Dis­trict Judge Char­lie Baird in Austin pro­nounced Cole not guilty dur­ing an exon­er­a­tion hear­ing last year, say­ing he had “suf­fered the great­est mis­car­riage of jus­tice imag­in­able in our crim­i­nal jus­tice system.”

His brother’s ordeal has lead Ses­sion to become an advo­cate for crim­i­nal jus­tice reform in Austin and Wash­ing­ton, D.C. Ses­sion said orga­ni­za­tions he works with esti­mate that 2 to 5 per­cent of peo­ple con­victed in Texas have been con­victed wrongfully.

At the end of fis­cal 2007, the Texas Depart­ment of Crim­i­nal Jus­tice reported that about 750,000 peo­ple — 1 in every 22 Tex­ans — were in prison or jail or on parole or probation.

“I hope that it makes peo­ple under­stand that just because some­one comes into your court under­funded and under­rep­re­sented, it does not nec­es­sar­ily mean that they are guilty,” Ses­sion said. “And I hope that it never takes another fam­ily this long to clear the name of an inno­cent fam­ily member.”

Last year, the Texas Leg­is­la­ture passed the Tim Cole Act, increas­ing the lump sum com­pen­sa­tion to vic­tims of wrong­ful impris­on­ment from $50,000 to $80,000 for each year of imprisonment.

Cole’s fam­ily is eli­gi­ble but has not filed a claim.

“Most of the time, every one of these cases sig­ni­fies that the sys­tem has gone wrong badly and that some­where in this state there’s some guilty guy won­der­ing around com­mit­ting more crimes,” said Jeff lack­burn, chief coun­sel for the Inno­cence Project.

“That’s a point that I wish most pros­e­cu­tors and police would under­stand. The inno­cent should be freed, and the guilty should be caught and pun­ished. It’s crazy that a group of over­worked lawyers and wide-eyed law stu­dents should have to do that. The state should be doing this work.”

This report includes mate­r­ial from The Asso­ci­ated Press .

MITCH MITCHELL, 817 – 390-7752

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