IAPE Evidence Blog

The Mis­sis­sippi Press, blog.gulflive.com
BYLINE: April M. Havens, The Mis­sis­sippi Press
Link to Article

Moss Point, MS

Keith Davis, Moss Point police chief

MOSS POINT, Mis­sis­sippi — City aldermen’s first meet­ing of 2012 was con­tentious and chaotic at times, but the board ulti­mately took mul­ti­ple actions, sev­eral affect­ing the police department.

Alder­men agreed to hire Tar­sha Johnson-Watts as a part-time evi­dence tech­ni­cian after Chief Keith Davis told them the department’s evi­dence room “is in shambles.”

The room con­tains evi­dence that should have been prop­erly destroyed long ago, he said, “and the prob­lem has compounded.”

The board also agreed to hire George Chaix on a con­trac­tual basis for assess­ing, purg­ing, clean­ing and orga­niz­ing the room based on Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion of Prop­erty and Evi­dence stan­dards. Chaix will be paid a flat rate of $1,000.

The hir­ing deci­sions came only after heated debates over pre­vi­ously fired employ­ees and whether the chief should be able to hire part-time work­ers who are not enti­tled to pro­tec­tion under the Civil Ser­vice Commission.

Alder­man Tommy High­tower was in favor of both hirings.

“The more per­son­nel we put over there, the quicker this (prob­lem) goes away,” he said of the evi­dence room.

Alder­men also later agreed to allow Davis to apply for a $6,400 equip­ment grant, but after Alder­man Sher­wood Brad­ford learned the grant had a 25 per­fect match, he crit­i­cized the chief for “con­stantly” chang­ing his budget.

Bick­er­ing among alder­men had some audi­ence mem­bers shak­ing their heads and oth­ers laughing.

At one point, Mayor Ane­ice Lid­dell refused to carry a motion by Brad­ford, and Alder­woman Shirley Cham­bers quickly told her she was “break­ing the law.”

Also at Tuesday’s meet­ing, aldermen:

* Agreed to let Thomp­son Engi­neer­ing apply for a Mis­sis­sippi Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion grant that could con­nect the city’s side­walks and bring a 3.5-mile loop to down­town. It would also include an obser­va­tion deck for bird­ing enthu­si­asts.
* Accepted the res­ig­na­tion of police dis­patcher Hope Mer­rill.
* Hired Stephen Fur­ney to replace Mer­rill as dis­patcher.
* Voted to require demo­li­tion of a home at 4430 Elder St. The owner must clean the prop­erty by Feb. 1.
* Set a min­i­mum pay­ment on old city court fines at $25.
* Agreed to use tide­lands funds on river­front projects, such as pub­lic restrooms and bulk­head repairs. 

After the meet­ing, Lid­dell con­firmed the police depart­ment will be get­ting a new station.

City lead­ers learned last month that the Mis­sis­sippi Devel­op­ment Author­ity will allow them to con­sol­i­date mul­ti­ple fund­ing sources to build a new police depart­ment out­side the flood zone.

The city will use $1.5 mil­lion in sur­plus funds from a Hur­ri­cane Kat­rina sup­ple­men­tal grant, $389,000 from the Fed­eral Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency and other Hur­ri­cane Katrina-related insur­ance funds to build a new com­plex out­side the flood zone at the old Bel­lview Shop­ping Center.

The need for a new sta­tion is high, Davis said.

“The cit­i­zens of Moss Point deserve a pub­lic safety facil­ity they can be proud of … and so do the employ­ees,” he said. “The build­ing we’re in now was a refur­bished build­ing from a refur­bished build­ing, and it just doesn’t work for law enforcement.” 

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

The 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

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