D.C. Crime Evidence in Doubt

A D.C. Superior Court judge warned from the bench yesterday that the
reported mishandling of evidence at the police department's unguarded
evidence warehouse and drug lab threatens to undermine numerous criminal
prosecutions.

"It's such an invitation to disaster," Judge Ellen S. Huvelle said. "It's
going to affect every drug case in town."

Huvelle made her comments as she postponed the felony drug trial of a
District man yesterday. She said she would consider whether the police
department's problems, as detailed in confidential consultants' reports,
could have tainted evidence in his case.

BoozAllen & Hamilton Inc., which prepared the confidential reports for the
D.C. financial control board, disclosed terrible conditions, including
boxes of drugs stored on computers in the drug lab and unsecured guns and
drugs in the warehouse. Police stored DNA evidence in rape cases in
110degree heat, destroying their "evidentiary value," according to the
consulting firm.

Several defense lawyers said the reports will give rise to questions in
many of the roughly 7,000 felony cases nearly half of them involving
drugs filed each year in Superior Court. They said the reports speak to
the condition of evidence, the reliability of crime laboratory findings and
the credibility of D.C. police officers who handled drugs, guns and
forensic materials.

"I want to know if the experts who did this report concluded that the D.C.
police could not reliably produce evidence obtained during an arrest," said
Josh Bowers, the defense attorney in yesterday's case, who obtained the
trial postponement from Huvelle. "If their own experts said the entire
process is invalid," Bowers said, referring to BoozAllen, "then defense
attorneys will start asking the courts to throw cases out."

Bowers's client, Donnell Byrd, 21, is charged with possessing cocaine with
intent to sell.

The judge granted Bowers's request for an order compelling city officials
to give him copies of the reports. "The reports," Huvelle said, "have to be
brought in here. . . . We have to know if the drugs [in Byrd's case were]
in the control of officers covered by this report."

James E. McLeod, a defense lawyer who tries cases in D.C. Superior Court,
said he expects many colleagues to seek copies of the BoozAllen reports.
"I certainly will include it in my discovery requests," McLeod said.

McLeod said that he has been aware of the conditions at the police evidence
warehouse for years but that having a document from a neutral source such
as BoozAllen would provide a foundation for challenging the way evidence
is handled.

"It's fair game for attorneys to take advantage of whatever information is
coming from these studies that would help defend their clients and prevent
innocent people from being falsely accused and convicted," McLeod said.

"Each attorney must ask, 'Did this procedure affect my specific case?' You
want to point to any irregularity," McLeod said. "Even if it did not
directly affect your case, it would help in crossexamining government
witnesses."

Yesterday, prosecutors from the offices of the U.S. attorney for the
District and the D.C. corporation counsel told Huvelle that they could not
produce the BoozAllen reports, which they said are in the sole possession
of the control board. But Stephen D. Harlan, the control board's vice
chairman, said later that top officials in the prosecutors' offices also
have copies of the reports.

"It's not up to me to say what kind of damage the alleged administrative
snafus might have caused," Harlan said, referring to warehouse and drug lab
problems. "The facts are the facts."

The U.S. attorney's office acknowledged that sloppy storage and, in some
cases, loss and destruction of evidence by D.C. police has hindered cases.
The office said the loss of DNA evidence in rape cases was particularly
damaging.

"In certain instances, it has made our job more difficult," said Channing
Phillips, a spokesman for the acting U.S. attorney, Mary Lou Leary. "When
evidence is properly collected and stored, it can make a case a lock." He
added that Patricia A. Riley, the head of the U.S. attorney's sex crimes
section, "is not aware of any trial that was ultimately lost because of
evidence being lost."

However, a prosecutor noted that Phillips's statement did not address
another problem presented by the destruction of sex crimes evidence: Sloppy
handling of rape evidence prevents police from obtaining arrest warrants.

Several defense lawyers said they would use the BoozAllen reports in much
the same way that lawyers across the country have used a blistering federal
report issued this year that raised questions about the quality of work
done at the FBI's forensic laboratory. The findings about the FBI lab have
been used at evidentiary hearings to challenge law enforcement procedures
and in some cases have been used during trials.

The FBI lab's practices came under scrutiny this year during the Oklahoma
City bombing trial of Timothy J. McVeigh. The judge gave McVeigh's attorney
latitude to challenge the FBI lab work in the bombing trial, which ended in
conviction, but he prevented the defense from waging a broader attack.

Colin Dunham, the head of the Independent Public Defender Bar Association
in Washington, said the BoozAllen reports will be of "inestimable value."
He said he expects defendants will be less likely to agree to plea bargains
and more willing to risk going to trial because of the reports.

"These BoozAllen reports are . . . very useful for the defense," Dunham
said. "It's a shame we can't rely on the integrity of the police department
to weed out these problems, but apparently we can't."

Staff writer Cindy Loose contributed to this report.

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