Problems found with crime lab results

RALEIGH (AP) — North Carolina's top law enforcement agency did not always automatically provide complete crime lab test results for use in trials, the agency's director told the Associated Press, bolstering an accusation that helped exonerate a murder convict this week after 16 years in prison.

Some defense attorneys said the revelation could lead them to re-examine past criminal convictions to see if they were reached without all the information available.

State Bureau of Investigation Director Robin Pendergraft said the agency had, in the past, provided only some information in the formal lab reports it provided to the courts. The more informal "bench notes" from SBI analysts would be available upon request from prosecutors or defense attorneys, she said.

"I wasn't here in '91, but that was the practice," she said. "It was not to withhold. It was simply to give the lab reports and to await requests from either the prosecution or the defense for the bench notes," said Pendergraft, who has been SBI director since 2001.

The practice "was not the best practice," she said. "The best practice is to give all the information up front to everyone, so there's no question." The SBI does now provide all information, she said.The problems were revealed in the case of Greg Taylor, who was convicted in 1993 of murdering a prostitute in Raleigh. The original SBI lab report, relying on a preliminary test, said lab results indicated blood was found in his SUV after the slaying. But a follow-up test came up negative. That information was in SBI Agent Duane Deaver's bench notes, but not in the report sent to the court. Taylor was exonerated last week.

It's not immediately known how many criminal cases could have been affected by the agency's previous policy.

"I think the defense bar as a whole will be well advised to go back and examine every case that Deaver was involved in," said defense attorney David Rudolf of Charlotte.

"What we don't know is how other analysts in the lab interpreted and/or followed this policy," said Rudolf, whose clients have included former NFL player Rae Carruth and novelist Michael Peterson. "If they all did, then every case in which scientific evidence from the SBI lab played a significant role would need to be looked at."After more than 16 years behind bars, Taylor spent his first full day of freedom in Durham doing things like hitting the gym and getting some new eyewear.

After breakfast and a shower, he replaced the prison-issued glasses with a pair of oval-shaped, chocolate-colored wire frames. "People can look at them and say, 'He just got out of prison,' " Taylor said. "I want to get rid of these."

Taylor spoke to reporters while holding the hand of his 26-year-old daughter, Kristen Puryear, and pushing a stroller carrying his 23-month-old grandson, Charles.

He counted off all the loved ones he lost while behind bars: a grandmother, a sister, three uncles, a cousin, a dog and two cats. But it was when he discussed the happy events he missed that he choked up.

"Her 10th birthday party," he said of his daughter.

"Her high school graduation was a big one," he said. "These are the things you can't get back."

Taylor also met with someone who was part of the chain of events leading to his exoneration: former state Chief Justice I. Beverly Lake Jr., who launched the study panel that led to creating the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission.

Taylor's case was the first exoneration to result from the work of the commission, which is the only state-run agency in the country dedicated to proving a convicted person's innocence.

If the governor grants Taylor a pardon, he can apply for compensation from the state Industrial Commission for $50,000 a year up to a maximum of $750,000.

Chris Mumma, executive director of the N.C. Center on Actual Innocence, said she hoped the SBI would now allow an independent investigative team to review of all cases that occurred when lab results weren't disclosed fully. Mumma helped represent Greg Taylor.

Deaver testified at Taylor's hearing that the wording of his lab report was dictated by SBI policy. Experts, including Dr. Deborah Radisch of the State Medical Examiner's Office, testified that scientists should not exclude any lab results from their reports to the court.

Pendergraft defended the wording. "It is language that is acceptable to the scientific community," she said, confirming that in 1991, analysts were provided the wording for their lab reports, based on what they found in testing.

Defense attorney Joe Cheshire of Raleigh, who also helped represent Taylor, called Pendergraft's description of how the SBI handled lab reports and bench notes "a semantic absurdity."

"If you're not handing over exculpatory evidence, evidence that shows a person may not be guilty, then you are withholding it," said Cheshire, who has been a criminal defense attorney in North Carolina for more than 35 years.

He also said he never got bench notes — even when he requested them — before changes in state discovery laws required the SBI to turn them over.

Pendergraft did not immediately return a follow-up phone call seeking information such as when the policy began and ended.

Cheshire and Rudolf said the SBI's practice was a violation of a 1963 U.S. Supreme Court decision known simply as Brady, which requires that any evidence that might help a defendant be turned over to defense attorneys.

"If you say that there chemical indications of blood somewhere in a report and you don't say, but further testing reveals it really wasn't blood, and all you provide is the first, how is that not misleading? How is that not a falsity by omission?" Rudolf asked.