June 25 VIRGINIA: Va. DNA Review Will Continue Long-Distance A Virginia judge leading a review of cases involving DNA evidence said the experts conducting the analysis will continue to study the crime lab files from their respective homes across the country and share their observations with one another by e-mails, conference calls and individual phone conversations. "What we needed to do when we started was to get what we needed from the lab and then get back to our families and our other jobs and complete this in a more deliberate fashion and not rush to judgment," said State Court of Appeals Judge Robert J. Humphreys, who was selected by Gov. Mark R. Warner (D) to be special master of the review. He said the team concluded its work in Richmond last week by randomly selecting dozens of files from the state Division of Forensic Science, in some cases copying documents, photographs and talking with the lab's forensic scientists and their supervisors. "Whatever the scientists thought was appropriate to take from the files -- if they felt it was important to take a copy of various documents -- they did that," Humphreys said. "They had completed the things they needed to do in Richmond . . . and they didn't see the need to get together again." The review of the cases does not involve the testing or retesting of DNA. The five scientists, who were selected by Humphreys, include a molecular biologist from Texas and police forensic experts from Indiana and Pennsylvania. The analysis includes all Virginia death penalty cases since 1994 that relied on DNA as well a portion of cases handled by each of the state forensic lab's several dozen DNA examiners. A court clerk for Humphreys said Wednesday that the study of the cases had been completed and that scientists now had to write reports based on their review. Humphreys expanded on those remarks, saying that the team of experts was moving on to another phase of the review, one that will not take place at the actual lab. The scientists eventually will present written reports to Humphreys, who will present them to Warner. Humphreys said the team did not have a deadline to complete its work. Peter Neufeld, co-director of the Innocence Project, said he was pleased that the experts are continuing their review. "I'm relieved to learn that they have merely copied the files at this point and that the actual review of files, slides and physical evidence has not . . . been completed," he said in an interview. The review was prompted by an audit of the Virginia lab's role in the case of Earl Washington Jr., a former death row inmate who spent 17 years in prison before he was pardoned in 2000. In its study, the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors concluded that a chief scientist failed to follow proper procedure when testing a piece of evidence in Washington's case and that his analysis of that evidence was wrong. Humphreys said that the scientists did complete one case last week: that of Robin M. Lovitt, an inmate on death row who is scheduled to be executed July 11. State officials have said that other evidence was used to convict Lovitt and that it does not consider Lovitt's conviction a DNA case. "The preliminary indication from the review team is that that case was handled correctly," said Ellen Qualls, Warner's director of communications. Humphreys said that it was unclear how long the next step in the review would take. "My impression from speaking to the scientists is that one size does not fit all in terms of the time it takes to review these things," he said. "My understanding is that no two cases that are studied are exactly alike." (source: Washington Post) CALIFORNIA: Sentencing hearing underway after Marcus Wesson tries to fire attorneys The only fitting punishment for Marcus Wesson's slaughter of his children - some of them children he had with his own daughters - is death, the prosecution argued during Friday's sentencing hearing after Wesson unsuccessfully tried to fire his attorneys. "I'm asking you to return a verdict of death on each count, on all 9 counts, of murder this man perpetrated on his children," prosecutor Lisa Gamoian said, calling Wesson a "master manipulator" whose sexual, financial and emotional exploitation of his children culminated in their execution. Gamoian's final address to the jurors was interrupted for about 20 minutes when Wesson tried to fire his attorneys. "Your honor, my lawyers are fired," Wesson told Judge R.L. Putnam. He then requested a Marsden hearing, which would enable him to explain directly to the judge any concerns he had with his counsel. Hearing Wesson's request, Putnam quickly cleared the courtroom. But after the break, the jurors and the public - including family members who continue to support Wesson, like his wife Elizabeth Wesson and his son Almae Wesson - were allowed to file back in, and the prosecutor began her final address. "If you have any sympathy for the defendant, think about the sympathy he showed to his children on March 12," Gamoian said. "Think about the compassion he showed each of his children while he was systematically directing their death." As Gamoian spoke, the defendant's attorneys, Pete Jones and Ralph Torres, remained seated next to their client. Putnam had denied Wesson's request for new lawyers. David Mugridge, a Fresno attorney who has been following the case, said Wesson's request was his "his final opportunity to say, 'I'm not happy with my attorneys, with what's going on.'" Though the judge must give the defendant a Marsden hearing when its requested, it's very unusual for a judge to grant new counsel, Mugridge said. Defense attorneys did not have a chance to speak to the jurors on Friday because one juror got sick during the lunch break, and had to leave for the day. "She was extremely ill, and had to be sent home," one of the bailiffs told the judge. Putnam then dismissed the jurors, and asked them to return on Monday. After a grueling 4-month trial in which jurors heard about the pattern of sexual abuse that several young women - Wesson's daughters and nieces - suffered while growing up in the defendant's home, and saw photos of 9 victims and the bloody murder scene, they found Wesson guilty on all 9 counts of murder, and 14 counts of sexual abuse. "He completely controlled their bodies, their hopes and their dreams," Gamoian told jurors in her closing argument. "Life truly is a gift - far more than he afforded a whole generation of children, his own offspring. Don't give him the gift of life. He doesn't deserve it." On Thursday, the jurors heard Wesson's sister, Cheryl Penton, describe the hardships the four siblings suffered as children growing up with an alcoholic father who led the family in several moves around the country while holding odd jobs and disappearing for long stretches of time. Penton tried to paint a sympathetic picture of her brother, describing him as someone who took in stray dogs as a young boy, caring for them and nursing them back to health. Her calm, steady voice broke into sobs when the judge reminded her Wesson was facing death, or life without parole. She told jurors that if her brother's life was spared, she intended to stay in touch with him "until I die." Now, the jury must decide whether Wesson should spend life in prison without parole, or if he should die by lethal injection for his crimes. The sentencing will bring closure to the most gruesome murder case seen in this agricultural town in the heart of California's rural Central Valley. The sight of the 9 bodies piled and tangled with bloody clothes in a corner of the Wesson home shocked even the veteran law officers who found them on March 12, 2004. Officers were called to the Wesson household on the day of the murders by 2 of Wesson's nieces - young women raised by the defendant who had children with him after years of sexual abuse that escalated from touching when they were children to intercourse years later. Sofina Solorio and Ruby Ortiz returned to the home they had escaped to get the children they'd been forced to leave behind. When Wesson refused to cooperate, the family began fighting, and called the police. A standoff ensued in which Wesson ducked into a back bedroom, and police officers remained outside, trying to talk him into surrendering. When the defendant walked out, he had his children's blood spattered on his shirt and on his thighs. Police walked in, and found the victims - 7 children ages 1 through 9, a 17-year-old teenager, and a 25-year-old woman. They had all been shot in the eye. The defense will speak to the jurors for the last time on Monday, asking them to spare the defendant's life. (source: Associated Press) ************************ DNA leads to suspect in slaying ---- Inmate in Texas linked to sweat on cap left in car The sweat left in a blue paisley cap led Santa Clara County investigators to the alleged killer of a Palo Alto attorney who was stabbed to death at an ATM just weeks after her 1988 wedding, prosecutors said Thursday. Santa Clara County Assistant District Attorney Karyn Sinunu, who like other prosecutors knew and admired the slain defense attorney, Gretchen Burford, choked up during a news conference as she expressed pride over the multi-agency teamwork that solved the 17-year-old killing that "has haunted our office." "Gretchen had a huge heart, and she believed that there was a little bit of good in everyone, and she always fought for that," Sinunu said. Sinunu credited the breakthrough in the filing of murder charges against Tyrone Hamel, 39, to the determined collaboration by the district attorney's new "cold-case" unit, Mountain View police and county crime lab scientists. Prosecutors will extradite Hamel, who is serving a life sentence in Texas for 2 1988 rape-robbery crimes, to California where he could face the death penalty if convicted in Burford's slaying. "The message that we're sending to the community today is we will not forget our cold cases, and we will continue to work them," said Sinunu. Burford's three surviving children, Maureen, Peter and Martha Burford, issued a statement Thursday lauding prosecutors, investigators and crime-lab experts "for their vigilance in keeping this case alive." "We grieve our mother's death anew, yet with the hope that these charges will result in no one else having to experience the horror our mother endured on the afternoon of Feb. 26, 1988," the Burford family said. About 6 p.m. on that date, the 49-year-old Burford, who had wed for the 2nd time 2 weeks earlier, got out of her car at a Palo Alto bank to make an automatic teller deposit on the way home. Investigators believe she was abducted by a man armed with a 12-inch butcher knife who may have hid in her car, according to Charles Constantinides, a veteran homicide prosecutor who heads the district attorney's new cold-case unit. The man forced Burford to drive to a Wells Fargo bank near the San Antonio Shopping Center in Mountain View and attempt to make a withdrawal from a drive-through ATM. But when Burford tried to withdraw too much money, the ATM denied the transaction. The assailant stabbed Burford in the side of her chest, and she accelerated her car with the attacker still in it onto busy El Camino Real, where the vehicle jumped the median and collided with a southbound car. "Gretchen staggered out of her car, collapsed and died," Constantinides said. Her killer "took off running down a side street ... dropping the knife as he goes,'' he added. Inside the car, investigators found what became the crucial clue -- the blue paisley cap that apparently was knocked off the killer during the crash. While police investigated the case for years, and even had it featured on the "Unsolved Mysteries" TV show, they always hit a dead end. But early this year, Constantinides and district attorney cold-case investigator Mike Schembri dusted off the Burford file, while advances in forensic science found a genetic match on the sweat from the cap in the FBI's DNA database. The investigation led to Hamel, who was required to provide Texas authorities with a DNA sample because of his rape-robbery convictions there, Constantinides said. Prosecutors credited Schembri, whose is renowned for solving several high- profile cold cases, with doing the traditional sleuthing that placed Hamel on the Peninsula at the time of the killing and, two weeks later, a similar kidnapping attempt at a Mountain View bank ATM, across the street from the scene of Burford's murder. That abduction was thwarted when a woman returning to her car spotted a man hiding inside, Schembri wrote in court documents supporting the murder charge against Hamel. In his haste to flee, the man dropped a knife similar to the one used to kill Burford in the car. Schembri learned that Hamel had been convicted of a nearly identical 1985 robbery in Fort Worth, Texas, where he pulled a knife on a woman in a parking lot and forced her into her car. After his release from prison, Hamel drove west with two half-sisters in February 1988 to attend a family funeral in Menlo Park -- right next door to Palo Alto where Burford was abducted, according to court documents. An eyewitness has identified Hamel as the passenger in Burford's car at the drive-up ATM where the killing occurred, according to records. (source: San Francisco Chronicle) OHIO: Ohio won't let Richey be moved to area jail An attempt to move Kenny Richey from death row to the Putnam County jail failed yesterday after the state rejected a request by Richey's attorney for the transfer. The attorney, Ken Parsigian, of Goodwin Procter in Boston, said he will file a court petition Monday in an effort to nullify yesterday's decision, which was spelled out in a letter written to Mr. Parsigian by Michael Collyer, an assistant state attorney general. On Jan. 25, the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Richey's conviction in the 1986 death by fire of 2-year-old Cynthia Collins, of Columbus Grove, Ohio. On June 3, a U.S. District Court judge in Cleveland, acting on the appellate court decision, ordered the state to retry Richey within 90 days or set him free. Since that ruling, Mr. Parsigian has been trying to get Richey transferred to Putnam County, where he was first tried 19 years ago. In his letter on Thursday to Margaret Bradshaw, warden of the Mansfield Correctional Institution, Mr. Parsigian argued that under Ohio law once a conviction has been overturned and the state is considering whether to retry the prisoner, the inmate should be moved to the jail in the jurisdiction where a new trial might take place. "Nearly 3 weeks have passed since the order, and Mr. Richey still has not been transferred," Mr. Parsigian wrote. But in his response, Mr. Collyer argued that Mr. Parsigian misinterpreted the state's procedure in such matters and that the federal court does not have the authority to transfer a prisoner from one facility to another. Additionally, Mr. Parsigian has been arguing that under the ruling by the judge in Cleveland, the state has 90 days in which to complete its retrial of the 41-year-old Richey, should it decided to do so, or release him. Mr. Collyer argued that the 90-day deadline is flexible. "The federal court may extend the time period for retrial if good cause for the delay is shown, the delay is brief, and the delay will not prejudice the petitioner's ability to present a defense at the new proceeding," Mr. Collyer wrote to Mr. Parsigian. State officials have said the 90-day deadline is not realistic and that they believe if they begin pretrial proceedings, the deadline will be extended. Mr. Parsigian has said he will challenge that theory in court as well. The impasse between the Richey camp and the state will become more settled on Thursday when Putnam County Prosecutor Gary Lammers will announce whether he will order Richey to stand trial again. If he declines to do so, Richey could be released in about 7 days if Mr. Lammers takes the appropriate steps, prison officials said. Otherwise, Mr. Parsigian said he will continue his fight to get Richey moved to Putnam County and to resolve the court-mandated deadline issue. The deadline expires Sept. 3. (source: Toledo Blade)
