A recent four-part series in the Denver Post about evi­dence in crim­i­nal cas­es detailed how police depart­ments across the U.S. store and dis­pose of cru­cial bio­log­i­cal evi­dence. The Post exam­ined 10 states in which author­i­ties destroyed bio­log­i­cal evi­dence in near­ly 6,000 rape and mur­der cas­es dur­ing the past decade. The inves­ti­ga­tion also revealed that over the past 30 years, destruc­tion of DNA evi­dence in 28 states has under­mined efforts by at least 141 pris­on­ers to prove their inno­cence.

Of the 30 police depart­ments nation­wide sur­veyed by the paper, 70% said that they faced ​“high­ly crit­i­cal” evi­dence stor­age prob­lems. Even so, the Post dis­cov­ered that few juris­dic­tions have pri­or­i­tized the cre­ation of ade­quate sys­tems to track and store evi­dence in crim­i­nal cas­es. The prob­lem has led to great frus­tra­tions among attor­neys and clerks who are charged with pro­tect­ing evi­dence. In North Carolina, Superior Court clerk Al Jean Bogle was shocked to dis­cov­er that bio­log­i­cal evi­dence that could have led to the exon­er­a­tion of inmate Willie Grimes had been destroyed in an effort to make room for more evi­dence. Grimes, a 60-year-old man who is recov­er­ing from can­cer, was con­vict­ed near­ly two decades ago based on expert hair analy­sis tes­ti­mo­ny that has now been debunked by many as junk sci­ence. Though new DNA tech­nol­o­gy could con­firm or refute the expert’s con­clu­sions, the hairs, the vic­tim’s under­wear, and a rape evi­dence kit from the case were all destroyed in 1990 by Bogle’s pre­de­ces­sor. ​“I’ve been clerk for almost eight years. We’ve got four truck tires in the evi­dence room. We’ve got bales of mar­i­jua­na that have been in there since I became clerk. And Mr. Grimes’ evi­dence, evi­dence in a life case, is gone. I hate it,” Bogle said. In Florida, sim­i­lar stor­age space short­ages have led Union County offi­cials to pile evi­dence in bath­rooms that are still in use. In New Orleans, defense attor­ney Ava de Montagne was forced to get a court order to search the city cour­t­house­’s attic stor­age unit for rape kits she hoped would exon­er­ate some of her clients. After de Montagne final­ly locat­ed the kits and placed them in the cour­t­house­’s base­ment vault for safe keep­ing, Hurricane Katrina flood­ed the city and destroyed the cru­cial DNA evi­dence.

Though the paper chron­i­cled a num­ber of sim­i­lar sto­ries detail­ing the mis­man­age­ment of bio­log­i­cal evi­dence, the Post also offered praise for depart­ments who are work­ing to appro­pri­ate­ly han­dle the evi­dence cri­sis. It not­ed that the Dallas Police Department has been pre­serv­ing DNA evi­dence spec­i­mens since the 1970s, and the prac­tice has led the depart­ment to achieve suc­cess in track­ing down cul­prits in decades-old crimes. The paper also not­ed that the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department in North Carolina has great­ly improved its evi­dence stor­age prac­tices after a string of wrong­ful con­vic­tion cas­es in the state. The depart­ment now freezes bio­log­i­cal spec­i­mens such as cloth­ing cut­tings and rape kits, and it takes the ini­tia­tive to noti­fy pris­on­ers when it finds DNA evi­dence for pos­si­ble appeals.

Former FBI Director William Sessions not­ed the impor­tance of prop­er­ly stor­ing and track­ing bio­log­i­cal evi­dence, stat­ing, ​“The point is that DNA needs to be saved. Justice rides on it.”

(Denver Post, July 23, 2007). See Innocence. Read the arti­cle. Read the series.

Tags
Citation Guide