August 29 TEXAS: Losing credibility----Every new report of HPD evidence bungling strengthens case for independent inquiry Houston police officials found a stash of evidence dating back 25 years moldering in disintegrating boxes in the department's property room. That might have been a passing matter worthy of admonishment. Police officials failed to properly catalog and store evidence from resolved cases. However, the countless unsolved crimes in Harris County, including murders, kidnappings, sexual assaults and other violent crimes - plus the mounting number of cases in which shoddy lab analysis led to a miscarriage of justice - make the sloppy handling of evidence intolerable. Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt said last week that 280 mislabeled boxes were found fully a year ago. No one bothered to look inside any of them until this month. That is strange, considering that the HPD crime lab scandal was in full bloom, casting doubt on hundreds of criminal convictions. So far, the crime lab's faults have required DNA retests in 379 criminal cases. Twenty of those are in limbo because police haven't been able to locate the original evidence. HPD officials say there could be evidence from as many as 8,000 cases spanning 1979 to 1991 crammed into the dusty cartons. If police didn't know where the boxes were or what they contained, the integrity of the evidence itself might have been compromised. Any passing soul could have tampered with it. The revelation prompted Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal to change his steadfast resistance to an independent inquiry into possible miscarriages of justice. Rosenthal long insisted that his office was uniquely suited to sorting out the mess. He was mistaken. Chief Hurtt, a recent appointment from outside the department, cannot be blamed for problems that occurred on other watches. He has every motive to determine the scope of the mess, then clean house. By all accounts, he has been refreshingly forthcoming with details about the problems and measures he and his staff are taking to correct them. It is now common knowledge that HPD had few controls to ensure that its lab was fit to analyze evidence used to convict the defendants and send them to prison. Sometimes the sentence was for life; sometimes the defendant wound up on death row. It is apparent now, too, that HPD lacked protocols for finding evidence for reconsideration late in appeals or for picking up the threads of an investigation in unsolved cases. Nor were these boxed and misplaced body parts, bits of clothing and other items on hand for retesting when more sophisticated methods were developed. Each new chapter of Police Department disarray and disregard for sound criminal investigation further weakens the public trust in the criminal justice process and strengthens the case for opening an independent investigation to set wrongs to right. (source: Editorial, Houston Chronicle, Aug. 28) INDIANA: 'Poster boy for the death penalty' tough to defend----Urdiales' confessed to killings spanning 10 years. Appellate defenders face a daunting task in saving the life of convicted serial killer Andrew Urdiales, 39, of Chicago's Southeast Side. Urdiales, a former Marine and security guard, has confessed to murdering eight women and raping and abducting a ninth over a 10-year span in Illinois and California. California police recorded his confessions to crimes in their state. On those audio tapes, the Gulf War veteran provides gruesome details of several murders, most of the time sounding very calm and composed as he speaks. In May, a Livingston County jury became the second in two years to recommend the death penalty for Urdiales. On Aug. 17, a judge formally sentenced him to die for killing Cassie Corum, 21, of Hammond in July 1996. In 2002, Urdiales was convicted of killing Laura Uylaki, 25, of Hammond and Lynn Huber, 22, of Chicago. He was sentenced to death for both murders but former Gov. George Ryan commuted the sentence to life in prison. Prosecutors have called Urdiales the "poster boy for the death penalty," arguing his 2002 defense of insanity and his 2004 plea of guilty but mentally ill were simply ploys for escaping the death penalty. However, public defenders and two court-appointed defense attorneys argued the slight, balding man suffers from a variety of mental and personality disorders triggered at least in part by extraordinary childhood trauma. Among the claims are repeated allegations that one of his sisters had sex with him at about age 10. To complicate what became the cornerstone of his 2004 defense, Urdiales has since denied the claim. A defense expert says Urdiales did so because the allegation divided his family and turned many members against him. A state expert said his denial questions the validity of the claim. A key to the appeal may be Livingston County Judge Harold Frobish's decision to reject Urdiales' plea of guilty but mentally ill. Such a plea permits the death penalty, but ostensibly makes a jury less likely to administer it. Defense attorneys initially argued with Frobish over what standards would be used to determine if Urdiales is guilty but mentally ill. Charles Schiedel, the state appellate defender who will supervise the appeal, has indicated the verdict could be the focus of his office's argument. The defender's Supreme Court unit will review the case records before deciding. "There could be an argument that the judge should have accepted the plea," Schiedel said. "But it's really hard to say at this point, because we only know what the newspapers and trial attorneys have said." (source: Northwest Indiana Times) ARIZONA: Prosecutors: Crime shows blur reality----'CSI effect' is raising juries' proof standards Prosecutors in Arizona and throughout the nation say they are facing a new adversary in the courtroom: unrealistic jury expectations spawned by glitzy television shows about police forensics. Prosecutors have dubbed it "the CSI effect," referring to the CBS show CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and its spinoffs. The ratings for the original make it the nation's No. 1 drama, with 26 million viewers a week. Thanks to the shows, some prosecutors fear, jurors are setting some guilty defendants free with unreasonable expectations fueled by television's skewed depiction of reality. Suzanne Cohen, deputy Maricopa County attorney, says jurors "should expect law enforcement to do their job." But, she adds, "Television has put unrealistic expectations on what we can do with technology." Prosecutors don't have studies or numbers to back it up, but they cite examples of cases where anticipated guilty verdicts turned into surprising acquittals, or where jurors demonstrated an unrealistic expectation for forensics. "We had one jury that acquitted the defendant because they wanted a videotape of the crime," an aggravated assault inside a Tempe restaurant, Cohen said. Recent cases they cite to make the point: - Jurors in Maricopa County Superior Court in Mesa this summer acquitted a defendant in a Tempe commercial burglary case. A witness testified about spotting him and another man dragging out a stereo, and police arrested the defendant a few minutes later with burglary tools in his car. But jurors told prosecutors after the trial that the police "didn't do enough" while investigating the case and needed to find the defendant's fingerprints inside the building. - Phoenix police officers approached a group of people standing in an empty lot two years ago and said they saw a man drop a plastic bag containing illegal drugs. Latent fingerprints were never submitted because two officers said they saw the man ditch the drugs and prosecutors thought that was sufficient. Jurors disagreed, acquitting the defendant. They later told prosecutors they wanted the prints. - A Tempe convenience-store clerk identified an accused armed robber who used a pellet gun in the robbery last year. A 2nd witness saw the suspect run out the store. Jurors could not reach a verdict, telling prosecutors after the trial that police should have tested a soda bottle the defendant left on the store counter for DNA. The defendant eventually pleaded guilty. The subject has even come up in the Laci Peterson murder trial in Redwood City, Calif. While the state is basing much of its case on circumstantial evidence, legal experts are saying TV-savvy jurors might not be satisfied. "Nobody who watches CSI regularly will vote to convict, because there's no physical evidence there," Loyola (Calif.) Law School Professor Stan Goldman told People magazine last week. "The risk is when reality and fiction blur, and people have an expectation," said Josh Marquis, the Astoria, Ore., district attorney and a member of the National District Attorneys Association, which is concerned about the emerging trend. "We're trying to bring a reality check to jurors." Marquis said it's not just potential jurors who are watching. "I know that the defendants have been bragging in the jail because they know all about forensic science because they've been watching on TV," he said. While forensic evidence is important, Cohen said, the absence of DNA or fingerprints doesn't mean a defendant is innocent. "We don't always have physical evidence. More often than not, we don't," Cohen said. "More often than not, we have eyewitness and circumstantial evidence." But defense attorney Greg Parzych, president of Arizona Attorneys for Criminal Justice, said there's nothing wrong with higher expectations for evidence when the stakes are whether to deprive defendants of their freedom or their lives. "If juries are demanding more evidence, then the fault lies in the evidence the state is presenting, not a television show," Parzych said. "I think it's important to know what could have been done and what hasn't been done." Francis Scanlon, 70, of Scottsdale, who has never served on a jury, said he would expect forensic evidence in any serious case. "I would be very reluctant to put someone on death row without DNA evidence," he said. David Broyles of Peoria, who has been called as a juror 6 times but never selected, said he realizes the shows are entertainment and aren't realistic, but he'd still expect forensic evidence. "You would like to see that type of evidence. It shows somebody is doing their job right," he said. Forensic, or physical, evidence usually includes DNA, fingerprints, the matching of bullets to a murder weapon, imprints of a suspect's shoes or any other samples that can tie a suspect to a crime scene. The CSI shows, set in Las Vegas and Miami, follow the exploits of crime-lab technicians as they investigate violent crimes and identify criminals with forensic evidence. "Everybody wants to find a 'gotcha.' It's human nature," Marquis said. But Marquis said irrefutable physical evidence often is not available. "In 90 percent of cases, forensic science doesn't solve the crime. At best, it might corroborate one fact," he said. Tony Novitsky, deputy Maricopa County attorney and chief of the major felony division, said jurors who watch forensic television shows shouldn't hold prosecutors to a standard that exceeds the law. "It's proof beyond reasonable doubt, not scientific doubt," he said. Novitsky said Valley prosecutors are trying to blunt the expectation for extensive physical evidence in all cases by presenting experts to explain why fingerprints or DNA samples aren't unavailable. Cohen, a veteran sex crimes prosecutor, said she asked potential jurors during jury selection in a recent trial if they would be influenced by a CSI episode a few days earlier that presented misleading information about child molestation. She was relieved when jurors said they hadn't seen the show. "I had to question them if they were going to hold us to the reasonable doubt burden (of proof) or the CSI burden," he said. Cohen said the unusual acquittals seem to occur most often on routine cases, such as burglaries and car thefts, not high-profile murder and sex-crime cases. Because of constraints on resources, including a considerable backlog at crime labs, cases must be prioritized and every possible piece of evidence cannot be examined, Novitsky said. "We do what we have to do to prove every case," Novitsky said, but he acknowledges jurors are demanding more forensic evidence. "It's a big issue in the law enforcement community. We have to beef up the labs," he said. "We can't be sloppy about forensics and lab work. The people expect it." Police say Arizona crime labs are overburdened and struggle to meet demand. Todd Griffith, state scientific analysis superintendent, said there's a backlog of 500 requests for DNA evidence in state Department of Public Safety crime labs and the average wait is 3 to 4 months. Sgt. Lauri Williams, a Phoenix police spokeswoman, said there are 1,757 potential DNA samples awaiting testing in her lab. (source: The Arizona Republic) VIRGINIA: A letter to Jerry Falwell Dear Rev. Falwell: Hope this note finds you well and happy. I see you on CNN and MSNBC once in a while. You're obviously prosperous. Say, have you heard of that Atkins Diet craze? You might want to look into that. Sir, the reason I write is to congratulate you on your new law school. As I understand it, you're going to turn out conservative lawyers with Judeo-Christian values. Did I get that right? Is that the gig? Good for you. It's about time some of these liberal heathen lawyers got their comeuppance. I think I know exactly what you're striving for, and I've been trying to explain the need for just such an outfit as the one you've opened to some of the riffraff I hang with. But you know how wicked lawyers twist stuff around. I'd be much obliged if you could give me a little ammo to use against them. And, hey, while we're at it, let's just start with ammo. Conservatives believe in guns, mostly for self-defense, self-protection and so on. You never know when somebody's going to start something. But what about Jesus' admonition in the Book of Matthew? "But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also." Jesus didn't say nothing about pulling out your piece. Which way will your lawyers go on that one? They going to argue the Second Amendment or the biblical duty to get slapped twice? Conservatives generally support the death penalty. They are pretty much a hard law-and-order kinda crowd. But Jesus said, "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." You with the mercy crowd or the law crowd on that one? Hey, I know you know these lines like the back of your hand. I'm just pointing out a few things that give me a little trouble when I use the words "lawyer, conservative and Christian" in the same sentence. Conservatives believe in a strong national defense and an America-first foreign policy. Hey, I'm for that, too. Here's what Jesus said: "Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you." What's with that? You reckon Jesus may have been a liberal? Maybe run that one by Rumsfeld the next time you talk to him. Get his take on it. I know one thing. I'm for Jesus to the max, but I don't want to be paying a lawyer to stand up in court with me if all he's going to do is bless the scumbag who stole my hubcaps. Is that what you're going to teach your folks to do? And what about my coat? Jesus said, "If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also." I wouldn't recommend your lawyers trying that line on a good, gun-toting conservative. Especially if it's cold out. Especially if it is a new coat. You might want to skip some of that "pray for 'em" stuff when you get your classes going good. And Reverend, you might want to skip this part, too - it is inspired, world-class advice, but I doubt it will fit what you're trying to do - so much of what Jesus said wouldn't: "Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are on the way with him, lest your adversary deliver you to the judge, the judge hand you over to the officer, and you be thrown into prison." Who needs a lawyer like that? All best. BKD (source: Daily Press (Barnie Day is a former Democratic delegate representing Patrick County.)
