Orange County, California Crime Lab Accused of Doctoring Murder Testimony to Help Prosecutors

The Orange County, California Crime Lab has been accused of doc­tor­ing its tes­ti­mo­ny about DNA evi­dence to favor the pros­e­cu­tion, after a senior foren­sic ana­lyst offered con­flict­ing con­clu­sions that bol­stered the pros­e­cu­tion in two sep­a­rate murder cases. 

A motion filed on September 23 by the Orange County Public Defender’s office says pros­e­cu­tor Kevin Haskins (now a judge) pre­sent­ed tes­ti­mo­ny from Senior Forensic Scientist Mary Hong in the 2008 cap­i­tal mur­der pros­e­cu­tion of Lynn Dean Johnson claim­ing that the recov­ery of low quan­ti­ties of semen from the vic­tim’s body meant that the DNA had been deposit­ed ​“zero to 24 hours” before it was col­lect­ed by police. The motion says Hong sub­se­quent­ly tes­ti­fied in the mur­der tri­al of Wendell Patrick Lemond in 2009, in response to ques­tion­ing by deputy dis­trict attor­ney Howard Gundy, that low quan­ti­ties of semen meant that inter­course had occurred at least 24 hours before collection. 

The tes­ti­mo­ny in Johnson’s case was crit­i­cal in per­suad­ing the jury that the vic­tim — who had mul­ti­ple part­ners in the weeks before her death — had sex­u­al con­tact with Johnson near the time of the mur­der. In Lemond’s case, how­ev­er, the changed tes­ti­mo­ny per­suad­ed jurors that an alter­nate sus­pect who had been iden­ti­fied as the source of the semen could not have had sex with the vic­tim around the time of the murder. 

The mur­ders occurred in 1985, but the tri­als took place two decades lat­er after Hong reopened foren­sic probes into the cases. 

Hong’s tes­ti­mo­ny in Johnson con­tra­dict­ed the con­clu­sions reached by crim­i­nal­ist Daniel Gammie when he pre­pared the orig­i­nal reports in ther cas­es in 1985. At that time, Gammie indi­cat­ed in both cas­es that the sperm had been deposit­ed at least 24 hours before collection. 

At Johnson’s tri­al, Gammie changed his stance to fit the pros­e­cu­tion’s the­o­ry and tes­ti­fied that now he would ​“be very cau­tious mak­ing a state­ment” like the one in his 1985 report. Having recant­ed his 1985 con­clu­sions in Johnson’s case, pros­e­cu­tors could not risk pre­sent­ing him as a wit­ness in Lemond’s case. Instead, Gundy pre­sent­ed Hong, but did not tell the jury about her con­tra­dic­to­ry tes­ti­mo­ny in the Johnson trial. 

Sanders’ court fil­ing argued that Gammie and Hong’s tes­ti­mo­ny had been tai­lored to ​“fit per­fect­ly for the pros­e­cu­tion” in Johnson’s case and that Hong’s tes­ti­mo­ny in Lemond’s case was ​“whol­ly irrec­on­cil­able with the tes­ti­mo­ny in Johnson. …She clear­ly had stud­ied Gammie’s report and analy­sis and knew that Gammie’s tes­ti­mo­ny in Johnson and her own — in the hands of defense coun­sel — would have evis­cer­at­ed her cred­i­bil­i­ty in Lemond and all of the oth­er cas­es she has touched through­out the course of her career.” 

The rev­e­la­tion comes amid a wide­spread pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct scan­dal in Orange County, in which a spe­cial com­mit­tee recent­ly cit­ed a ​“fail­ure of lead­er­ship” and ​“win-at-all-costs men­tal­i­ty” as fac­tors that led to the mis­use of jail­house infor­mants, with­hold­ing of evi­dence, and other misconduct. 

The crime lab is a divi­sion of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, which is also impli­cat­ed in the infor­mant scan­dal. According to the Orange County Register, its deputies ​“have been caught con­duct­ing uncon­sti­tu­tion­al scams against pre­tri­al inmates, hid­ing evi­dence, dis­obey­ing law­ful court orders and com­mit­ting per­jury to cov­er up misdeeds.”