Former Ohio death row pris­on­er Kevin Keith (pic­tured) has filed a motion seek­ing a new tri­al to clear his name after evi­dence has emerged of sys­temic bias and errat­ic behav­ior by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) sci­en­tist whose tes­ti­mo­ny helped put him on death row. Keith and James Parsons, who also was con­vict­ed of mur­der and was sen­tenced to a term of 15 years to life in prison, have chal­lenged the work of BCI ana­lyst G. Michele Yezzo, who tes­ti­fied at dozens of tri­als over her 32-year career. Yezzo’s cred­i­bil­i­ty has been ques­tioned by two for­mer Ohio attor­neys gen­er­al, a judge, a for­mer BCI super­in­ten­dent, and an FBI expert. Keith was grant­ed clemen­cy, but not ful­ly exon­er­at­ed, in 2010 after retired FBI expert William Bodziak said Yezzo’s meth­ods and con­clu­sions in his case were base­less, and defense attor­neys pre­sent­ed evi­dence that may impli­cate anoth­er sus­pect. Bodziak said, ​“There is noth­ing to sup­port the con­clu­sions she made, noth­ing at all. If I had been work­ing on that case, I would have point­ed out all those dis­crep­an­cies and would not have made any con­clu­sions. But it appears she was giv­ing inves­ti­ga­tors the con­clu­sions they want­ed, and that’s the real­ly bad part of this case.” Lee Fisher, Ohio’s Attorney General from 1991 to 1995, said, ​“I would call for an inves­ti­ga­tion into every case where her find­ings and con­clu­sions were instru­men­tal in the final result of a case. We have an oblig­a­tion to the integri­ty of the crim­i­nal-jus­tice sys­tem to inves­ti­gate every case. We have to deter­mine whether her find­ings or con­clu­sions were sus­pect.” A review by the Columbus Dispatch of 800 pages of Yezzo’s per­son­nel records dis­closed numer­ous behav­ior prob­lems, includ­ing threat­en­ing fel­low employ­ees, throw­ing a met­al bar at a co-work­er, and using racial slurs against a Black sci­en­tist. She was sus­pend­ed in 1993 as a result of her abu­sive behav­ior, but pros­e­cu­tors con­tin­ued to use her analy­sis of evi­dence in many cas­es with lit­tle over­sight of her meth­ods or con­clu­sions. In Parsons’ mur­der case, is ali­bi that he was at work at an auto repair shop when his wife mur­dered held up for 12 years. Yezzo began inves­ti­gat­ing the case in 1993 and, with­out doc­u­ment­ing her meth­ods or prop­er­ly explain­ing her find­ings to the jury, con­clud­ed that blood pat­terns indi­cat­ed that Parsons’ wife had been killed with a wrench that pros­e­cu­tors claimed belonged to Parsons. He was con­vict­ed and spent 23 years in prison before the Ohio Innocence Project took on his case. Judge Thomas Pokorny dis­missed the mur­der con­vic­tion and released him, say­ing, ​“What has weighed most heav­i­ly on the court’s mind is the tes­ti­mo­ny from Ms. Yezzo’s supe­ri­or that the integri­ty of her analy­sis and con­clu­sions may be sus­pect as she ​‘will stretch the truth to sat­is­fy a department.’ ”

(M. Wagner, J. Riepenhoff, L. Sullivan, and E. Rinehart, ​“Questions about ex-BCI sci­en­tist may cast doubt on con­vic­tions,” The Columbus Dispatch, October 30, 2016.) See Innocence.

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