Archive for the 'Standards' Category
2 investigations involving Surprise police drag on
November 2, 2011The Arizona Republic, azcentral.com
BYLINE: D.S. Woodfill, The Arizona Republic
Link to Article
Surprise, AZ
Two internal investigations in the Surprise Police Department have gone into a second year having no clear end in sight.
One case, involving former Assistant Chief Scott Connelly and an unidentified employee, started in June. Officials said they hope to wrap it up by the end of the year, but it could take longer if the other employee appeals any discipline that may be meted out.
The other case concerns $33,000 in drug money stolen from a department evidence locker in September 2010. Police had confiscated the cash in two drug investigations — one in March 2008 and the other in February 2009. Police said they have been waiting for a criminal investigation by the Phoenix Police Department to end before beginning an internal-affairs investigation interviews in earnest.
The Republic has sought public records in the missing money and Connelly cases.
MISSING DRUG MONEY
The Republic learned in March that $33,000 in drug money had gone missing from a police evidence locker six months earlier. The Police Department — headed at the time by interim Chief Mark Schott — didn’t publicly disclose the theft, but reported it to the Phoenix Police Department, which began a criminal investigation. That investigation has is now in its second year.
Surprise Chief Mike Frazier, who took over for Schott in February, told The Republic in March that the money was seized by police from suspected drug dealers.
The theft sparked outrage from the new chief, who said he was “gravely concerned” about the missing money and the fact that the department may still have a thief in its midst.
In addition to the internal inquiry and criminal investigation, Frazier ordered an overhaul of security procedures, which were criticized by at least one employee from the evidence department, according to Phoenix police documents. Frazier’s reforms included stricter limits on employee-access to the evidence room and additional video cameras to cover blind spots.
Where the investigation stands:
Surprise officials originally said the criminal investigation could last several weeks to a few months. However, the review has no clear end in sight.
On Tuesday, Surprise Police Commander Terry Young said investigators still do not have any suspects. He said it’s possible that the culprit or culprits are no longer employed at the department.
Young was noncommittal when asked if he is confident investigators will discover who stole the money.
“That’s certainly my goal,” he said. “Obviously, there’s no guarantee.”
Young said he had been waiting for the criminal investigation to reach a point where he could start interviewing employees for the internal inquiry. That process has started, he said.
“As a matter of protocol, we let the criminal investigation unfold first,” he said. “We don’t want to interfere with or step on the toes of that criminal investigation.”
Young said federal law also protects government employees from being compelled to provide potentially self-incriminating information to employers during a criminal investigation.
“For example, if I talk to an employee on an administrative matter, I have the right as the employer to compel them to answer my questions,” he said. “But criminally, obviously, you have the Fifth Amendment right to remain silent.
“So, we take a lot of precautions to make sure that we’re not speaking to people who might ultimately be interviewed criminally. You can start kind of clouding that line for them as to when they have to talk, when they don’t and are they providing information that they should be protected from,” he said.
Young said the department began interviewing people because the criminal case is winding down. Still, the internal investigation cannot conclude until they have all the information from the criminal investigation.
What’s Next:
Theron Quaas, the lead Phoenix detective investigating the theft, didn’t respond to requests for an interview.
When asked if the criminal investigation could take another year, Young said, “It should not take anywhere close to another year.”
Young said the internal investigation should end within 120 days after the criminal case is closed.
What others have said:
Councilman John Williams said the council has no role tracking the investigations of the missing money or in the inquiry involving Connelly and declined to comment. He said it’s not appropriate for the council to get involved in matters that aren’t policy-related unless public trust is at stake.
Still, Williams said he would request an update from the city manager, saying his interest was piqued, but “I don’t plan on running any interference or inserting myself.”
Pierce Murphy, a board member of the Idaho-based National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement, said there’s no set time for how long an investigation should last if it’s connected to criminal wrongdoing. Such cases can be more complex than administrative inquiries over policy violations.
Murphy is also the Boise Police Department’s ombudsman, in charge of investigating public complaints and auditing internal-affairs investigations.
Murphy, who was unfamiliar with the details of the Surprise case, said a year could be reasonable for an internal investigation that is part of a criminal case.
He said, for example, a case could be connected to a federal investigation, drug cartel or because police are investigating wider corruption that was uncovered by the original crime.
SCOTT CONNELLY
Connelly resigned Aug. 15 after being demoted from assistant police chief to sergeant in January. Officials said the demotion, which took effect immediately after it was announced, was voluntary.
The Republic filed two public-records requests seeking information from Connelly’s personnel file — one after his demotion and another shortly before his resignation.
City Attorney Michael Bailey declined both requests, stating in a letter dated Feb. 14 that state law limits public access to government records if the documents are confidential by statute, involves privacy interests or when disclosure is detrimental to the state.
He did not say on which of those grounds officials denied the request.
In his second denial letter dated Aug. 9, Bailey said the requested information was the basis of a pending investigation and state statute prohibited its release.
Neither department officials nor Connelly has disclosed the nature of the investigation.
Where the investigation stands
Commander Terry Young, who oversees the department’s Professional Standards Unit, would not share details on the case. He said it involves another unnamed employee who is currently the subject of an investigation in the same matter. Police have long said they don’t comment on internal investigations and are prohibited by state law from disclosing information to the public on ongoing internal investigations.
Officials have said it does not include any suspected criminal wrongdoing.
What’s next?
Young said he hopes to conclude the investigation concerning the other employee by year’s end.
When asked why the case requires that much time, Young said that it had been stalled by an “employee issue.” Young added he hasn’t been able to conclude the interview portion of the investigation.
“As soon as I’m able to do so, then we can put that one to bed and be done with it,” he said.
Opinions on case vary
Six months is too long for most non-criminal investigations, said Pierce Murphy, a board member and past president of the Idaho-based National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement. .
Murphy said investigations not involving criminal acts should take only 60 to 90 days.
The reasons are myriad, he said. It’s unfair to allow officers with careers and reputations on the line to remain in limbo, he said.
Murphy added that if an officer’s bad behavior or mistakes aren’t rectified quickly, managers lose the opportunity to correct long-term behavior.
“If you’re talking 180 to 365 days or more, I’m not sure you’re accomplishing that goal,” he said. “The teachable moment’s gone.”
Lengthy investigations also send the wrong message to other officers, Murphy said. If employees know bad behavior won’t be corrected swiftly, it lessens the concern they will be disciplined.
Merrick Bobb executive director of the Police Assessment Resource Center, a Los Angeles police watchdog organization, said six months is the maximum for less complex cases. He cited U.S. Department of Justice guidelines.
However, departments should strive to conclude them as quickly as possible, he said.
Tim Dorn, president of the Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police, said in an e-mail that the length of time an investigation should take “is based totally on the extent and nature of the investigation.”
But Dorn said a recently enacted law requires investigations to completed within 120 days, but it does not apply to investigations that were started prior to the law’s adoption.
“There are exemptions for investigations which also involve a criminal investigation, or where it can be clearly demonstrated that additional time is necessary to complete the investigation,” he said.
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International Association for Property and Evidence
“Law Enforcement Serving the Needs of Law Enforcement”
www.IAPE.org
Oregon Justice Department finds missing evidence thought lost from notorious triple murder in Polk County
October 17, 2011The 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
ABC15 (KNXV-TV), abc15.com
BYLINE: Corey Rangel
Link to Article
One Video
Pinal County, AZ

An independent audit raises some alarming concerns within the Pinal County Sheriff’s Property and Evidence Unit which, according to the report, could have an impact on past, present, and future cases.
Even Sheriff Paul Babeu admits there are some problems.
“The potential liability here is grave. We have some serious issues here and we don’t want to conceal it from you and we’re addressing it in quick speed,” Babeu told ABC15.
The audit, done by California-based Evidence Control Systems Inc., highlights problems with the way evidence is or has been handled, processed, and stored.
The report raises several specific issues regarding how evidence is monitored and tracked and states “there could be a substantial number of items missing but it will never be determined unless someone is looking for a specific item and it cannot be found.”
At the time of the audit, there were more than 200 items in the “Unable To Locate” file including guns, drugs, money, and biological evidence. The last time the file was examined by a supervisor was August 2010, the report found.
ECS made the recommendation that management should review the current missing items and determine if any of them “should require an internal investigation, further search, or criminal investigation.”
The audit found several glaring problems at storage facilities where evidence is being kept.
When auditors visited a long-term storage facility in Florence that typically holds evidence in older cases, the report noted, “According to Property and Evidence Unit personnel, the facility has been broken into on a number of occasions which could jeopardize the evidence in court proceedings. Secondly, it is believed that there could be old homicide evidence still being stored in the building.”
While auditors estimated 90 percent of the items at the facility could be purged, it recommended “all efforts be made to abandon this facility as quickly as possible. In the event that there is another break-in and critical evidence is stolen, the department will be critiqued by the community and criticized by the newspaper.”
At a storage area in Casa Grande, ECS found other potential problems that could have an impact on cases noting: “It is a very good likelihood that deputies are entering the room that has non-secured evidence that could easily be removed or tampered with or challenged in court.”
According to the audit, the evidence area is in an old jail cell and “there is no record of who is entering the cell to the un-secured evidence.”
The audit notes the cell violates all accepted standards and practices and states, “It is obvious the first line supervisors assigned to this station are not concerned with evidence security of the chain of custody. All that a defense attorney would have to ask is “could someone have tampered with this evidence.”
“Cases could be compromised and that’s a problem. We’re not in the business of being the problem in a case with the evidence not being properly handled, safeguarded or processed,” said Babeu.
The 300-page report finds other potential causes for concern regarding how evidence is documented and tracked.
“At the present time if an investigating deputy/case officer signs out evidence for investigative purposes he/she has no requirement to return the evidence. The evidence can in fact stay in the possession of the deputy indefinitely,” according to the audit.
It went on to note, “Many law enforcement agencies have had scandals or lost criminal cases wherein the investigators/case deputies have signed out evidence ‘for investigative purposes’ and the evidence has either never been returned or the evidence was substituted in the package returned.”
Similarly, it also found, “Any time a Deputy of investigating officers signs out an item of evidence for ‘investigative need,’ there is never any type of follow-up to ascertain the status of the evidence.
The audit recommended the sheriff’s office implement a policy that requires routine monitoring of evidence that is removed from the Property and Evidence Unit including any evidence removed for investigative purposes.
The audit goes on to state, “Items not returned to the Property Room or properly accounted for will eventually make headlines or at least be responsible for losing a case.”
In addition, ECS questioned how sexual assault kits are stored and processed.
It found only about 5 percent of the sexual assault kits ever go to the Crime Lab and said, “It is unclear why more sexual assault kits and other evidence are not being sent to the Crime Lab for analysis in hopes of identifying a perpetrator or linkage to other crimes.”
The auditors even suggested, “There is a very good likelihood that in a number of the cases being stored in the Property Room the investigator has retired or transferred to another unit and the case has been forgotten.”
“It’s pretty alarming when you see that, when you see evidence that, for years, has not been submitted for DNA testing when it comes to sexual assaults, when it comes to possible homicide and murder cases,” said Babeu.
Despite the problems, Babeu tells ABC15 he has met with the Pinal County Attorney and said they’re not aware of any cases that have been compromised.
Babeu said many of the issues are a result of mismanagement by previous administrations dating back 20 years and said the proof is in the storage rooms.
“Clearly we have a storage problem with evidence,” said Babeu as he stood next to boxes piled taller than him.
Evidence rooms are so full, boxes are stacked to the ceiling with leftovers spilled out onto the floor. Some items date back to the 1970s.
At least half of it can be tossed out but the sheriff tells ABC15 he doesn’t have the staff to do it because they’re focusing on properly processing the new evidence coming in.
So many items need to be purged the audit found it would take someone 26 years to reduce the inventory by half.
“This is not normal. This does not meet any standards. The audit even talks about this. To properly catalog and store all this — this is not the way you do business,” he said.
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International Association for Property and Evidence
“Law Enforcement Serving the Needs of Law Enforcement”
www.IAPE.org