IAPE Evidence Blog

Birm­ing­ham News (Alabama)
BYLINE: VICTORIA CUMBOW and BRIAN LAWSON The Huntsville Times

Madi­son County, AL

A vet­eran court reporter in Madi­son County Cir­cuit Court has been arrested on charges stem­ming from miss­ing evi­dence at the courthouse.

Shawn Gra­ham was arrested last Thurs­day and charged with four felony counts of second-degree theft of prop­erty and five mis­de­meanor counts of inter­fer­ing with judi­cial pro­ceed­ings, accord­ing to the Madi­son County Sheriff’s Office.

Pre­sid­ing Cir­cuit Court Judge Karen Hall stressed Wednes­day that the evi­dence allegedly found in Graham’s pos­ses­sion dates back some 10 years and is not related to any ongo­ing cases.

Gra­ham, who has resigned his posi­tion, was a court reporter under Madi­son County Dis­trict Judge Den­nis O’Dell.

He had worked for recently retired Cir­cuit Judge Loyd Lit­tle for 14 years.

A court reporter tran­scribes a trial record, but also han­dles evi­dence intro­duced dur­ing tri­als and trans­ports and pre­serves evi­dence in stor­age after trials.

The charges involve ”inap­pro­pri­ate activ­ity regard­ing the cir­cuit court’s evi­dence room,” said sheriff’s Inves­ti­ga­tor Chad Brooks.

”Shawn Gra­ham is a fine man and he is a fine court reporter and I don’t know a sin­gle attor­ney in town who doesn’t like that guy,” Graham’s attor­ney Patrick Tuten said.

Hall said the prob­lem that led to Graham’s arrest was dis­cov­ered dur­ing a cleanup of evi­dence rooms. The cour­t­house has some evi­dence dat­ing back decades that had been the respon­si­bil­ity of now-retired court reporters, Hall said.

Each court reporter is respon­si­ble for evi­dence in the court­room where he or she works, and each has an indi­vid­ual stor­age area that can­not be gen­er­ally accessed. Evi­dence remains in their stor­age area if a case is not appealed. If a case is appealed, the evi­dence becomes the respon­si­bil­ity of the cir­cuit clerk’s office and stored separately.

Dur­ing the cleanup, the court reporters and the clerk’s office worked together, Hall said. Last week, Cir­cuit Clerk Jane Smith noticed some items miss­ing from her stor­age area and an inves­ti­ga­tion was requested. Gra­ham was arrested a few days later.

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

Huntsville Times (Alabama), LOCAL NEWS; Pg. 1A
BYLINE: Vic­to­ria Cum­bow & Brian Law­son, Times Staff Writers

Madi­son County, AL

A vet­eran court reporter in Madi­son County Cir­cuit Court has been arrested on charges stem­ming from miss­ing evi­dence at the courthouse.

Shawn Gra­ham was arrested last Thurs­day and charged with four felony counts of second-degree theft of prop­erty and five mis­de­meanor counts of inter­fer­ing with judi­cial pro­ceed­ings, accord­ing to the Madi­son County Sheriff’s Office.

Pre­sid­ing Cir­cuit Court Judge Karen Hall stressed Wednes­day that the evi­dence allegedly found in Graham’s pos­ses­sion dates back some 10 years and is not related to any ongo­ing cases.

Gra­ham, who has resigned his posi­tion, was a court reporter under Madi­son County Dis­trict Judge Den­nis O’Dell.

He had worked for recently retired Cir­cuit Judge Loyd Lit­tle for 14 years.

A court reporter tran­scribes a trial record but also han­dles evi­dence intro­duced dur­ing tri­als and trans­ports and pre­serves evi­dence in stor­age after trials.

The charges involve “inap­pro­pri­ate activ­ity regard­ing the cir­cuit court’s evi­dence room,” said sheriff’s Inves­ti­ga­tor Chad Brooks.

“Shawn Gra­ham is a fine man and he is a fine court reporter and I don’t know a sin­gle attor­ney in town who doesn’t like that guy,” Graham’s attor­ney Patrick Tuten said.

Hall said the prob­lem that led to Graham’s arrest was dis­cov­ered dur­ing a cleanup of evi­dence rooms. The cour­t­house has some evi­dence dat­ing back decades that had been the respon­si­bil­ity of now-retired court reporters, Hall said.

Each court reporter is respon­si­ble for evi­dence in the court­room where he or she works, and each has an indi­vid­ual stor­age area that can­not be gen­er­ally accessed. Evi­dence remains in their stor­age area if a case is not appealed. If a case is appealed, the evi­dence becomes the respon­si­bil­ity of the cir­cuit clerk’s office and is stored separately.

Dur­ing the cleanup, the court reporters and the clerk’s office worked together, Hall said. Last week, Cir­cuit Clerk Jane Smith noticed some items miss­ing from her stor­age area, and an inves­ti­ga­tion was requested. Gra­ham was arrested a few days later.

Hall said the judges and cour­t­house staff who know Gra­ham were sad­dened and shocked by the arrest.

“The evi­dence at the Madi­son County Cour­t­house is secure,” Hall said. “Each room has its own sep­a­rate lock, and the poli­cies and pro­ce­dures regard­ing access to those rooms have been revis­ited since Mr. Graham’s arrest.”

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

Press-Register
BYLINE: David Fer­rara
Link to Article

Prichard, AL

This photo taken Fri­day, April 9, 2010, shows a stor­age build­ing at Prichard City Hall in Prichard, Ala. A room at the facil­ity that was recently bro­ken in to was used to store bio­haz­ardous evi­dence for the Prichard Police Depart­ment. The room is believed to be the door to the right of the load­ing ramp. Press-Register/G.M. Andrews

pros­e­cu­tions could be compromised

A recent bur­glary at the Prichard Police Department’s evi­dence stor­age facil­ity could seri­ously dam­age the pros­e­cu­tion of some crim­i­nal cases in the city, accord­ing to one high-ranking state law enforce­ment official.

“There’s a very good pos­si­bil­ity that all the cases that had evi­dence in that par­tic­u­lar stor­age facil­ity could very well be com­pro­mised,” said Wilbur Williams, the head of the Alabama Asso­ci­a­tion of Police Chiefs. “The ram­i­fi­ca­tions of that ran­dom bur­glary could very well be cat­a­strophic in the pros­e­cu­tion of other cases.”

Act­ing Prichard police Chief Jim­mie Gard­ner dis­cov­ered the bur­glary on the morn­ing of March 22. Inves­ti­ga­tors found that at least three bags of evi­dence had been dam­aged, accord­ing to an inci­dent report obtained by the Press-Register.

“It hap­pened under my watch,” Gard­ner said. “I’ve taken mea­sures to make sure that a sit­u­a­tion like this won’t hap­pen in the future.”

Gard­ner said he doubted that the break-in would affect crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tions in the city.

Mobile County Dis­trict Attor­ney John Tyson Jr. said he was unaware of the break-in until con­tacted Fri­day by the Press-Register. He said that his office would have to review the sit­u­a­tion and deter­mine which cases could be affected before know­ing if any of them were compromised.

“There’s absolutely con­cern, espe­cially after you’ve had a break-in,” Tyson said. “We have to main­tain and have this evi­dence secure or we’ll lose every case.”

A vet­eran pros­e­cu­tor, Tyson said this is the first time he can recall a break-in at a police evi­dence room in the county.

Much of the evi­dence kept in the wooden trailer-like build­ing near City Hall con­tained blood stains and DNA sam­ples processed by the Alabama Depart­ment of Foren­sic Sci­ences, and was stored in paper bags and boxes.

No evi­dence appeared to be stolen, accord­ing to the report, but a tiller, pres­sure washer and gen­er­a­tor were taken. Gard­ner said that police have obtained video­tape of some­one try­ing to sell the pres­sure washer at a pawnshop.

The offi­cer who filed the report wrote that he found “sev­eral bags of evi­dence that had been torn open,” although he listed only three. Two were from assault cases, Gard­ner said, adding that he did not know the sta­tus of the crim­i­nal proceedings.

The third and most recent case, for which Gard­ner did not release the alle­ga­tions, had been pre­sented to a grand jury but an indict­ment was not returned.

Gard­ner said the undam­aged evi­dence bags were “not tam­pered with” and were later moved to a room at the Pub­lic Safety Build­ing at 743 Mount Sinai Ave.

There was no alarm sys­tem at the build­ing, and no cam­eras mon­i­tor­ing the evi­dence room, Gard­ner said.

A reporter who walked around the build­ing Fri­day did not see any air con­di­tion­ing unit there.

Gard­ner said that the build­ing was a tem­po­rary stor­age unit, and evi­dence had occa­sion­ally been moved back and forth between there and the Pub­lic Safety Build­ing, a for­mer school.

Williams serves as police chief for a similar-size depart­ment in Andalu­sia. He said what’s known among law enforce­ment as “bio-hazardous” evi­dence is locked up at police head­quar­ters there. A blood­stained shirt, for instance, would be locked in a cab­i­net and acces­si­ble only by unlock­ing three steel doors.

He said the evi­dence in Prichard should have been stored more securely.

“The only thing to con­sider is your abil­ity to go into a court and say that this evi­dence has been pro­tected to make it pure to bring to court today,” Williams said. “And now they can’t do that. Now that the evi­dence has been com­pro­mised, it’s going to be fairly dif­fi­cult for the state of Alabama and the city of Prichard to move for­ward with their evidence.” 

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