IAPE Evidence Blog

The Repos­i­tory, CantonRep.com, cantonrep.com
BYLINE: Lori Mon­sewicz CantonRep.com staff writer
Link to Article

Can­ton, OH

CANTON — Sev­eral pounds of cocaine from a 2007 crim­i­nal case are miss­ing from the Can­ton Police Department’s Prop­erty Room, prompt­ing an inter­nal investigation.

Chief Dean McKimm said Wednes­day he asked the FBI to assist and that some police depart­ment employ­ees may be given a poly­graph test.

John Dysart, super­vi­sory senior res­i­dent agent in charge of the Can­ton FBI office, con­firmed McKimm’s request.

“He asked if we could help with a few things so they could sort it out,” Dysart said. “He asked if we could lend a hand.”

The miss­ing cocaine is already spoiled.

McKimm said offi­cers hop­ing to use some of it months ago for K-9 train­ing found it “ran­cid” and not useable.

Then again, McKimm said, the cocaine just may have been dis­carded with the trash.

“I don’t have any evi­dence that any­thing ille­gal was done,” he said. “One pos­si­bil­ity is that it just got straight thrown away with some other trash gen­er­ated by the destruc­tion process.”

Offi­cers dis­cov­ered about a week ago that the box con­tain­ing pos­si­bly four or five kilos — about 9 to 11 pounds  — was miss­ing. McKimm could not imme­di­ately recall the case linked to the cocaine.

The offi­cers had been prepar­ing for a “prop­erty destruc­tion” dur­ing which police receiv­ing a court release are per­mit­ted to destroy old evi­dence no longer needed in crim­i­nal cases. How it’s destroyed depends on the type of evi­dence, McKimm said.

“Cocaine and drugs are usu­ally burned, guns are melted, paper is shred­ded and then dis­carded,” he said.

Usu­ally, the effort involves the use of an incin­er­a­tor at a local factory.

The evi­dence in the prop­erty room is inven­to­ried and moved to a loca­tion where it can be pre­pared for destruc­tion, the chief said.

Typ­i­cally, some items are con­sol­i­dated into boxes while the boxes they had been in become trash and are discarded.

“What I believe is the prop­erty was mis­han­dled and pos­si­bly thrown away with some of the trash that was dis­carded dur­ing the prepa­ra­tion for the destruc­tion,” McKimm said.

“But we have to cover all the bases, and we’re cer­tainly going to inves­ti­gate so that we can elim­i­nate any pos­si­bil­ity of any crim­i­nal activ­ity by any officer.”

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

The Ore­gon­ian, oregonlive.com
BYLINE: Jeff Man­ning, The Ore­gon­ian
Link to Article

Polk County, OR

Philip Scott Can­non, left, walks arm in arm with his son, Math­ias, 20, after being released from the Polk County Jail, Dal­las, Ore., on Fri­day, Dec. 18, 2009. His con­vic­tion on a triple homi­cide was over­turned because of doubts about the valid­ity of key foren­sic evi­dence. The Asso­ci­ated Press

Attor­ney Gen­eral John Kroger has asked the Ore­gon State Police to inves­ti­gate mis­han­dling of evi­dence at the Jus­tice Depart­ment after four boxes of believed lost evi­dence from a noto­ri­ous 1998 triple mur­der were found.

Philip Scott Can­non was con­victed in 1999 and sen­tenced to life in prison for the mur­der of a man and two women in rural Polk County. He spent a decade in prison before win­ning his release in 2009 due to the lost and dis­cred­ited evidence.

The Can­non evi­dence was found in the offices of the Jus­tice Department’s trial divi­sion, which has sep­a­rate quar­ters from the Attor­ney Gen­eral, said Tony Green a Jus­tice Depart­ment spokesman. Rather than attempt an inter­nal probe, Kroger decided to put it in the hands of the state police.

“We found some records that were believed to be destroyed,” Green said. “There will be ques­tions as to how the records got there.”

Kroger said in a state­ment that he’s also ordered a com­plete review of evi­dence pro­ce­dures at the department’s trial divi­sion. “Mis­han­dling of evi­dence is com­pletely unac­cept­able,” Kroger said. “As Attor­ney Gen­eral, I take full responsibility.”

The sud­den appear­ance of the Can­non files marks the sec­ond embar­rass­ing evi­dence foul-up at the Jus­tice Depart­ment in five months. Kroger put Sean Rid­dell, for­mer head of the department’s crim­i­nal jus­tice divi­sion, on tem­po­rary leave last spring after it was deter­mined he deleted e-mails that related to the department’s probe into the Ore­gon Energy Depart­ment and its con­tract with Cylvia Hayes.

Riddell’s destruc­tion of e-mails from the case was inad­ver­tent, the depart­ment said. He has since returned to the Jus­tice Depart­ment in a less senior role.

In 1998, Can­non was a plumber sent to repair a water leak at rural Polk County mobile home occu­pied by Jason Kinser. A neigh­bor later found Kinser and two oth­ers, Suzan Renee Osborne and Celesta Graves, dead or dying of bul­let wounds.

Can­non main­tained his inno­cence, claim­ing the three were alive when he left. Kinser was a meth dealer, Can­non claimed in court fil­ings, who had earned plenty of ene­mies among com­pet­ing dealers.

But Can­non was con­victed and his appeals denied.

Can­non con­tin­ued to fight. In 2005, he filed a peti­tion for post-conviction relief in which he argued that he didn’t get ade­quate legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion. Specif­i­cally, Can­non claimed his for­mer attor­ney failed to chal­lenge the bal­lis­tics evi­dence pro­vided at trial by the prosecution.

Polk County pros­e­cu­tors relied heav­ily on a kind of bal­lis­tics evi­dence known as “bul­let lead analy­sis.” The FBI and other law enforce­ment agen­cies stopped rely­ing on the tech­nique last decade after new research showed that it was unre­li­able. But even dur­ing Cannon’s first trial, bul­let lead analy­sis was known to be flawed, he argued.

Can­non also alleged that both Polk County pros­e­cu­tors hid and destroyed evi­dence and that Jus­tice Depart­ment attor­neys cov­ered up the fact that evi­dence had gone missing.

In a sub­se­quent civil law­suit filed in 2010, Can­non claimed that state lawyers stalled the case for years try­ing, among other things, to con­vince Can­non to give up his right to seek mon­e­tary dam­ages in the event he was released. “For the next five and one-half years, (for­mer assis­tant Attor­ney Gen­eral Susan) Ger­ber know­ingly delayed the judi­cial process…engaging in delay tac­tics, numer­ous post­pone­ments, and fail­ing to dis­close the loss and/ordestruction of evi­dence,” Can­non claimed in his law­suit, which was later dismissed.

In 2009, the Jus­tice Depart­ment agreed to grant Can­non a new trial. The case was returned to Polk County for pos­si­ble re-prosecution, but this time with­out the dis­cred­ited bal­lis­tics data. But there was a prob­lem. The miss­ing boxes of evidence.

State and county pros­e­cu­tors decided jointly to drop the charges against Can­non with­out prej­u­dice, mean­ing they can refile charges. Green said the Jus­tice Depart­ment will defer that deci­sion to their local coun­ter­parts. Polk County Dis­trict Attor­ney Stan But­ter­field could not be reached for comment.

In Decem­ber 2009, Can­non was released from the Polk County jail after 10 years behind bars. 

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

The Den­ver Post, denverpost.com
BYLINE: Felisa Car­dona The Den­ver Post
Link to Article

Den­ver, CO

Brian Hicks, from a Feb­ru­ary file photo. (John Pri­eto, The Den­ver Post)

Four kilo­grams of cocaine were mis­tak­enly destroyed by a Den­ver police prop­erty sergeant before the case against a noto­ri­ous gang king­pin could go to trial.

Now Brian Ken­neth Hicks is ask­ing a fed­eral judge to toss out his crack-cocaine-trafficking case or issue sanc­tions against pros­e­cu­tors for mis­han­dling evidence.

The Den­ver Police Depart­ment launched an inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion into the destruc­tion of the cocaine, said Lt. Matt Murray.

Denver’s CBS4 first reported Hicks was mov­ing to have his case dis­missed because of the destroyed cocaine.

In Novem­ber 2006, Hicks was arrested after, police say, he tossed the kilos out a win­dow of a black Lexus sport util­ity vehi­cle dur­ing a chase.

Den­ver police kept the drugs at the prop­erty bureau, even though the case trans­ferred to fed­eral court when evi­dence of a wider con­spir­acy emerged.

The kilos were destroyed on May 11 while Sgt. John Zak? was purg­ing old property.

Doc­u­ments show Zak reviewed paper­work that said the state court case had been closed and did not make fur­ther inquiry as to whether a fed­eral court case existed. Zak also did not check an elec­tronic data­base that showed Den­ver dis­trict attor­ney inves­ti­ga­tor Robert Fuller? had placed a hold on the evidence.

Fuller inves­ti­gated the inci­dent and wrote in his report: “Sgt. Zak told this writer that the per­son­nel, includ­ing him, do not take the time to con­tact assigned detec­tives because the detec­tives often fail to respond to their inquiries regard­ing the destruc­tion of evi­dence. Sgt. Zak told this writer that the sys­tem of con­tact­ing the assigned detec­tives is a waste of time.”

Mur­ray declined to com­ment specif­i­cally on Zak’s state­ments to Fuller or the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the destruc­tion of the kilos. He said that the depart­ment stores more than half a mil­lion items in its prop­erty bureau and audits have shown mis­takes are extremely rare.

Pros­e­cu­tors have pho­tographs of the cocaine and had it ana­lyzed by a lab and could use that evi­dence at trial.

Hicks’ attor­ney, Martha Eske­sen, wrote that she wasn’t noti­fied by pros­e­cu­tors until Aug. 18, dur­ing a pass­ing con­ver­sa­tion at the fed­eral cour­t­house. A for­mal noti­fi­ca­tion wasn’t made until Sept. 9.

Jeff Dorschner, spokesman for the Col­orado U.S. Attor­ney, declined to com­ment. Pros­e­cu­tors will file a response to the motion Oct. 24.

Judge Wiley Daniel set a hear­ing on Dec. 18.

Hicks, 32, was con­victed of mur­der ear­lier this year for order­ing his gang asso­ciates to kill Kalon­ni­ann Clark, a state wit­ness who was going to tes­tify against him in a 2005 attempted-murder case.

He is serv­ing life plus 120 years in state prison.

The gang leader also is known as the owner of the Chevro­let Tahoe? used in the 2007 fatal drive-by shoot­ing of Den­ver Bronco Dar­rent Williams. Hicks was never impli­cated in Williams’ death because he was in jail on the drug case at the time.

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