Two former FBI agents will comb through the work of North Carolina's crime lab, a massive undertaking prompted by mounting concerns about lab's integrity.
Attorney General Roy Cooper asked for the outsiders' help Friday to review cases and practices from the early 1990s to the present. The request came less than 24 hours after a team of criminal defense lawyers called for an external inspection. More than a week ago, Cooper had ordered an internal review of the lab.
"We told him simply that the public can't have any confidence if the review is done in-house," said Joseph B. Cheshire V, a Raleigh lawyer.
Problems at the State Bureau of Investigation's forensic science lab surfaced last month during a hearing for Greg Taylor, an innocent man who was imprisoned for 17 years after a flawed police investigation and trial. Duane Deaver, a veteran SBI agent, reported to prosecutors in 1991 that a substance found on Taylor's truck showed indications of being blood. In fact, additional testing performed by Deaver proved that wasn't the case, but he failed to disclose the further testing and negative results. Prosecutors repeatedly told jurors in Taylor's 1993 trial that the truck was stained with blood.
The review, which will be released to the public, promises to be an major undertaking. The lab has been responsible for forensic analysis on major crimes for decades. Thousands of cases must be pulled out of storage or reviewed on microfilm.
The investigators must also get a handle on the lab's culture, which some say encouraged questionable acts.
Deaver testified last month that supervisors told him to handle reports as he did. Robin Pendergraft, SBI director, defended Deaver's work in a recent interview with The News & Observer. She said it was lab practice to report results of the most advanced test that yielded positive results for blood. In Taylor's case, however, that was a simple, preliminary test that gives positive reactions not only for blood, but also for such substances as metals and plant or animal matter.
Cooper hired Mike Wolf, a former head FBI agent in Connecticut, and Chris Swecker, a lawyer and former agent in charge of North Carolina, to conduct the review.
Wolf has been at the helm of laboratory overhauls before. In 1998, he led an inspection team brought in to fix problems at the FBI crime lab in Quantico, Va., after a federal inspector general found a pattern of shoddy work, including lab reports shaded to favor prosecutors. Wolf was responsible for carrying out new policies and getting the lab reaccredited after the damning report.
Time-consuming effort
Swecker said Friday night that the review would be exhaustive. "It just won't happen overnight," he said.
Swecker, 53, retired from the FBI in 2006 as executive assistant director, supervising nine divisions including the science and forensic lab unit. He said that his law enforcement background will not sway his assessment.
"I'm an officer of the court," Swecker said. "I could very well find myself defending one of these people in court, and I want the system to be as fair and credible as it can be."
Swecker said he and Wolf will begin this month.
Cooper assured defense lawyers that they will have access to Wolf and Swecker throughout the review, and encouraged their input, Cheshire said.
Old cases reappraised
Cheshire and others told Cooper on Thursday about other problems they've encountered with SBI lab work, some as recently as last year. They also expressed disappointment to Cooper about recent public comments from Pendergraft, who they say has repeatedly defended or minimized problems at the SBI lab.
Pendergraft did not attend the meeting Thursday. Cooper and four of his top Department of Justice aides met with the defense lawyers.
"I think they were genuinely surprised at some of the things we told them had been going on, Cheshire said. "And they were most definitely concerned."
Since Taylor's exoneration, prosecutors and defense lawyers have been taking second looks at old cases. Jim Woodall, president of the N.C. Conference of District Attorneys and the district attorney in Orange and Chatham counties, called upon his comrades to inspect old cases that relied on blood evidence.
On Friday, Woodall praised Cooper's external review. But he also has faith the SBI will do a thorough job with its internal investigation, which will continue.
"This just bolsters public confidence," Woodall said.
Already, inmates have been writing to N.C. Prisoner Legal Services, raising concerns about faulty lab work used in their convictions, said Mary Pollard, executive director of the agency.
"The floodgates haven't opened yet," Pollard said. "We are giving each [case] a close look,"
