DURHAM -- The pro-prosecution bias of former State Bureau of Investigation agent Duane Deaver was so strong that it angered and discomforted fellow agents re-examining evidence in the case of Greg Taylor, a Raleigh man later exonerated in a 1991 murder, two agents testified Friday.
Deaver repeatedly insisted Taylor was guilty, the agents said. Deaver was hostile to their efforts to re-examine evidence in the case, they said. And Deaver was indignant when one agent refused to testify that he could identify a stain on a car as blood solely by looking at a picture of the vehicle.
"Could I identify it as blood in the picture without testing?" agent Russell Holley testified Friday. "I can't do that."
The two agents testified at a hearing for Durham novelist Michael Peterson, who is seeking a new trial because of what his lawyer calls a history of misconduct and bias by Deaver, a key expert witness for the prosecution at Peterson's 2003 murder trial. Peterson was convicted of the murder of his wife, Kathleen Peterson, a Nortel Networks executive who was found dead at the bottom of a bloodstained staircase in their Forest Hills mansion.
David Rudolf, Peterson's lawyer, has spent the week tearing into the credibility of Deaver, arguing that Deaver had a pattern of fabricating evidence of guilt, hiding evidence of innocence, and tailoring his testimony to fit the prosecution theory.
The evidence Friday did not come from expert witnesses or defense lawyers, but from inside the SBI, an agency whose inner workings are seldom seen in public.
SBI agent Kristin Hughes, a forensic biologist and DNA expert, was assigned to re-examine the evidence in Taylor's case before a September 2009 meeting of the N.C. Innocence Inquiry Commission. Deaver had done the original lab work, and Hughes left repeated messages for Deaver asking for help to understand his lab notes.
"He was not willing to come over and help decipher his notes," Hughes said.
'Well, why not?'
Hughes then described a meeting she attended in August 2009 with Wake County prosecutor Tom Ford, Deaver and Holley.
Deaver showed up with "an attitude" and without his case file or notes, even though it is standard practice to bring case files to a meeting with prosecutors, Hughes said.
When Hughes and Holley asked where his case file was, Deaver was dismissive, saying "I don't have these any more."
Ford brought a photo of Taylor's truck, which was stuck in the mud at the crime scene. There was a small reddish-brown stain on the truck.
"Deaver said, 'That's blood,' " Hughes testified.
Holley disagreed. They needed lab tests, not a picture, to identify blood.
Hughes said Deaver quickly shot back in a condescending attitude: "Well, why not? You're a trained analyst. You should have enough experience to say there's blood in the picture."
That stain was crucial in exonerating Taylor. A preliminary test for blood was positive. In his 1993 lab report, Deaver wrote that the stain contained "chemical indications of blood."
Deaver also ran a more specific, confirmatory test for blood that came back negative. He did not mention that negative result in his lab report. At Taylor's trial, police and prosecution referred to the stain as "blood." The stain was the only physical evidence against Taylor, who insisted on his innocence from his first encounter with police.
Ford did not return a phone message left at his home. Deaver and his lawyers have declined to comment.
New tests, results
Holley, who examines blood and other body fluids, said he ran tests on the same item of evidence where Deaver noted chemical indications of blood. Holley said all preliminary tests came back negative, and he did not run confirmatory tests.
Holley also examined slides taken from a vaginal swab of the murder victim, Jacquetta Thomas. Deaver had written that there was no sperm present. Holley said he identified sperm; so did two lab trainees who looked at the slide at Holley's request.
(The sperm was tested, but did not match Taylor, his friend with him the night of the murder or anyone in a national DNA database.)
Holley described the meeting with Deaver and Ford as "strange and uncomfortable."
Holley recalled Deaver was adamant that Taylor was guilty, saying "I know he's guilty. Why are they doing this to us? They are dragging us through the mud."
Hughes said she had a similar recollection about a series of comments from Deaver: "He's guilty." "He did it." "He's where he needs to be." "He'd never survive a hearing." "This was all to see if they can get him out."
Neither Hughes nor Holley thought Deaver's comments were appropriate; forensic scientists are tasked with being unbiased, using science to find facts irrespective of whether the truth helps prosecution or defense.
"I didn't care if he (Taylor) was innocent or not," Holley said. "If he was guilty, that's fine. If he's innocent, that's fine."
Holley said he wasn't able to say why Deaver found blood but not sperm, or why Deaver was so insistent on Taylor's guilt. But Deaver's behavior made the agents angry and uncomfortable, they testified.
"We got out of there as quick as we could," Holley said.
Confusing the defense
The final witness Friday was Chris Swecker, a former assistant director of the FBI who, following Taylor's exoneration, conducted an audit of blood cases handled by the SBI crime lab at the request of state Attorney General Roy Cooper.
Swecker and another retired FBI assistant director identified more than 200 cases where the official SBI lab reports did not reflect the results obtained in the laboratory. The most serious mistakes, where the official reports and lab bench notes contradicted each other, were contained in reports written by Deaver, Swecker said.
Under cross examination by Durham District Attorney Tracey Cline, Swecker said he found no evidence that any SBI employee had intentionally withheld or fabricated evidence.
The problem, Swecker said, was that a small number of lab personnel tailored their reports for the prosecution.
Swecker said he asked Deaver for whom he was writing his reports.
Deaver's answer: police and prosecutors. If he reported a negative test result, there may be a misunderstanding because tests can deliver a false negative. A negative test result did not necessarily mean there was no blood, he told the retired FBI agents.
Who would misunderstand or be confused by a negative test result? Rudolf asked. The jury?
"I had in my notes that it would confuse the defense," Swecker said. "The defense might say there was not blood."
