June 7 TEXAS: HAVING A LOOK----Perjury probe of former DNA lab chief is progress Employees of the Houston Police Department crime lab claim they pleaded with high-ranking city officials for help in resolving wide-ranging problems with the analysis of evidence. Yet it appears they had no qualms about testifying in criminal trials about the accuracy of their findings - even when their conclusions in some cases were questionable or off the mark. The public is right to wonder why no crime lab analysts have been prosecuted for possible perjury. A judge's decision June 1 to open a court of inquiry into whether the lab's former director committed perjury represents a fresh opportunity to examine the culpability of those who swore under oath that their DNA, toxicology and other evidential determinations were sound. All Harris County knows now that, behind the scenes, water was leaking into the lab; evidence was improperly stored and in risk of contamination; analysts were improperly trained; and professional protocols were not followed. The grant of a rare court of inquiry and finding of probable cause by state District Judge Jan Krocker has a less than lofty goal. It merely sets out to find whether Jim Bolding, who retired last summer from his position as DNA lab director to avoid being fired, perjured himself by testifying at a 2002 trial that he had a doctoral degree. That charge hardly goes to the meat of the matter, which is whether crime lab analysts or prosecutors are criminally culpable for not pointing out in court or to defense attorneys all the ways the evidence they were brandishing might have been flawed. Prosecutors in the district attorney's office say they were aware that the crime lab analysts bore a heavy work load but did not know the evidence and testimony might not be reliable. If true, prosecutors should be less forgiving now of the shoddy lab work and misbegotten testimony. There should be at least an official accounting to the public concerning what duty analysts have to disclose at trial the deplorable laboratory conditions that could make accurate assessments improbable, if not impossible. The lab's DNA section has been shuttered since 2002. Hundreds of DNA samples from the lab are being retested. Problems are apparent in approximately 20 percent of the retests, although only one person has been released and pardoned as a result of the retests. Harris County prosecutors say the court reporter's transcript of Bolding's testimony is wrong. The fact that the reporter's notes have Bolding claiming to have received a doctorate in "bayou chemistry" rather than biochemistry no doubt will be used to create doubts about the transcript's overall accuracy. It remains to be seen whether any lab technician will be investigated for the far more serious transgression of offering evidence known to be flawed in order to secure guilty pleas or guilty verdicts convicting people who might have been innocent of the crime they were accused of committing. Josiah Sutton was wrongly convicted of rape and imprisoned for more than four years because of faulty DNA analysis. He was released and eventually pardoned for innocence. As his case illustrates, offering bad evidence as good can culminate in appalling miscarriages of justice. (source: Houston Chronicle, Editorial) USA: Verdict goes in favor of 'The Jury' Exactly why Tom Fontana and Barry Levinson have created a drama about what happens in jury deliberations is evident in the second episode of the intriguing new Fox series The Jury. A young man wonders aloud who will play him in the movie version of the trial: "I'm thinking Brad Pitt," he says without hint of sarcasm. Or ego, for that matter. Jurors, like defendants and lawyers before them, have emerged as the new pop stars -- ordinary folk sucked into extraordinary situations, like big murder trials. Once a silent entity not seen or heard outside the courtroom, jurors now give press conferences and end up on CNN explaining their deliberations blow-by-blow. So Fontana and Levinson, whose Homicide: Life on the Street took viewers inside a police precinct in Baltimore and whose Oz fictionalized the brutality of living behind prison walls, are betting that the jury room will illuminate a sacred and therefore little-known process. And also produce a weekly 12 Angry Men. This is the series David E. Kelley would have (should have) made if he weren't so fascinated with the actual trial process. Viewers see scenes leading up to the crime and parts of the testimony unfold as jurors, sitting in a locked, stifling room, discuss and mostly argue the issues of the case. In Tuesday's pilot, a 15-year-old boy is on trial in the killing a school rival. The defendant and two friends were across the street on a rooftop celebrating New Year's Eve. One of them fired a gun, and the bullet ended up killing the rival in his bedroom. Was the shooting malicious? Did the defendant fire the shot that killed the boy? A second episode revolves around a girl who is found dead, her boyfriend standing over her. Was it a planned double suicide that he failed to carry out, as he claims? Or did he murder her? Because each trial will have a different jury (the lawyers are interchanged among a handful of young, attractive attorneys) what transpires in the jury room will have a lot to do with the success of the series. The Jury unfolds like any other law-and-order drama on any other network -- with a dead body. Levinson, playing the judge, gives the jurors their final instructions and off they go. Talky but fast-paced, the action cuts from courtroom testimony to jury deliberations to the actual events leading up to the trial. Along the way, the series aims to be complex in the kind of moral relativism for which Kelley became famous. When a juror in the 1st episode insists the 15-year-old is innocent, another juror suggests she's backing the defendant because he, like her, is Hispanic. "It might be hard for you to admit that one of your kind could be the cause of so much tragedy," she says, as though she is actually offering comforting words. "Your kind?" is all she could say before leaving in tears. Religion, class and almost any other powder-keg issue will probably be addressed in The Jury. As one woman says, "We just have different ideas of right." Which is scary when you think that jurors hold in their hands life-altering decisions. As the show suggests, not all jurors base their judgments on the evidence. Prejudice and media saturation are a presence in the jury chambers. What gives The Jury added weight is its ending, in which viewers find out whether the jurors got it right. Following each verdict, the crime is played out as it really happened. Surely, any mistakes will be unwelcomed by a justice system that rarely admits to its flaws. Even in a fictionalized series like this one, seeing an innocent person go to jail will provoke debate on the system in general but, I bet, the death penalty in particular. The Jury 7 p.m. Tuesday KDFW/Channel 4 GRADE: C (source : Fort Worth Star-Telegram) OKLAHOMA: Defense opens case for life in prison at Nichols' murder trial Defense attorneys opened their case Monday to keep Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols off death row, displaying childhood photos that show him goofing off with his brothers, cradling his baby niece and feeding a pet deer on his family's farm. Nichols' oldest brother, Leslie Nichols, and younger sister, Suzanne McDonnell, were the 1st 2 defense witnesses to testify in the penalty phase of the trial. They recalled a happy childhood growing up with Nichols in a tiny wood-frame house in Michigan and described their brother as a gracious, hard-working farm kid. Nichols, 49, wept quietly at the defense table and wiped tears from his eyes as his brother described an accident in 1974 in which a fuel tank exploded and caused 3rd-degree burns over 70% of Leslie Nichols' body, badly disfiguring his face and head. Leslie Nichols, who spoke softly and became emotional on the witness stand, said his brother offered to give him skin grafts from his own body following the accident. Nichols was found guilty on 160 state murder charges on May 26, and prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. But defense attorneys hope to persuade the 12-member jury to sentence him to life in prison for the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building. Nichols is already serving a life sentence on federal convictions for the deaths of 8 federal law enforcement officers in the blast, which killed 168 people. In court Monday, defense attorneys projected a photograph of Terry Nichols when he was about 10 years old and his other brother, James Nichols, standing on their heads in the family home. "He was a monkey," Leslie Nichols said, prompting jurors to smile and nod. Another photograph showed Nichols riding a unicycle on a country road near his home. The defense also showed pictures of Nichols feeding a pet deer and owl. Others depicted a smiling Nichols holding McDonnell's infant daughter, and at family Christmas parties. McDonnell said she has stayed in touch with her brother since he was arrested shortly after the bombing. She said he became more religious after being transferred from a federal prison in Colorado to Oklahoma in 2000 to face the state murder charges. "He definitely talked about God more," she said as Nichols' mother listened from the gallery. "He's grown. We've all grown." Among other things, defense attorneys will ask jurors to consider that Nichols believes in God and shows "a great chance for redemption" if they spare him the death penalty. Prosecutors wrapped up their case Thursday following three days of emotional testimony from survivors of the blast and members of victims' families. A total of 65 witnesses testified for prosecutors in the sentencing phase. The defense case is expected to last 2 days, and jurors could begin deliberating a sentence by Wednesday. (source: Associated Press)
