Evidence Destroyed - Now WHat?

[mrsdragoness]

Last year my husband applied to and was accepted by the Innocence Project at Tom Cooley Law School here in Michigan. He was just informed that they can no longer help him because after asking the courts for copies of the evidence (rape kit), they were told that the evidence was destroyed less than 6 months after my husbands trial - LONG before his appeal process even was started!!!!

How on earth can they do this??? Can they actually destroy evidence so quickly? Is there something we can do NOW??

His trial transcript states that there was NO physical evidence from the rape kit, otherwise we have NOTHING to stand of and of course, this WAS before DNA testing was available. The DNA evidence would have exonerated him.....now its not available.

We are just at a loss at the moment. Any advice and/or suggestions is deeply appreciated.

mrs. d

[deb]

:argh omg. I have no idea....I feel so bad for you guys...Life or someone will have an idea of what to do I'm sure. This totally sucks.

Deb

[~cheenna~]

I am so sorry for you both Mrs. D ... you'll be in my prayers ...

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{ HUGS }}}}}}}}}}}}}

[DENIMBLUE]

THAT SUCKS! I HOPE YOU CAN FIND OUT THAT YOU CAN DO SOMETHING TO HELP HIS CASE.

[life2thesequel]

Sorry D...

I'm slightly lost... If the results from the KIT did not produce evidence at the trial, is it likely that they would ever have produced anything? If there had been any sort of serological stuff, they would have at least done a typing of the blood A/B/O and a 'secretor' test. Perhaps they disposed of it because it had no stuff they could test. Just a guess.

I don't know if your basic rapekit has stuff like nailscrapings... stuff that even then would have been hard to type but now would be really simple.

There certainly is more to this topic and this situation than could fit in this thread, but I'll take a shot at what the position of the court might be on the subject..

Test was 'inconclusive' and testamony to that effect was entered in the record. Defense didn't oppose the finding of 'no evidence' found at the time of trial and you'd have to go some to dispute it now.

The purging of the testkit was a routine process given that it was not used as corraborative evidence in trial. (This thing wasn't entered as Exhibit ANYTHING was it?) The labs who test and retain this stuff have policies on how best to manage thier inventories.

When/if you bring up the purging of this KIT in a motion for relief, you'd have to overcome the fact that something, somewhere in that transcript has addressed it's value, stated it's usefulness to the prosecution and pointed out that it had no value and wasn't used by the prosecution to convict.

--Once upon a time a crimescene video w/ audio narration disappeared.. Court claimed no foul, said 7 still pictures and the live testamony of 3 out of 20 people there would do instead.
---Once upon a time, a serological test was done.. they could only afford the A/B/O and secretor thing. The specimen was "INCINERATED" in the process to extract the grand information that it could have been handled by 60% of the world.

Courts aren't too excited, or too quick to find harm, or find reversible error if they can find anything which they can chalk up to rigid policy, inadvertent error, harmless error, or the next best thing.

It seems like you'd have to prove that the kit held some 'exculpatory' evidence which has now been destroyed by the State.

As they say, KNOWING a thing, SAYING a thing, and PROVING a thing--are 3 different things..

Tough to take, tougher to work with...But I've seen the tough side of Mrs. D... She's not done YET.

[mabear]

Oh boy. What other evidence is there? Any finger prints doesn't have to be a clear one. I'm just off the top of my head thinking of what could possibly be around to get DNA off of. I'm sorry this happened to you. I know the feeling well. Our case has no evidence.

[mrsdragoness]

There WAS no other evidence and my husband HAD no defense because his lawyer did NOTHING. My husband was AT this woman's apartment with another guy, but when the other guy and girl were getting "friendly", my husband LEFT. Its basically a she said/he said and the three stories are all different. The woman even had the two men confused when she gave her statements. At first it was one...then the other....then it was both.

I believe the doctor testified that there was absolutely NO evidence of sexual attack - even though the woman said it went on for HOURS!!! I'm going to go back thru the transcript and see what I can find and see if it was entered into evidence........

and yes LIFE..........I'm MAD and I won't just sit back and cry about it!!!!!

Thanks for everyone's soothing words!
mrs. d

[mrsdragoness]

I just skimmed thru the transcript while getting it ready to take with me when I go see the Dragon today......hopefully they will let me bring it in....sometimes they are "funny" about that.

I discovered that not ALL of the swabs were tested!!! The expert witness (lab tech) testified that he did not test all of the swabs!!!! Hopefully this will help us a little.

I'm NOT going to take this sitting down and definitely NOT without a fight.

mrs. d

[lulu]

Oh Mrs. D I am so sorry
I know that if the doc said there was NO evidence of attack or rape rather, that is actually good for your hubby.

I am sooo sorry MrsD.