Acronyms are F’d Up P. 2 Recap Written by Brandi AbbottContinuing from where the last episode left off, George Goode - who was sentenced to death after being convicted of murder - was thankfully granted an additional hearing in 2004. Judge Jenkins, who had filed the complaint against Attorney Diane Savage, recused himself, and Goode’s case was heard by a new judge. Diane obtained the SBI lab notes which revealed that the alleged blood on George’s coveralls was actually grease. Not blood. The case file didn’t include a confirmatory test of the “invisible” blood on George’s boots. DNA testing revealed that profiles were obtained, but it was most likely due to a transfer. All of the evidence from George’s case was crammed together in a bin, including the bloody tailgate from the victim’s truck and the clothes worn by George’s brother and friend which were covered in the victims’ blood. An article from the Winston-Salem Journal stated that DNA testing wasn’t part of the original case against Goode and that, before the hearing, the state asked to have George’s coveralls, which had tested negative for blood in 1992, retested. This time, blood from both of the victims was found, most likely because they had been in a bin with other objects covered in the victims’ blood.People in the scientific community were shocked by this mishandling of evidence. Some said they might have tested George’s coveralls or boots but would have done control tests and reported the likelihood of contamination. The SBI Crime Lab did not run control tests. They had one of their fiber experts examine the coveralls with a microscope. He concluded that the stains were blood that had soaked into the garment at the time of the crime, but he never used chemicals to confirm that the substance he was examining was actually blood. The deputy director of the SBI’s Crime Lab at that time, William Weis, told the Winston-Salem Journal that what another lab would do in a case described to them may be completely different than what they would do, as the SBI Crime Lab are looking at the evidence and the others are not. He said he believed they should rely on the evidence presented in court. The issue with that way of thinking, is the confirmatory tests were not included in the evidence presented, therefore the evidence presented in court is misrepresented. You may remember from the last episode, Deaver said he hadn’t done a confirmatory test on George’s shoes, which was suspicious and out of character for him. At the trial, he referred twice to the “blood” he found as if he were sure that’s what he had found, and during the hearing, the DA said that they had proved George was “literally up to his ankles in the blood of both victims.” Diane rhetorically asked The Journal how a prosecutor could say someone is up to their ankles in blood if there was never a test for blood. She was extremely upset about everything happening, and she and other attorneys lodged complaints with ASCLD LAB. Complaints to ASCLD LAB in 2011 needed to be submitted in writing. All complaints of labs were to be directed to their executive director, Ralph Keaton, and receipts of the complaint would be confirmed within 20 days. However according to Marvin Schechter, the New York attorney Priya spoke with, there was no procedure for follow up with these complaints. The complaint ends with an ASCLD LAB board vote. If 2/3 of the vote can’t be reached, the case is dismissed, and the complainant must be notified.On October 5th, 2004, Diane sent a few letters of complaint about the SBI to Ralph Keaton. She’d called and had a conversation with him and was directed to put her complaints in writing. She wrote one letter detailing everything about George Goode’s case and in another letter mentions that the phenolphthalein test used out of date chemicals. She then wrote about Brenda Bissette’s testimony. Bissette swore under oath that she’d had no knowledge of how the evidence had been stored, but Diane showed Brenda photos of her standing directly next to the evidence in the bin, and she corrected her testimony on the witness stand. This was not the first case Marilyn Miller had encountered Bissette co-mingling evidence on. In the evidence for George’s case, there was a pair of pants with blood in different areas. The cuttings from each area were all packed together in one evidence bag, leaving great potential for cross contamination. This should have rendered the cuttings inadmissible. Diane wrote in her complaint that SBI Crime Lab Deputy Director Jerry Richardson stated that he knew nothing of the condition of the evidence’s packaging, that it was Bissette’s responsibility, and admitted that Bissette saw the evidence before it went to the lab.In 2009, a judge reprimanded SBI Blood Stain Pattern Analyst, Duane Deaver, for misleading the jury in George’s case by referring to the substance on George’s clothes as blood as if it were fact. After the audit in 2010, Diane wanted a new trial for George, especially since he had been mentioned in the audit. George was not given a new trial but was given a resentencing hearing where it was determined he’d had ineffective council in the original hearing. His sentence was reduced from death to life in prison. All of the money wasted by an innocent man being on death row for 20 years could have been spent a multitude of ways that would actually help the community. They could have even used it to retest old evidence with the newer science that’s become available since the initial trial. George Goode, with no evidence linking him to the murders, is still in prison to this day.There was no national database that kept track of labs that incurred infractions or were involved in scandals. Various newspapers had reported on 50 labs, 28 of which where ASCLD LAB accredited. Marvin Schechter’s memo cites 11 states where their lab failures encompass different forms: there were mistakes in the identification of fibers, destroyed blood samples, DNA contamination, failure to perform maintenance and calibration, mix up of key physical evidence, faking calibration dates, false credentials, and many more. Marvin cites the NC SBI Crime Lab as one of the worst in terms of failures. ASCLD LAB accredited that lab five times during the time all of these errors were being made. After the audit was released, ASCLD LAB issued statements basically amounting to “that was then, this is now,” which seems to be what we keep hearing. They also appointed a new president, although it’s unclear if it was related to the audit. The new president said that the confirmatory results that proved substances weren’t blood “weren’t hidden” and that they were “in the notes.” Oh sure. In the notes where no one could see them except the shady lab techs, definitely qualifies as “not hidden.” ASCLD LAB flat-out rejected that lab reports issued by forensic serologists were inaccurate, misleading, intended to hide information, and essentially chose to ignore the findings of the audit. Ignoring and finding no issue with all of the shoddy practices done by the SBI Lab only enables the potential for all of this to happen again.For the resentencing hearing in George’s case, Diane was working with an attorney named Bill Garrens. Bill had a special interest in this case because he had had his eye on Deaver since around 1989 when there was a murder case that Bill had been the defense attorney on. When interviewed for this podcast, Bill said the case was a brutal beating with a baseball bat to the victim’s head, and his client claimed he was a bystander. Deaver had been at the SBI Crime Lab for about four years at this time, and he knew he needed to do a reconstruction of the crime scene. Deaver went to a gymnasium, put up a sheet, put down something similar to parchment paper, put pumpkins on the parchment paper, grabbed a bat and “went to town.” Bill raised concerns about the science behind smashing pumpkins in 1989 and the judge agreed with him, refusing to show Deaver’s recreation in court. Two things to be noted are that concerns with Deaver had been brought up as early as 1989 and that Bill, as a male attorney who was not a Yankee, was allowed to criticize Deaver with no repercussions, while Diane faced disbarment when she did it. Also, according to the News and Observer, the reason it was ruled that George had had ineffective council, was because his attorney had not raised concerns about Deaver… the very thing Diane had been punished for doing.In the last episode, it was said that the executive director for ASCLD LAB, Ralph Keaton, wanted the headquarters to be in North Carolina because he lived there. Well, prior to joining ASCLD LAB, he was the assistant crime lab director of the NC SBI Crime Lab until 1995. In fact, he wasn’t the only former-SBI Crime Lab employee: there were two others, John Neuner and Michael Creasey. Keaton stated that they recused themselves from matters related to the NC SBI Crime Lab. However, every article Priya has read has comments from Keaton on the SBI lab. The News and Observer reported that around the time the audit was released or about to be released, he said that he didn’t think there was a large number of cases that had a miscarriage of justice and that the absence of evidence isn’t evidence of innocence. Neuner defended ASCLD LAB by saying they had suspended labs and put labs on probation, but he couldn’t say which ones because they don’t keep up with it. Neuner’s predecessor attributed the infrequency of suspensions or dismissals to the fact that labs accredited by ASCLD LAB are simply of “high quality.” This seems pretty unlikely, considering all of the mistakes coming out of the SBI Crime Lab, and how closely the staff of both ACLD LAB and the SBI Crime Lab commingled. In 2007, the serology unit was in trouble due to testing proficiency and was moved out from under the oversight of ASCLD LAB.Priya says that she’s of the opinion that Keaton and his cronies recommended that the SBI Crime Lab get the serology unity away from oversight. She implies it was a “real bro culture” out there and that judges protect DAs and analysts. That everyone was buddies who help each other out, leaving defense attorneys as the only people who are looking out for their client. If ASCLD LAB isn’t putting in proper procedures to make sure that the labs are operating as they should: in a manner designed to help carry out justice, it’s no surprise that injustices have happened. Jess says that it seems like ASCLD LAB was designed to prevent injustices but instead was perpetuating them. Ralph Keaton was the one to encourage Duane Deaver to start teaching classes at the SBI Crime Lab. So basically, the executive director of the accrediting body for the SBI Lab was responsible for getting their most public purveyor of fuckups started. Priya says one thing she’s noticed in all of her research is that Deaver was always by the book. He lied and cheated, but in a manner that was approved of by the SBI. There were two times he actively straight up lied. Once was in 2009 before the panel in Greg Taylor’s case. He claimed he hadn’t thoroughly reviewed the file and hadn’t lied on purpose. There’s credible evidence to support this as he approached one of the DA’s after the hearing and said that a confirmatory test had been done and it was negative. He was the person who let people know it was there. Priya’s conspiracy theory is that Deaver lied in 1997 at George Goode’s appeal when Diane asked about the confirmatory test and he said he didn’t do one. She says that in all of research she’s done on him and interviews and trials she’s watched or read, she’s noticed that he doesn’t tend to remember many of the cases he’s been involved with. The two he brings up regularly are Greg Taylor’s and George Goode’s. He often brings up George’s case, including in a 2013 deposition when he was fighting to get his job back. This case really sticks out to him and not doing a confirmatory test was really out of character. Priya thinks that even though withholding the results of confirmatory tests was sanctioned at this time, Deaver knew it was wrong. She thinks he did a confirmatory test, that he knew the results, they were in his written notes and that he guessed that Diane was going to ask about it. She thinks he brought this up to his superiors and was scared. She points out that around this time, a superior had ordered a lab tech to destroy evidence in Daniel Green’s case, and that it wouldn’t be a leap to think the SBI lab would be freaked out at the idea of a defense attorney asking for the results of that test - especially since 10 years later, people still didn’t know that they even did confirmatory tests. Priya thinks that the confirmatory test was done and the record of it was destroyed. As F’d Up has mentioned before, the practices in the SBI Lab were originally unwritten policy. Deaver’s superior sent out a memo saying if an initial test for blood and saliva was positive but confirmatory tests were not, they should say that evidence showed chemical evidence for their presence. And this is when this kind of reporting became written policy. Priya says she believes that the SBI Crime Lab covered up Deaver’s lie and made an entire policy to “really drill it home,” because they always looked out for their guys and themselves.Next episode is the finale and F’d Up will be exploring reforms, recommendations for change and one last F'd Up case.

<description>&lt;p&gt;Acronyms are F’d Up P. 2&lt;br /&gt;Recap&lt;br /&gt;Written by Brandi Abbott&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Continuing from where the last episode left off, George Goode - who was sentenced to death after being convicted of murder - was thankfully granted an additional hearing in 2004. Judge Jenkins, who had filed the complaint against Attorney Diane Savage, recused himself, and Goode’s case was heard by a new judge. Diane obtained the SBI lab notes which revealed that the alleged blood on George’s coveralls was actually grease. Not blood. The case file didn’t include a confirmatory test of the “invisible” blood on George’s boots. DNA testing revealed that profiles were obtained, but it was most likely due to a transfer. All of the evidence from George’s case was crammed together in a bin, including the bloody tailgate from the victim’s truck and the clothes worn by George’s brother and friend which were covered in the victims’ blood. An article from the Winston-Salem Journal stated that DNA testing wasn’t part of the original case against Goode and that, before the hearing, the state asked to have George’s coveralls, which had tested negative for blood in 1992, retested. This time, blood from both of the victims was found, most likely because they had been in a bin with other objects covered in the victims’ blood.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;People in the scientific community were shocked by this mishandling of evidence. Some said they might have tested George’s coveralls or boots but would have done control tests and reported the likelihood of contamination. The SBI Crime Lab did not run control tests. They had one of their fiber experts examine the coveralls with a microscope. He concluded that the stains were blood that had soaked into the garment at the time of the crime, but he never used chemicals to confirm that the substance he was examining was actually blood. The deputy director of the SBI’s Crime Lab at that time, William Weis, told the Winston-Salem Journal that what another lab would do in a case described to them may be completely different than what they would do, as the SBI Crime Lab are looking at the evidence and the others are not. He said he believed they should rely on the evidence presented in court. The issue with that way of thinking, is the confirmatory tests were not included in the evidence presented, therefore the evidence presented in court is misrepresented. You may remember from the last episode, Deaver said he hadn’t done a confirmatory test on George’s shoes, which was suspicious and out of character for him. At the trial, he referred twice to the “blood” he found as if he were sure that’s what he had found, and during the hearing, the DA said that they had proved George was “literally up to his ankles in the blood of both victims.” Diane rhetorically asked The Journal how a prosecutor could say someone is up to their ankles in blood if there was never a test for blood. She was extremely upset about everything happening, and she and other attorneys lodged complaints with ASCLD LAB.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Complaints to ASCLD LAB in 2011 needed to be submitted in writing. All complaints of labs were to be directed to their executive director, Ralph Keaton, and receipts of the complaint would be confirmed within 20 days. However according to Marvin Schechter, the New York attorney Priya spoke with, there was no procedure for follow up with these complaints. The complaint ends with an ASCLD LAB board vote. If 2/3 of the vote can’t be reached, the case is dismissed, and the complainant must be notified.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;On October 5th, 2004, Diane sent a few letters of complaint about the SBI to Ralph Keaton. She’d called and had a conversation with him and was directed to put her complaints in writing. She wrote one letter detailing everything about George Goode’s case and in another letter mentions that the phenolphthalein test used out of date chemicals. She then wrote about Brenda Bissette’s testimony. Bissette swore under oath that she’d had no knowledge of how the evidence had been stored, but Diane showed Brenda photos of her standing directly next to the evidence in the bin, and she corrected her testimony on the witness stand. This was not the first case Marilyn Miller had encountered Bissette co-mingling evidence on. In the evidence for George’s case, there was a pair of pants with blood in different areas. The cuttings from each area were all packed together in one evidence bag, leaving great potential for cross contamination. This should have rendered the cuttings inadmissible. Diane wrote in her complaint that SBI Crime Lab Deputy Director Jerry Richardson stated that he knew nothing of the condition of the evidence’s packaging, that it was Bissette’s responsibility, and admitted that Bissette saw the evidence before it went to the lab.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In 2009, a judge reprimanded SBI Blood Stain Pattern Analyst, Duane Deaver, for misleading the jury in George’s case by referring to the substance on George’s clothes as blood as if it were fact. After the audit in 2010, Diane wanted a new trial for George, especially since he had been mentioned in the audit. George was not given a new trial but was given a resentencing hearing where it was determined he’d had ineffective council in the original hearing. His sentence was reduced from death to life in prison. All of the money wasted by an innocent man being on death row for 20 years could have been spent a multitude of ways that would actually help the community. They could have even used it to retest old evidence with the newer science that’s become available since the initial trial. George Goode, with no evidence linking him to the murders, is still in prison to this day.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;There was no national database that kept track of labs that incurred infractions or were involved in scandals. Various newspapers had reported on 50 labs, 28 of which where ASCLD LAB accredited. Marvin Schechter’s memo cites 11 states where their lab failures encompass different forms: there were mistakes in the identification of fibers, destroyed blood samples, DNA contamination, failure to perform maintenance and calibration, mix up of key physical evidence, faking calibration dates, false credentials, and many more. Marvin cites the NC SBI Crime Lab as one of the worst in terms of failures. ASCLD LAB accredited that lab five times during the time all of these errors were being made. After the audit was released, ASCLD LAB issued statements basically amounting to “that was then, this is now,” which seems to be what we keep hearing. They also appointed a new president, although it’s unclear if it was related to the audit. The new president said that the confirmatory results that proved substances weren’t blood “weren’t hidden” and that they were “in the notes.” Oh sure. In the notes where no one could see them except the shady lab techs, definitely qualifies as “not hidden.” ASCLD LAB flat-out rejected that lab reports issued by forensic serologists were inaccurate, misleading, intended to hide information, and essentially chose to ignore the findings of the audit. Ignoring and finding no issue with all of the shoddy practices done by the SBI Lab only enables the potential for all of this to happen again.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;For the resentencing hearing in George’s case, Diane was working with an attorney named Bill Garrens. Bill had a special interest in this case because he had had his eye on Deaver since around 1989 when there was a murder case that Bill had been the defense attorney on. When interviewed for this podcast, Bill said the case was a brutal beating with a baseball bat to the victim’s head, and his client claimed he was a bystander. Deaver had been at the SBI Crime Lab for about four years at this time, and he knew he needed to do a reconstruction of the crime scene. Deaver went to a gymnasium, put up a sheet, put down something similar to parchment paper, put pumpkins on the parchment paper, grabbed a bat and “went to town.” Bill raised concerns about the science behind smashing pumpkins in 1989 and the judge agreed with him, refusing to show Deaver’s recreation in court. Two things to be noted are that concerns with Deaver had been brought up as early as 1989 and that Bill, as a male attorney who was not a Yankee, was allowed to criticize Deaver with no repercussions, while Diane faced disbarment when she did it. Also, according to the News and Observer, the reason it was ruled that George had had ineffective council, was because his attorney had not raised concerns about Deaver… the very thing Diane had been punished for doing.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the last episode, it was said that the executive director for ASCLD LAB, Ralph Keaton, wanted the headquarters to be in North Carolina because he lived there. Well, prior to joining ASCLD LAB, he was the assistant crime lab director of the NC SBI Crime Lab until 1995. In fact, he wasn’t the only former-SBI Crime Lab employee: there were two others, John Neuner and Michael Creasey. Keaton stated that they recused themselves from matters related to the NC SBI Crime Lab. However, every article Priya has read has comments from Keaton on the SBI lab. The News and Observer reported that around the time the audit was released or about to be released, he said that he didn’t think there was a large number of cases that had a miscarriage of justice and that the absence of evidence isn’t evidence of innocence. Neuner defended ASCLD LAB by saying they had suspended labs and put labs on probation, but he couldn’t say which ones because they don’t keep up with it. Neuner’s predecessor attributed the infrequency of suspensions or dismissals to the fact that labs accredited by ASCLD LAB are simply of “high quality.” This seems pretty unlikely, considering all of the mistakes coming out of the SBI Crime Lab, and how closely the staff of both ACLD LAB and the SBI Crime Lab commingled. In 2007, the serology unit was in trouble due to testing proficiency and was moved out from under the oversight of ASCLD LAB.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Priya says that she’s of the opinion that Keaton and his cronies recommended that the SBI Crime Lab get the serology unity away from oversight. She implies it was a “real bro culture” out there and that judges protect DAs and analysts. That everyone was buddies who help each other out, leaving defense attorneys as the only people who are looking out for their client. If ASCLD LAB isn’t putting in proper procedures to make sure that the labs are operating as they should: in a manner designed to help carry out justice, it’s no surprise that injustices have happened. Jess says that it seems like ASCLD LAB was designed to prevent injustices but instead was perpetuating them. Ralph Keaton was the one to encourage Duane Deaver to start teaching classes at the SBI Crime Lab. So basically, the executive director of the accrediting body for the SBI Lab was responsible for getting their most public purveyor of fuckups started.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Priya says one thing she’s noticed in all of her research is that Deaver was always by the book. He lied and cheated, but in a manner that was approved of by the SBI. There were two times he actively straight up lied. Once was in 2009 before the panel in Greg Taylor’s case. He claimed he hadn’t thoroughly reviewed the file and hadn’t lied on purpose. There’s credible evidence to support this as he approached one of the DA’s after the hearing and said that a confirmatory test had been done and it was negative. He was the person who let people know it was there. Priya’s conspiracy theory is that Deaver lied in 1997 at George Goode’s appeal when Diane asked about the confirmatory test and he said he didn’t do one. She says that in all of research she’s done on him and interviews and trials she’s watched or read, she’s noticed that he doesn’t tend to remember many of the cases he’s been involved with. The two he brings up regularly are Greg Taylor’s and George Goode’s. He often brings up George’s case, including in a 2013 deposition when he was fighting to get his job back. This case really sticks out to him and not doing a confirmatory test was really out of character. Priya thinks that even though withholding the results of confirmatory tests was sanctioned at this time, Deaver knew it was wrong. She thinks he did a confirmatory test, that he knew the results, they were in his written notes and that he guessed that Diane was going to ask about it. She thinks he brought this up to his superiors and was scared. She points out that around this time, a superior had ordered a lab tech to destroy evidence in Daniel Green’s case, and that it wouldn’t be a leap to think the SBI lab would be freaked out at the idea of a defense attorney asking for the results of that test - especially since 10 years later, people still didn’t know that they even did confirmatory tests. Priya thinks that the confirmatory test was done and the record of it was destroyed. As F’d Up has mentioned before, the practices in the SBI Lab were originally unwritten policy. Deaver’s superior sent out a memo saying if an initial test for blood and saliva was positive but confirmatory tests were not, they should say that evidence showed chemical evidence for their presence. And this is when this kind of reporting became written policy. Priya says she believes that the SBI Crime Lab covered up Deaver’s lie and made an entire policy to “really drill it home,” because they always looked out for their guys and themselves.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Next episode is the finale and F’d Up will be exploring reforms, recommendations for change and one last F'd Up case.&lt;/p&gt;
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The second part of an in-depth look at the F'd Up oversight agency that inexplicably accredited the NC SBI Crime lab five times - and another F'd Up case.

Acronyms are F'd Up - part two

Acronyms are F’d Up Pt. 1RecapWritten by Brandi AbbottIn 1992, George Goode was at his home with his brother Chris and friend Eugene DeCastro. The landlord, Leon Batton, came by for rent and a verbal fight broke out outside between Chris, Eugene, and Leon. George was still in his trailer. The argument escalated really quickly - to the point that Chris and Eugene attacked Leon physically and ultimately stabbed him to death. Leon’s wife, Margaret, got a call that someone was attacking her husband and she rushed over – Chris and Eugene turned their attention to her and inexplicably killed this poor woman as well. George who had remained inside for the entire altercation was in shock and terrified but Chris and Eugene snapped him out of it and all three men fled. For whatever reason, Chris handed Leon’s wallet to George at some point - so evidently they had robbed him as well. George was arrested very quickly, shortly followed by his brother, and Eugene the next day. As they had no time to pop home and take a shower or anything, Chris and Eugene were still covered in blood when they were picked up. George had absolutely no blood on him; and the SBI Crime Lab at the time even verified this, but a knife was found near where he was arrested and he had Leon’s wallet and somehow he was charged with murder. George’s trial began in 1993 when Duane Deaver was a young up and comer, and he testified at the trial that there was “invisible blood” on George’s boots. No one asked if this was his initial test or confirmatory test, because at that time, no one knew to ask. No one asked about the coveralls George was wearing which had been tested by a different analyst and received negative results because the defense didn’t have access to the files. George and Eugene were sentenced to the death penalty, whereas Chris received life in prison, but as he was actually covered in blood, we aren’t sure why he received a lighter sentence. Diane Savage, who has been mentioned a few times so far in the podcast, was born and raised in New York and a bit of a troublemaker. She was kicked out of her family home at a very young age, but she was scrappy and got a job in a lab to provide for herself. After a few years of working there, the lab workers decided to unionize and she helped them. She also helped with community organizing. Stuff like this was what she really enjoyed and wanted to continue helping others. She decided law school was the way to go, and got in to Georgetown. During her time in Washington D.C., she met her now husband who received a job opportunity in North Carolina, so they relocated. When she first arrived in NC, she was told by a local that she had “three marks against her”. 1. That she was a Yankee, 2. That she went to a fancy school and, 3. That she was a woman.  Diane’s first case as an attorney in North Carolina was George’s appeal. As we learned in the last episode, if you’re sentenced to death row, you’re appointed two defense attorneys. He got Diane and Lisa Williams. As Diane was reading through the case file, she noticed that there wasn’t a record of confirmatory tests. She had hired forensic expert, Marilyn Miller, and also had her lab background – and both women found the lack of secondary tests concerning. Note: This case was Marilyn’s first experience with Deaver and his shitty science. Phenolphthalein was the presumptive test that was used to confirm the alleged blood on George’s clothes. At the trial Diane questioned Deaver about his confirmatory tests, which were standard operating procedure in the SBI lab (even if reporting them was not), and Deaver claimed he didn’t do one. As evidenced throughout the podcast and in the Audit report, he always did a confirmatory test - so this was weird. The judge in this case didn’t like that Diane Savage was “living up to her last name”, according to Priya, and the DA didn’t like the way she was treating Deaver. According to Diane, Judge Jenkins told her that she engaged in character assassination and maligned elected public officials. He also told her that if she were correct about Duane Deaver, a grand jury should be convened and people prosecuted for perjury. Diane said that the judge struck the pleading over what she said about Deaver and she would have to start over again. He also took what’s called judicial notice to basically declare as “fact” that Duane Deaver was great.  To further prove his point, he reported Diane to the state bar for discipline. She was investigated and removed from her cases.Thankfully, she was ultimately cleared of any wrongdoing. Priya pointed out that this was in 1997 and if people had listened to Diane then, they may have been able to shave 13 years off of a lot of people’s sentences and maybe even saved some lives (see: Death Row is F’d Up). ASCLD LAB was the only agency that had accredited the SBI Crime Lab as of 2010, and as the News and Observer stated, had missed all of the problems. They should have been aware of all of the mess the SBI had been concocting and should have stopped it. ASCLD LAB stands for The American Society of Crime Lab Directors Laboratory Accreditation Board, is not to be confused with ASCLD which is just the American Society of Crime Lab Directors. Confused yet? I sure am. As F’d Up has discussed, the NCSBI Crime Lab is closely intertwined with prosecutors and ASCLD LAB is much the same. ASCLD LAB HQ was located in Johnston County, NC - which was in close proximity to the executive director’s home.  In 2016, ASCLD LAB joined forces with an organization named ANAB, which stands for ANSI-ASQ National Accreditation Board. The hidden acronym in that one stands for American National Standards Institute- American Society for Quality. If your acronym is so long, it needs its own acronym, you have a problem. After the merger, ASCLD LABS and ANAB became just ANAB. When ASCLD was formed in 1974, their early goals were to address a quality control for labs and their practices, and it was decided that accreditation was the way to go. As ASCLD was not an accrediting body, ASCLD LABS was formed in 1982. Labs accredited by ASCLD LAB must be up to their standards and willing to be re-inspected on site every five years. The process for accreditation includes a tech or supervisor selecting at least five cases for review, which basically means the lab can pick whichever cases they want to be reviewed - and would obviously select their best cases. If a lab is found to be non-compliant, they have the opportunity to correct the issue. At some point after the audit, Chris Swecker told the News and Observer that it was thought that ASCLD LAB was infallible and it was surprising to him that they hadn’t gotten a better sense of what was going on in the SBI Crime Lab for all of those years. It was surprising to only him however, as the labs always knew that ASCLD LAB was coming for a review and were allowed to cherry-pick cases. According to a few articles, the SBI has repeatedly had to fix policies or correct cases in order to pass, but they always did pass and remain in good standing with ASCLD LAB. ASCLD LAB is quoted as saying that they often bend over backwards to help labs pass because they want them to pass. A defense lawyer Priya spoke with, who is part of the New York State Commission of Forensic Science, named Marvin Schechter wrote in a memo in 2011 that ASCLD LAB could more accurately be described as a product service organization that sells a seal of approval for a fee. This is something labs can use to bolster their credibility.Marvin Schechter was in his office in New York when he got a call from a friend in D.C. that a commission was being formed to identify needs from forensic science. They wanted a well-rounded committee of lawyers, scientists, and judges with different perspectives of the needs of forensic science. They were missing a defensive attorney and Marvin’s friend recommended him. With this commission, he coauthored the National Academy of Science’s 2009 report titled “Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward”. This report was a 350-page look at forensic science that identified the needs of the forensic science world and made recommendations to the forensic science community. One thing that the report didn’t look at was accrediting entities for forensic labs in the countries. People like Marvin began getting concerned about these entities, such as ASCLD LABS, because they seemed to have no concern about the blatant wrongdoing in the labs. He wrote a memo to the New York State Commission in March of 2011 that was a detailed analysis about ASCLD LAB and forensic laboratory accreditation which is what inspired Priya to reach out to him for F’d Up. What she learned from speaking to him was that around the same time as the audit and everything going on in NC after Greg Taylor’s exoneration, the SFPDCL (San Francisco Police Department Crime Lab) were garnering attention. A tech in the drug testing area had been stealing cocaine from the lab for personal use, and in May of 2010, the drug testing section was shut down. A whistleblower sent a letter in 2008 to a public defender and a letter in 2009 to ASCLD LAB revealing that there had been a DNA test tube mess-up by a tech that was covered up by a supervisor. In July of 2009, ASCLD LAB sent a letter to that supervisor who denied knowing anything about it. After investigating, verifying that there was a mixup, and finding out the files had been destroyed in an attempted cover-up, ASCLD LAB accredited that lab for another five years. In 2009, the NYSIG (New York State Inspector General), issued a report that mentioned the SDPDCL and its issues. It also mentioned a tech in the NYSPFIC (New York State Police Forensic Investigation Center) had fabricated fiber analysis evidence which occurred while the lab was being accredited by ASCLD LAB. A guy named Jay Jarvis who was on the ASCLD LAB board of directors, referred to this report in an article he had written, meaning they were aware of these issues. The gist of the excuses thrown around over these fuckups is that it’s “one guy in one lab”, but it’s not. There’s a pattern of, at minimum, gross negligence and at most, intentional lying. Duane Deaver is usually named in relation to the disaster that is the SBI Crime Lab and their audit, but as we’ve learned, he wasn’t the only one fucking up, just the one most often blamed. As you may remember, the NAS report in 2009 recommended that lab employees have a science background in biology or chemistry. And… Peter Duane Deaver graduated from North Carolina University with a degree in zoology in 1984. On December 1st, 1985, Deaver was hired by the SBI to work in the serology section of the SBI Crime Lab. Deaver attended the SBI Academy in March of 1986 and worked his first serology case in 1988. At that time a man named Mark Nelson was in charged of the serology department. In 2010, Deaver was involved with 50 of the 230 cases in the audit. When the audit was released, he was suspended with pay and advised that he was the subject of an administrative investigation. In January 2011, he was officially fired. One reason behind this was that he was asked to look over some evidence during his suspension in October of 2010 which was sanctioned by the SBI, but in late October, without permission, he assisted a criminal profiler with writing a complaint related to the case. He asked for his name to be taken off of this complaint as he wasn’t suppose to be working on it while on leave, but removing his name wasn’t legal.Another reason was on September 3rd of 2009, Deaver told the IIC that there was no further testing in Greg Taylor’s case, but there had been. The last reason was his unprofessionalism in saying “that’s a wrap baby” at the end of the video where Gerald Thomas was trying to “shore up” evidence in Kirk Turner’s case. About a month after being fired, he met with SBI Director McLeod in an attempt to get his job back but was denied. He appealed his firing and the case went before the State Human Resources Committee. He claimed that he didn’t perjure himself at trial because he rushed through the file quickly in the car right before the hearing. He defended his performance in the video by claiming he didn’t know the sound would be on in the video. He presented the video he did with Suzi Barker in the Peterson case where she jumps up and down and pointed out that she was only reprimanded, whereas he was he fired. Essentially, everything Deaver had done was being done by everyone in the SBI Crime Lab. His lawyer brought up the fact that Deaver was the scapegoat for the SBI. Getting rid of him was a way to put the public’s mind at ease. The State Human Resources Commission came to the conclusion that the lesser disciplinary action of being demoted with a reduction in his salary would have been appropriate for Deaver. They noted, however, that on July 16th, 2013 Deaver was found to have presented false or misleading evidence for the Michael Peterson case and that would have been grounds for firing. Deaver was unfired in November of 2014 and reinstated into his previous position with two years of backpay and “all of the other benefits of continuous state employment”. He was fired again the same day he was unfired with a backdate of July 16th, 2013 which was the day his misconduct in the Michael Peterson case came to light.Meanwhile, Suzi Barker is still employed with the SBI and Gerald Thomas has climbed the ladder to almost the top of the SBI. Essentially, as F’d Up has been saying this whole time, Duane Deaver isn’t the only problem, there are problems in labs all across America. Next week’s episode will delve more into those, more acronyms, the rest of George Goode’s case, and some tinfoil hat theories about Duane Deaver.

<description>&lt;p&gt;Acronyms are F’d Up Pt. 1&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Recap&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Written by Brandi Abbott&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In 1992, George Goode was at his home with his brother Chris and friend Eugene DeCastro. The landlord, Leon Batton, came by for rent and a verbal fight broke out outside between Chris, Eugene, and Leon. George was still in his trailer. The argument escalated really quickly - to the point that Chris and Eugene attacked Leon physically and ultimately stabbed him to death. Leon’s wife, Margaret, got a call that someone was attacking her husband and she rushed over – Chris and Eugene turned their attention to her and inexplicably killed this poor woman as well. George who had remained inside for the entire altercation was in shock and terrified but Chris and Eugene snapped him out of it and all three men fled. For whatever reason, Chris handed Leon’s wallet to George at some point - so evidently they had robbed him as well. George was arrested very quickly, shortly followed by his brother, and Eugene the next day. As they had no time to pop home and take a shower or anything, Chris and Eugene were still covered in blood when they were picked up. George had absolutely no blood on him; and the SBI Crime Lab at the time even verified this, but a knife was found near where he was arrested and he had Leon’s wallet and somehow he was charged with murder. George’s trial began in 1993 when Duane Deaver was a young up and comer, and he testified at the trial that there was “invisible blood” on George’s boots. No one asked if this was his initial test or confirmatory test, because at that time, no one knew to ask. No one asked about the coveralls George was wearing which had been tested by a different analyst and received negative results because the defense didn’t have access to the files. George and Eugene were sentenced to the death penalty, whereas Chris received life in prison, but as he was actually covered in blood, we aren’t sure why he received a lighter sentence. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Diane Savage, who has been mentioned a few times so far in the podcast, was born and raised in New York and a bit of a troublemaker. She was kicked out of her family home at a very young age, but she was scrappy and got a job in a lab to provide for herself. After a few years of working there, the lab workers decided to unionize and she helped them. She also helped with community organizing. Stuff like this was what she really enjoyed and wanted to continue helping others. She decided law school was the way to go, and got in to Georgetown. During her time in Washington D.C., she met her now husband who received a job opportunity in North Carolina, so they relocated. When she first arrived in NC, she was told by a local that she had “three marks against her”. 1. That she was a Yankee, 2. That she went to a fancy school and, 3. That she was a woman.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Diane’s first case as an attorney in North Carolina was George’s appeal. As we learned in the last episode, if you’re sentenced to death row, you’re appointed two defense attorneys. He got Diane and Lisa Williams. As Diane was reading through the case file, she noticed that there wasn’t a record of confirmatory tests. She had hired forensic expert, Marilyn Miller, and also had her lab background – and both women found the lack of secondary tests concerning. Note: This case was Marilyn’s first experience with Deaver and his shitty science. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Phenolphthalein was the presumptive test that was used to confirm the alleged blood on George’s clothes. At the trial Diane questioned Deaver about his confirmatory tests, which were standard operating procedure in the SBI lab (even if reporting them was not), and Deaver claimed he didn’t do one. As evidenced throughout the podcast and in the Audit report, he always did a confirmatory test - so this was weird. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The judge in this case didn’t like that Diane Savage was “living up to her last name”, according to Priya, and the DA didn’t like the way she was treating Deaver. According to Diane, Judge Jenkins told her that she engaged in character assassination and maligned elected public officials. He also told her that if she were correct about Duane Deaver, a grand jury should be convened and people prosecuted for perjury. Diane said that the judge struck the pleading over what she said about Deaver and she would have to start over again. He also took what’s called judicial notice to basically declare as “fact” that Duane Deaver was great.  To further prove his point, he reported Diane to the state bar for discipline. She was investigated and removed from her cases.Thankfully, she was ultimately cleared of any wrongdoing. Priya pointed out that this was in 1997 and if people had listened to Diane then, they may have been able to shave 13 years off of a lot of people’s sentences and maybe even saved some lives (see: Death Row is F’d Up). &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;ASCLD LAB was the only agency that had accredited the SBI Crime Lab as of 2010, and as the News and Observer stated, had missed all of the problems. They should have been aware of all of the mess the SBI had been concocting and should have stopped it. ASCLD LAB stands for The American Society of Crime Lab Directors Laboratory Accreditation Board, is not to be confused with ASCLD which is just the American Society of Crime Lab Directors. Confused yet? I sure am. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;As F’d Up has discussed, the NCSBI Crime Lab is closely intertwined with prosecutors and ASCLD LAB is much the same. ASCLD LAB HQ was located in Johnston County, NC - which was in close proximity to the executive director’s home.  In 2016, ASCLD LAB joined forces with an organization named ANAB, which stands for ANSI-ASQ National Accreditation Board. The hidden acronym in that one stands for American National Standards Institute- American Society for Quality. If your acronym is so long, it needs its own acronym, you have a problem. After the merger, ASCLD LABS and ANAB became just ANAB. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;When ASCLD was formed in 1974, their early goals were to address a quality control for labs and their practices, and it was decided that accreditation was the way to go. As ASCLD was not an accrediting body, ASCLD LABS was formed in 1982. Labs accredited by ASCLD LAB must be up to their standards and willing to be re-inspected on site every five years. The process for accreditation includes a tech or supervisor selecting at least five cases for review, which basically means the lab can pick whichever cases they want to be reviewed - and would obviously select their best cases. If a lab is found to be non-compliant, they have the opportunity to correct the issue. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;At some point after the audit, Chris Swecker told the News and Observer that it was thought that ASCLD LAB was infallible and it was surprising to him that they hadn’t gotten a better sense of what was going on in the SBI Crime Lab for all of those years. It was surprising to only him however, as the labs always knew that ASCLD LAB was coming for a review and were allowed to cherry-pick cases. According to a few articles, the SBI has repeatedly had to fix policies or correct cases in order to pass, but they always did pass and remain in good standing with ASCLD LAB. ASCLD LAB is quoted as saying that they often bend over backwards to help labs pass because they want them to pass. A defense lawyer Priya spoke with, who is part of the New York State Commission of Forensic Science, named Marvin Schechter wrote in a memo in 2011 that ASCLD LAB could more accurately be described as a product service organization that sells a seal of approval for a fee. This is something labs can use to bolster their credibility.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Marvin Schechter was in his office in New York when he got a call from a friend in D.C. that a commission was being formed to identify needs from forensic science. They wanted a well-rounded committee of lawyers, scientists, and judges with different perspectives of the needs of forensic science. They were missing a defensive attorney and Marvin’s friend recommended him. With this commission, he coauthored the National Academy of Science’s 2009 report titled “Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward”. This report was a 350-page look at forensic science that identified the needs of the forensic science world and made recommendations to the forensic science community. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;One thing that the report didn’t look at was accrediting entities for forensic labs in the countries. People like Marvin began getting concerned about these entities, such as ASCLD LABS, because they seemed to have no concern about the blatant wrongdoing in the labs. He wrote a memo to the New York State Commission in March of 2011 that was a detailed analysis about ASCLD LAB and forensic laboratory accreditation which is what inspired Priya to reach out to him for F’d Up. What she learned from speaking to him was that around the same time as the audit and everything going on in NC after Greg Taylor’s exoneration, the SFPDCL (San Francisco Police Department Crime Lab) were garnering attention. A tech in the drug testing area had been stealing cocaine from the lab for personal use, and in May of 2010, the drug testing section was shut down. A whistleblower sent a letter in 2008 to a public defender and a letter in 2009 to ASCLD LAB revealing that there had been a DNA test tube mess-up by a tech that was covered up by a supervisor. In July of 2009, ASCLD LAB sent a letter to that supervisor who denied knowing anything about it. After investigating, verifying that there was a mixup, and finding out the files had been destroyed in an attempted cover-up, ASCLD LAB accredited that lab for another five years. In 2009, the NYSIG (New York State Inspector General), issued a report that mentioned the SDPDCL and its issues. It also mentioned a tech in the NYSPFIC (New York State Police Forensic Investigation Center) had fabricated fiber analysis evidence which occurred while the lab was being accredited by ASCLD LAB. A guy named Jay Jarvis who was on the ASCLD LAB board of directors, referred to this report in an article he had written, meaning they were aware of these issues. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The gist of the excuses thrown around over these fuckups is that it’s “one guy in one lab”, but it’s not. There’s a pattern of, at minimum, gross negligence and at most, intentional lying. Duane Deaver is usually named in relation to the disaster that is the SBI Crime Lab and their audit, but as we’ve learned, he wasn’t the only one fucking up, just the one most often blamed. As you may remember, the NAS report in 2009 recommended that lab employees have a science background in biology or chemistry. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;And… Peter Duane Deaver graduated from North Carolina University with a degree in zoology in 1984. On December 1st, 1985, Deaver was hired by the SBI to work in the serology section of the SBI Crime Lab. Deaver attended the SBI Academy in March of 1986 and worked his first serology case in 1988. At that time a man named Mark Nelson was in charged of the serology department. In 2010, Deaver was involved with 50 of the 230 cases in the audit. When the audit was released, he was suspended with pay and advised that he was the subject of an administrative investigation. In January 2011, he was officially fired. One reason behind this was that he was asked to look over some evidence during his suspension in October of 2010 which was sanctioned by the SBI, but in late October, without permission, he assisted a criminal profiler with writing a complaint related to the case. He asked for his name to be taken off of this complaint as he wasn’t suppose to be working on it while on leave, but removing his name wasn’t legal.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Another reason was on September 3rd of 2009, Deaver told the IIC that there was no further testing in Greg Taylor’s case, but there had been. The last reason was his unprofessionalism in saying “that’s a wrap baby” at the end of the video where Gerald Thomas was trying to “shore up” evidence in Kirk Turner’s case. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;About a month after being fired, he met with SBI Director McLeod in an attempt to get his job back but was denied. He appealed his firing and the case went before the State Human Resources Committee. He claimed that he didn’t perjure himself at trial because he rushed through the file quickly in the car right before the hearing. He defended his performance in the video by claiming he didn’t know the sound would be on in the video. He presented the video he did with Suzi Barker in the Peterson case where she jumps up and down and pointed out that she was only reprimanded, whereas he was he fired. Essentially, everything Deaver had done was being done by everyone in the SBI Crime Lab. His lawyer brought up the fact that Deaver was the scapegoat for the SBI. Getting rid of him was a way to put the public’s mind at ease. The State Human Resources Commission came to the conclusion that the lesser disciplinary action of being demoted with a reduction in his salary would have been appropriate for Deaver. They noted, however, that on July 16th, 2013 Deaver was found to have presented false or misleading evidence for the Michael Peterson case and that would have been grounds for firing. Deaver was unfired in November of 2014 and reinstated into his previous position with two years of backpay and “all of the other benefits of continuous state employment”. He was fired again the same day he was unfired with a backdate of July 16th, 2013 which was the day his misconduct in the Michael Peterson case came to light.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile, Suzi Barker is still employed with the SBI and Gerald Thomas has climbed the ladder to almost the top of the SBI. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Essentially, as F’d Up has been saying this whole time, Duane Deaver isn’t the only problem, there are problems in labs all across America. Next week’s episode will delve more into those, more acronyms, the rest of George Goode’s case, and some tinfoil hat theories about Duane Deaver. &lt;/p&gt;
</description>

The first part of an in-depth look at the F'd Up oversight agency that inexplicably accredited the NC SBI Crime lab five times.  Why didn't they catch Duane Deaver's (and everyone else in that lab) F'd Up shenanigans?!

Acronyms are F'd Up - part one

The Cost is F’d Up Part TwoRecapWritten by Brandi AbbottOn August 10th, 1984 the body of a woman who had been sexually assaulted and stabbed to death was found. A witness stated that he had seen the victim with a black man named Darryl Hunt the morning before she had been murdered. Another witness claimed they had seen her with another man who couldn’t have done it but then changed their statement to say they had seen her with Darryl after being pressed by the police. Darryl’s girlfriend was arrested for outstanding charges against her, but was most likely arrested so the police could get more information on Darryl. She told them that he had confessed to her that he had murdered the victim. Darryl maintained his innocence, but was tried for first degree murder. Many of the witnesses testified that he had either been seen with the victim or covered in blood, but he testified that he didn’t even know the victim. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. It’s possible that his jury was completely white but there are conflicting reports. One holdout on the jury prevented him from being sentenced to death.When Darryl was convicted, the black community was upset to say the least. The black community thought he was innocent, whereas the white community thought he was guilty. The case was extremely racially charged, even in prison because the victim was a young successful white woman. Darryl told Larry that he was a target for the skinheads. After five years in prison, Darryl’s conviction was overturned because it was revealed that the prosecutors presented Darryl’s ex-girlfriend’s statement, which she had recanted even before the trial. He was released on bond while he awaited a new trial and was offered a plea deal that if he just pled guilty he could have time served and not spend another day in prison. As he was innocent, he refused.Darryl was retried in front of all of all-white jury and, as well as the original witnesses, some jailhouse informants showed up to testify. Darryl was convicted for a second time and sentenced to life in prison. During all of this, the SBI had compiled a report that was thousands of pages long, but the trial court opted to not review it and the judge ordered it sealed so that no one would be able to read it. All requests from Darryl’s attorneys, Mark Rabil and Ben Dowling-Sendor, to get the report unsealed were denied. The attorneys requested DNA testing on a semen sample found on the victim because Ben found out that the SBI had more evidence than they were saying, including this sample. Prior to this, the SBI complained that the sample was too degraded to test. Darryl’s attorneys argued that there was witness tampering and evidence that the SBI was clearly concealing. The judge disagreed that there was anything shady going on, but allowed for testing of the semen sample.In October of 1994, the test results came back and Darryl was not a match to the sample. The victim’s mother begged for there not to be a third trial as she had already been through it twice. The judge refused to exonerate Darryl, saying the case was only somewhat weakened by this evidence, and believed that Darryl could still be guilty. Darryl’s attorneys appealed many times but were continuously denied.In February of 2003, Darryl was still in prison even though it had been 19 years since he was convicted and 10 years since he proved his innocence. Darryl’s attorneys requested that the semen sample be run through the state database and it got a match. The match was for a man named Willard Brown who confessed to the crime. He was allegedly in prison at the time of the murder, but according to the movie “The Trials of Darryl Hunt”, Mark Rabil found out he had been released prior to the murder. Mark also discovered that there may have been another victim who survived and the police may have coerced her into not pressing charges against Brown for some unknown reason and destroyed evidence of this crime. The DA tried to delay Darryl’s release because they were sure they had their man. However, with overwhelming evidence that he was innocent, Darryl was released from prison on December 24th, 2003. He had to go before a judge six weeks later and prove his innocence again, and Darryl Hunt was finally exonerated in 2004. He received a state payment of $300,000, and, when he sued the city of Winston-Salem, received a settlement of over 1.6 million dollars.Every case F’d Up has covered has been settled which Jess says protects the system and prevents it from having to admit culpability. The Innocence Project and Center on Actual Innocence makes a difference by showing law enforcement and the public that there are people in prison who are actually innocent, which will go a long way towards helping these injustices. Prosecutors will sometimes do press conferences saying they just didn’t have enough evidence which places doubt in the public’s eye about the exonerated. Kim Cook said that a public apology instead could go a long way. If you’re exonerated and return to where you once lived, the community may recognize you from the crime you were convicted of and not as someone exonerated from that crime. Saundra and Kim reference a woman who was wrongfully convicted of killing her child and exonerated. She returned to her hometown, but most people still believed she was a monster. Facing an accusatory community can be an added stressor, and extremely frustrating.The trauma of a wrongful conviction doesn’t just affect the exoneree, their family and loved ones are affected as well. According to a report called “Who Pays: The True Cost of Incarceration on Families”, the US spends 80 billion dollars to lock away more than 2.4 million people in jails and prisons. This has a huge impact on people who are “already stigmatized, penalized, and punished.” Unjust policy has created a legacy of collateral impacts that last for generations, especially in women, low income families, and communities of color. If a family is already struggling financially before a member goes to jail, the loss of income and court related costs can add up and create a financial hole. There are also charges for phone calls or emails with a prisoner, care packages, and costs related to visiting such as traveling or possibly lodging depending on how far away they are incarcerated. In short, outside of the costs of court fees and just losing their income, it’s going to cost you quite a lot just to communicate with your incarcerated love one. Also according to that report, families who are not able to speak with or visit their loved one are more likely to report experiencing negative affects on their health. The report says that these affects hit women and people of color the hardest deepening the societal divides that push many into the criminal justice system in the first place. Almost one in every four women and two in every five black women specifically are related to someone incarcerated. The system is set up to keep people of color down.It can take a year from being released to actually be pardoned and, as we learned last week, an exoneree must be pardoned to get the state allocated money. If an exoneree’s record is not expunged or sealed, it can be extremely difficult to reenter the work force. The question “have you ever been convicted of a felony” is a kind of a trick question to an exoneree because there’s not exactly a box to check for “yes, but I didn’t do it”. According to the Innocence Project, it can take three or four years for a criminal record to be expunged. This can affect more than jobs, as landlords may not want to rent to you after they run your background check, you can’t provide work history or credit history for a mortgage, and Section 8 housing doesn’t allow convicted felons. The system sets the exoneree up for failure, and they often can end up homeless which can lead the exoneree back on the path to prison.The article “How Private Equity is Turning Private Prisons Into Big Profits” states that “Poverty in particular perpetuates the cycle of incarceration while incarceration leads to greater poverty.’ Estimates say that nearly 40% of all crimes are a result of poverty, and the majority of incarcerated people are low income. Because of extremely problematic policies, by 1985 prisons in 34 states were under court supervision for violating constitutional rights of prisoners. President Ronald Reagan’s war on drugs had begun, leading to a steady influx of newly incarcerated American’s. Priya tells us that 1985 was around the time she lived in DC and that homelessness and gangs were on the rise. Her dad was a White House press photographer for UPI, and would walk past the homeless people at the gates of the White House, who President Reagan claimed didn’t exist. Her dad took a photograph of a homeless man there, started getting to know some of the regulars he encountered, and was, in general, taking really powerful photographs. One of the people he would speak to recommended he go to one of the homeless shelters. When he got there, the kids really wanted to play with his cameras so he taught them how to use them, and let them shoot photos. He noticed that their photographs were much lighter and had more hope than his own which were more serious and taken from an adult perspective. He ended up leaving UPI and started a non-profit called Shooting Back where kids would take photos, develop them, and he and some of the kids would travel the country educating others on the homeless situation. This program helped kids steer clear of getting involved in gangs, Priya says she remembers that one of the kids who wasn’t in the program for very long ended up being a victim of murder but she’s unsure of it was gang related but that considering the climate, it’s possible it was. She remembers that another kid who went through the program sent her dad an email a few years ago thanking him for helping him stay out of prison, because he’s certain that’s where he would have ended up. She says the cycle can be broken and arts education can help. Reagan ended up recanting his statement on homeless people and Priya says she believes that the work of her dad and others contributed to that. She says that the reason she’s telling the story is that there were people, including her dad, at that time in the most powerful city in the nation trying to help but the government kept pushing forward with what was in front of their eyes instead of getting to the root of the issue.A woman named Bianca Tylek, the founder of an advocacy group called Worth Rises has cataloged 3,100 companies with a financial stake in mass incarceration. Jess says that incarceration is good for business, just terrible for people.In 2005, Darryl Hunt founded The Darryl Hunt Project for Freedom and Justice, a non-profit dedicated to educating people about criminal justice reform, advocating for the wrongfully convicted, and providing resources to individuals who were recently released from prison. A reporter from the local paper interviewed Darryl Hunt in 2014. It had been 10 years since his exoneration and he still felt the conditioning of prison. He would pause before doors and wait for them to automatically open. If he left the house, prior to his return, Darryl would drive to an ATM and withdraw money, simply to have his face photographed so that there would be a record of his movements. Darryl said he never left his home without fear of being picked up for something he didn’t do on his mind. He also said that he refused to celebrate the anniversaries of his exoneration. He recognized the miracle of it and was grateful for it, but said for others around him it would be a celebration but for him it would just be reliving it. The article says that Darryl’s attorney, Mark Rabil, and Darryl became extremely good friends. The racial divide had not ended with Darryl’s exoneration, if Darryl and Mark went out to dinner in a more black neighborhood, everyone knew and loved Darryl. However, if they went out to dinner in a more white neighborhood, it would be quieter as he didn’t know many people and some kept their distance. Priya said it’s interesting to her that some of the people they have covered have moved out of North Carolina. Not that anyone can blame them as I’m sure it’s a constant reminder of what happened and they’re surrounded by people who still only see them as a convicted felon. Darryl did not move, however. He said he stayed in Winston-Salem because it made people uncomfortable. If people had a constant reminder of the injustice he went through, maybe it wouldn’t happen again. Because he worked in justice reform, he would spend time in courtrooms. Mark Rabil said his face was a reminder to the people who put him away and that some DAs would cross the street to avoid him. When he walked into a courtroom, it would go quiet. In the same year Darryl was exonerated, he dedicated his life to justice reform. In addition to his non-profit, he worked with the Innocence Injustice Clinic at Wake Forest University School of Law where he helped people get their criminal records expunged and spoke publicly, allowing law students to ask him about his case. He joined the board of directors for the Center on Actual Innocence. He helped advocated for the Racial Injustice Act of 2009, which basically forbade race from being a factor in the pursuit of the death penalty. He was working non-stop and was the type who could never say no to the point of personal risk to his mental health. It was like he was paying something back. Priya says that all of this work was clearly taking a toll on him. Darryl’s friend Mark Rabil was quoted as saying “He was the voice of the voiceless who was wounded by 20 years of wrongful incarceration and taking on the burdens of so many people and fighting systems that can’t be changed in one lifetime.” On March 13th 2016, Darryl Hunt completed suicide.Darryl Hunt has an incredible legacy. In North Carolina, anyone over the age of 16 can be tried as an adult, and, if convicted, may not be eligible for financial aid in schools when they get out. Many people, guilty or not, want to do better when released and want to start with an education. Darryl told friends that education is the key to breaking the cycle of incarceration. In 2017, the Darryl Hunt Memorial Scholarship was set up to help provide tuition to those that had been convicted of crimes. Darryl’s legacy is amazing but it doesn’t change the fact that he died. His friend and lawyer Mark Rabil was the only constant in his life, as his own mother had been murdered and the case was never solved. Mark told the Winston-Salem Journal that 19 years of wrongful incarceration is what killed Darryl Hunt.Darryl got to taste freedom, at least for a moment. Next week’s episode will revisit the audit because not everyone got that chance. Seven of the cases on the audit’s list were sentenced to death and we’ll learn more about those cases and death row, itself.

<description>&lt;p&gt;The Cost is F’d Up Part Two&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Recap&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Written by Brandi Abbott&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;On August 10th, 1984 the body of a woman who had been sexually assaulted and stabbed to death was found. A witness stated that he had seen the victim with a black man named Darryl Hunt the morning before she had been murdered. Another witness claimed they had seen her with another man who couldn’t have done it but then changed their statement to say they had seen her with Darryl after being pressed by the police. Darryl’s girlfriend was arrested for outstanding charges against her, but was most likely arrested so the police could get more information on Darryl. She told them that he had confessed to her that he had murdered the victim. Darryl maintained his innocence, but was tried for first degree murder. Many of the witnesses testified that he had either been seen with the victim or covered in blood, but he testified that he didn’t even know the victim. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. It’s possible that his jury was completely white but there are conflicting reports. One holdout on the jury prevented him from being sentenced to death.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;When Darryl was convicted, the black community was upset to say the least. The black community thought he was innocent, whereas the white community thought he was guilty. The case was extremely racially charged, even in prison because the victim was a young successful white woman. Darryl told Larry that he was a target for the skinheads. After five years in prison, Darryl’s conviction was overturned because it was revealed that the prosecutors presented Darryl’s ex-girlfriend’s statement, which she had recanted even before the trial. He was released on bond while he awaited a new trial and was offered a plea deal that if he just pled guilty he could have time served and not spend another day in prison. As he was innocent, he refused.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Darryl was retried in front of all of all-white jury and, as well as the original witnesses, some jailhouse informants showed up to testify. Darryl was convicted for a second time and sentenced to life in prison. During all of this, the SBI had compiled a report that was thousands of pages long, but the trial court opted to not review it and the judge ordered it sealed so that no one would be able to read it. All requests from Darryl’s attorneys, Mark Rabil and Ben Dowling-Sendor, to get the report unsealed were denied. The attorneys requested DNA testing on a semen sample found on the victim because Ben found out that the SBI had more evidence than they were saying, including this sample. Prior to this, the SBI complained that the sample was too degraded to test. Darryl’s attorneys argued that there was witness tampering and evidence that the SBI was clearly concealing. The judge disagreed that there was anything shady going on, but allowed for testing of the semen sample.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In October of 1994, the test results came back and Darryl was not a match to the sample. The victim’s mother begged for there not to be a third trial as she had already been through it twice. The judge refused to exonerate Darryl, saying the case was only somewhat weakened by this evidence, and believed that Darryl could still be guilty. Darryl’s attorneys appealed many times but were continuously denied.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In February of 2003, Darryl was still in prison even though it had been 19 years since he was convicted and 10 years since he proved his innocence. Darryl’s attorneys requested that the semen sample be run through the state database and it got a match. The match was for a man named Willard Brown who confessed to the crime. He was allegedly in prison at the time of the murder, but according to the movie “The Trials of Darryl Hunt”, Mark Rabil found out he had been released prior to the murder. Mark also discovered that there may have been another victim who survived and the police may have coerced her into not pressing charges against Brown for some unknown reason and destroyed evidence of this crime. The DA tried to delay Darryl’s release because they were sure they had their man. However, with overwhelming evidence that he was innocent, Darryl was released from prison on December 24th, 2003. He had to go before a judge six weeks later and prove his innocence again, and Darryl Hunt was finally exonerated in 2004. He received a state payment of $300,000, and, when he sued the city of Winston-Salem, received a settlement of over 1.6 million dollars.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Every case F’d Up has covered has been settled which Jess says protects the system and prevents it from having to admit culpability. The Innocence Project and Center on Actual Innocence makes a difference by showing law enforcement and the public that there are people in prison who are actually innocent, which will go a long way towards helping these injustices. Prosecutors will sometimes do press conferences saying they just didn’t have enough evidence which places doubt in the public’s eye about the exonerated. Kim Cook said that a public apology instead could go a long way. If you’re exonerated and return to where you once lived, the community may recognize you from the crime you were convicted of and not as someone exonerated from that crime. Saundra and Kim reference a woman who was wrongfully convicted of killing her child and exonerated. She returned to her hometown, but most people still believed she was a monster. Facing an accusatory community can be an added stressor, and extremely frustrating.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The trauma of a wrongful conviction doesn’t just affect the exoneree, their family and loved ones are affected as well. According to a report called “Who Pays: The True Cost of Incarceration on Families”, the US spends 80 billion dollars to lock away more than 2.4 million people in jails and prisons. This has a huge impact on people who are “already stigmatized, penalized, and punished.” Unjust policy has created a legacy of collateral impacts that last for generations, especially in women, low income families, and communities of color. If a family is already struggling financially before a member goes to jail, the loss of income and court related costs can add up and create a financial hole. There are also charges for phone calls or emails with a prisoner, care packages, and costs related to visiting such as traveling or possibly lodging depending on how far away they are incarcerated. In short, outside of the costs of court fees and just losing their income, it’s going to cost you quite a lot just to communicate with your incarcerated love one. Also according to that report, families who are not able to speak with or visit their loved one are more likely to report experiencing negative affects on their health. The report says that these affects hit women and people of color the hardest deepening the societal divides that push many into the criminal justice system in the first place. Almost one in every four women and two in every five black women specifically are related to someone incarcerated. The system is set up to keep people of color down.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It can take a year from being released to actually be pardoned and, as we learned last week, an exoneree must be pardoned to get the state allocated money. If an exoneree’s record is not expunged or sealed, it can be extremely difficult to reenter the work force. The question “have you ever been convicted of a felony” is a kind of a trick question to an exoneree because there’s not exactly a box to check for “yes, but I didn’t do it”. According to the Innocence Project, it can take three or four years for a criminal record to be expunged. This can affect more than jobs, as landlords may not want to rent to you after they run your background check, you can’t provide work history or credit history for a mortgage, and Section 8 housing doesn’t allow convicted felons. The system sets the exoneree up for failure, and they often can end up homeless which can lead the exoneree back on the path to prison.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The article “How Private Equity is Turning Private Prisons Into Big Profits” states that “Poverty in particular perpetuates the cycle of incarceration while incarceration leads to greater poverty.’ Estimates say that nearly 40% of all crimes are a result of poverty, and the majority of incarcerated people are low income. Because of extremely problematic policies, by 1985 prisons in 34 states were under court supervision for violating constitutional rights of prisoners. President Ronald Reagan’s war on drugs had begun, leading to a steady influx of newly incarcerated American’s. Priya tells us that 1985 was around the time she lived in DC and that homelessness and gangs were on the rise. Her dad was a White House press photographer for UPI, and would walk past the homeless people at the gates of the White House, who President Reagan claimed didn’t exist. Her dad took a photograph of a homeless man there, started getting to know some of the regulars he encountered, and was, in general, taking really powerful photographs. One of the people he would speak to recommended he go to one of the homeless shelters. When he got there, the kids really wanted to play with his cameras so he taught them how to use them, and let them shoot photos. He noticed that their photographs were much lighter and had more hope than his own which were more serious and taken from an adult perspective. He ended up leaving UPI and started a non-profit called Shooting Back where kids would take photos, develop them, and he and some of the kids would travel the country educating others on the homeless situation. This program helped kids steer clear of getting involved in gangs, Priya says she remembers that one of the kids who wasn’t in the program for very long ended up being a victim of murder but she’s unsure of it was gang related but that considering the climate, it’s possible it was. She remembers that another kid who went through the program sent her dad an email a few years ago thanking him for helping him stay out of prison, because he’s certain that’s where he would have ended up. She says the cycle can be broken and arts education can help. Reagan ended up recanting his statement on homeless people and Priya says she believes that the work of her dad and others contributed to that. She says that the reason she’s telling the story is that there were people, including her dad, at that time in the most powerful city in the nation trying to help but the government kept pushing forward with what was in front of their eyes instead of getting to the root of the issue.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;A woman named Bianca Tylek, the founder of an advocacy group called Worth Rises has cataloged 3,100 companies with a financial stake in mass incarceration. Jess says that incarceration is good for business, just terrible for people.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In 2005, Darryl Hunt founded The Darryl Hunt Project for Freedom and Justice, a non-profit dedicated to educating people about criminal justice reform, advocating for the wrongfully convicted, and providing resources to individuals who were recently released from prison. A reporter from the local paper interviewed Darryl Hunt in 2014. It had been 10 years since his exoneration and he still felt the conditioning of prison. He would pause before doors and wait for them to automatically open. If he left the house, prior to his return, Darryl would drive to an ATM and withdraw money, simply to have his face photographed so that there would be a record of his movements. Darryl said he never left his home without fear of being picked up for something he didn’t do on his mind. He also said that he refused to celebrate the anniversaries of his exoneration. He recognized the miracle of it and was grateful for it, but said for others around him it would be a celebration but for him it would just be reliving it. The article says that Darryl’s attorney, Mark Rabil, and Darryl became extremely good friends. The racial divide had not ended with Darryl’s exoneration, if Darryl and Mark went out to dinner in a more black neighborhood, everyone knew and loved Darryl. However, if they went out to dinner in a more white neighborhood, it would be quieter as he didn’t know many people and some kept their distance. Priya said it’s interesting to her that some of the people they have covered have moved out of North Carolina. Not that anyone can blame them as I’m sure it’s a constant reminder of what happened and they’re surrounded by people who still only see them as a convicted felon. Darryl did not move, however. He said he stayed in Winston-Salem because it made people uncomfortable. If people had a constant reminder of the injustice he went through, maybe it wouldn’t happen again. Because he worked in justice reform, he would spend time in courtrooms. Mark Rabil said his face was a reminder to the people who put him away and that some DAs would cross the street to avoid him. When he walked into a courtroom, it would go quiet. In the same year Darryl was exonerated, he dedicated his life to justice reform. In addition to his non-profit, he worked with the Innocence Injustice Clinic at Wake Forest University School of Law where he helped people get their criminal records expunged and spoke publicly, allowing law students to ask him about his case. He joined the board of directors for the Center on Actual Innocence. He helped advocated for the Racial Injustice Act of 2009, which basically forbade race from being a factor in the pursuit of the death penalty. He was working non-stop and was the type who could never say no to the point of personal risk to his mental health. It was like he was paying something back. Priya says that all of this work was clearly taking a toll on him. Darryl’s friend Mark Rabil was quoted as saying “He was the voice of the voiceless who was wounded by 20 years of wrongful incarceration and taking on the burdens of so many people and fighting systems that can’t be changed in one lifetime.” On March 13th 2016, Darryl Hunt completed suicide.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Darryl Hunt has an incredible legacy. In North Carolina, anyone over the age of 16 can be tried as an adult, and, if convicted, may not be eligible for financial aid in schools when they get out. Many people, guilty or not, want to do better when released and want to start with an education. Darryl told friends that education is the key to breaking the cycle of incarceration. In 2017, the Darryl Hunt Memorial Scholarship was set up to help provide tuition to those that had been convicted of crimes. Darryl’s legacy is amazing but it doesn’t change the fact that he died. His friend and lawyer Mark Rabil was the only constant in his life, as his own mother had been murdered and the case was never solved. Mark told the Winston-Salem Journal that 19 years of wrongful incarceration is what killed Darryl Hunt.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Darryl got to taste freedom, at least for a moment. Next week’s episode will revisit the audit because not everyone got that chance. Seven of the cases on the audit’s list were sentenced to death and we’ll learn more about those cases and death row, itself.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>

Part two of the financial and emotional costs of wrongful convictions.

The Cost is F'd Up - Part Two

The Cost is F’d Up - Part One Recap 
Written by Brandi Abbott
Around 2015, a man named, LaMonte Armstrong sued the city of Greensboro, NC and three of its former cops after spending almost 17 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. On July 12th, 1988 Ernestine Compton was found murdered in her home. The crime was publicized on Crime Stoppers, and an informant with a reputation for lying called in and said Mr. Armstrong was the killer. The police followed up on his statement, but at some point he recanted this and the case went cold. By 1992, the police had reason to suspect Christopher Caveness was involved. There was palm and fingerprint evidence at the crime scene so the SBI was brought in to match it to Caveness - but it wasn’t a match. The police had never let go of the idea that Mr. Armstrong had committed the murder, and the informant changed his story again, becoming the star witness in Mr. Armstrong’s trial. In 1995, Mr. Armstrong was convicted of murdering Ernestine Compton. In 2010, the informant recanted his statement again. The cops had failed to mention he was paid $200 and received a lighter or reduced sentence for another crime. The palm print was run again and actually did match Caveness, but by then, he had died in a car crash – not total justice for the victim. But, Mr. Armstrong received some semblance of justice when he was exonerated in 2012 - and the next step was to try and be pardoned, because apparently those two things are separate. Once you’re released, you have to submit an application to the Governor to basically reprove your innocence, then you have to wait until they decide whether to pardon you or not. Thankfully, Mr. Armstrong was pardoned in 2013; which meant he could then apply to receive money that the state sets aside for exonerees. The amounts vary from state to state but in North Carolina, an exoneree can receive up to $50,000 for every year that they spent in prison… though, they cap it at 17 years.
There are people in our country who have been exonerated but not pardoned. Jess says that it makes sense that a state wouldn’t want to pardon someone as it admits culpability and they don’t want to pay someone hundreds of thousands of dollars. Mr. Armstong luckily received $750,000 from the state, but because of the severe injustice in his case, he was able to file a civil suit against the city of Greensboro and the three cops responsible for his conviction. The city hired 5 local lawyers to represent the cops in the suit, and as the trial dragged on into 2016, it was reported that the city spent $270,000 towards expenses for it. This meant that the city and state had spent over a million dollars for one wrongful conviction at that point. The city settled in 2016 and offered to pay Mr. Armstrong $6.42 million, as they should have. If someone goes to prison due to a wrongful conviction and mishandling of evidence, they obviously deserve some kind of compensation. If you’ve ever wondered where that money comes from however, the answer is that some can come from insurance but a large amount comes from taxpayers.
Priya found a report written in 2015 called “Criminal InJustice”. This report is based on California statistics, not North Carolina, as a report like this seemed unprecedented, but the situations are similar. The report included cases in California where the defendant was convicted of a felony and the conviction was reversed between the years of 1989 and 2012 and the charges were dismissed or the defendant was acquitted on retrial. They examined 692 cases in total and 607 of the cases “illuminate a dark corner in California’s criminal justice system”. The defendants in these 607 cases spent a combined total of 2,186 years in custody. Many of these defendants filed lawsuits and received settlements as a result of the errors. 58 of the 607 people filed claims asking for compensations. At the time of this report’s publication, only 14 of these claims were granted, 36 had been denied, and some were still pending, despite all 58 having been credible. A total of five million dollars was awarded to the 14 defendants, and this fee would have been much larger for taxpayers if all 58 people had been awarded compensation. Looking at all 607 cases, the report estimates that the wrongful convictions cost taxpayers $221 million for prosecution, incarceration, and settlement. The remaining cases out of the initial 692 examined are referred to in the report as group exonerations as they were cases that had multiple defendants. The most prominent of these was the 2002 Rampart Police Scandal in which a group of LA police officers admitted to falsely arresting or accusing hundreds of mostly Latinx residents of various crimes, 228 of which received civil settlements. LA paid more than 70 million dollars in settlements related to that scandal, and the total cost has been reported as between 125 million and one billion dollars. The settlement costs includes payouts to three LAPD officers who had lost their jobs over the scandal, despite having not been involved. The total cost to California taxpayers for all 692 of these cases was more than 282 million dollars. This doesn’t include the cost of people who were arrested but never convicted which adds cost to taxpayers significantly.
The money owed to Mr. Armstrong that wasn’t covered by insurance was to be paid by an increase in property taxes to Greensboro residents. Kirk Turner, who was one of two cases covered in this podcast where the accused was declared not guilty, recently won a $200,000 civil suit against the SBI. His case, however, cost the state way more than that. Greg Taylor sued and was awarded $4.6 million from the SBI. By 2013, the SBI and its insurers had paid about 16.4 million dollars between three wrongfully convicted men who spent a combined 40 years behind bars or in detention. Leslie Lincoln, the other case F’d Up covered where the accused wasn’t convicted, you may remember from episode three as having lost everything. She got a lawyer and tried to sue but the lawyer was lagging and doing nothing so she got a new lawyer. This one also dragged his feet on the issue, and ultimately the statutes of limitations ran out. Leslie suffers from PTSD and lives in section 8 housing. Jess says that her situation is more the norm than those who received millions of dollars. In 2012, when Mr. Armstrong was exonerated, there was about a year between when he was released and when he received his payout which Jess says is the case for any of the exonerated who are fortunate enough to be awarded a payout.
Priya spoke to Saundra Westervelt and Kim Cook for this episode. Saundra is a professor emerita at UNCG and Kim is a professor of sociology and criminology at UNCW. They’ve dedicated decades to studying and writing about the post-exoneration process and what happens to exonerees once they’re released. When someone is exonerated, they sometimes only receive a couple of hours notice, and have to walk out of prison in the clothes they were wearing when they went in, sometimes decades ago and with no car or transportation. Some people may be lucky enough to have someone still to pick them up or bring new clothes but for a lot of people, years in prison leads to a loss of connections in the outside world. It’s possible that an exoneree has been transferred to a prison hours away from wherever they live, assuming they even still have a home. Many people walk out of prison, finally free after spending years inside for crimes they didn’t commit and find themselves in an entirely new world with no clue of where to go or what to do. Unlike parolees, there are no programs in place to help the exonerated rejoin society. There use to be halfway houses specifically for exonerees, but over the years it became defunded. Programs like the Innocence Project or Center on Actual Innocence help the exonerees that they were working with but there are still many exonerees that weren’t working with a program like these. Exonerees can’t just pick up their cell and call an Uber or a Lyft, because they don’t have phones and may not even be aware of ride services like that. There may be a payphone outside of prisons, but one still may not know anyone’s numbers. Kim Cook told Priya that every exoneree has PTSD, but that it’s what they call Continued PTSD because it continues to happen as they’re faced with all of the challenges of the outside world. Prison takes away your ability to make decisions so sometimes even being faced with what we would consider a small decision (like which cereal to buy) can lead to a panic attack, as this happened with one of the people Kim Cook was working with.
A lot of exonerees have limited stamina from being cooped up and find it difficult to walk long distances, and they sleep on the floor because they aren’t used to having a comfortable bed. Essentially, after spending years confined to a cell with limited yard time, especially with speed of which technology and everything has evolved, everything can be overwhelming. Some exonerees give talks on what happened to them in order to try and enact change and will find themselves lost and disoriented on the way to these talks. The New York Innocence Project has two social workers who help exonerees which really should be standard. You may remember all of the milestones that Greg Taylor missed like his daughter’s wedding and graduation, and every exoneree has some version of that story. There are so many relationships and milestones that slipped away while they were in prison and coming to terms with that can be extremely difficult to say the least. In some cases, some exonerees may feel resentment for loved ones who didn’t believe they were innocent or towards people who moved on to a new relationship. To pile onto all of the depression and PTSD, is a rising feeling of bitterness over the injustice, and, in some cases, guilt for leaving their friends, and what was essentially their support system for years, behind in prison.
Priya says there were so many things she hadn’t considered and she’s not alone. I’m sure many of us thought that when someone is exonerated, that’s their happy ending and didn’t realize how many hoops they still have to jump through.
Next week F’d Up will be exploring more of the costs and aftereffects of exoneration and another fucked up case. We think that’s the end, but then… Jess tells us,
“Hey everybody…. we just wanted give you all an update about LaMonte Armstrong. We recorded this episode a little while ago, we were trying to be respectful of Mr. Armstrong’s first name and not mispronounce it. We found out recently that the people who knew him best called him L.A. One of those people was Kim Cook, she posted about him very recently, because, tragically, a couple of weeks ago - as of this airing - he passed away from cancer. We reached out to Kim to ask what she’d like to say and she gave us permission to read out what she’d written on social media: ‘There’s s deep sadness in my heart today. My friend LA has passed away. It seems like I’ve known him for a long time, and i don’t recall exactly when we first met. We hit it off right away. Every time he came to Wilmington we would meet up for a visit. We often enjoyed seeing each other at The Innocence Network conferences, and he bought me funny gifts (like a New York Yankees jacket - I’m a Boston Red Sox gal), and always made me laugh. We both joined the Board of Directors of Healing Justice before it was publicly launched. Please join me in donating to his beloved Healing Justice in his memory. Thx.’

<description>&lt;p&gt;The Cost is F’d Up - Part One Recap&lt;br /&gt;
Written by Brandi Abbott&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Around 2015, a man named, LaMonte Armstrong sued the city of Greensboro, NC and three of its former cops after spending almost 17 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. On July 12th, 1988 Ernestine Compton was found murdered in her home. The crime was publicized on Crime Stoppers, and an informant with a reputation for lying called in and said Mr. Armstrong was the killer. The police followed up on his statement, but at some point he recanted this and the case went cold. By 1992, the police had reason to suspect Christopher Caveness was involved. There was palm and fingerprint evidence at the crime scene so the SBI was brought in to match it to Caveness - but it wasn’t a match. The police had never let go of the idea that Mr. Armstrong had committed the murder, and the informant changed his story again, becoming the star witness in Mr. Armstrong’s trial. In 1995, Mr. Armstrong was convicted of murdering Ernestine Compton. In 2010, the informant recanted his statement again. The cops had failed to mention he was paid $200 and received a lighter or reduced sentence for another crime. The palm print was run again and actually did match Caveness, but by then, he had died in a car crash – not total justice for the victim. But, Mr. Armstrong received some semblance of justice when he was exonerated in 2012 - and the next step was to try and be pardoned, because apparently those two things are separate. Once you’re released, you have to submit an application to the Governor to basically reprove your innocence, then you have to wait until they decide whether to pardon you or not. Thankfully, Mr. Armstrong was pardoned in 2013; which meant he could then apply to receive money that the state sets aside for exonerees. The amounts vary from state to state but in North Carolina, an exoneree can receive up to $50,000 for every year that they spent in prison… though, they cap it at 17 years.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;There are people in our country who have been exonerated but not pardoned. Jess says that it makes sense that a state wouldn’t want to pardon someone as it admits culpability and they don’t want to pay someone hundreds of thousands of dollars. Mr. Armstong luckily received $750,000 from the state, but because of the severe injustice in his case, he was able to file a civil suit against the city of Greensboro and the three cops responsible for his conviction. The city hired 5 local lawyers to represent the cops in the suit, and as the trial dragged on into 2016, it was reported that the city spent $270,000 towards expenses for it. This meant that the city and state had spent over a million dollars for one wrongful conviction at that point. The city settled in 2016 and offered to pay Mr. Armstrong $6.42 million, as they should have. If someone goes to prison due to a wrongful conviction and mishandling of evidence, they obviously deserve some kind of compensation. If you’ve ever wondered where that money comes from however, the answer is that some can come from insurance but a large amount comes from taxpayers.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Priya found a report written in 2015 called “Criminal InJustice”. This report is based on California statistics, not North Carolina, as a report like this seemed unprecedented, but the situations are similar. The report included cases in California where the defendant was convicted of a felony and the conviction was reversed between the years of 1989 and 2012 and the charges were dismissed or the defendant was acquitted on retrial. They examined 692 cases in total and 607 of the cases “illuminate a dark corner in California’s criminal justice system”. The defendants in these 607 cases spent a combined total of 2,186 years in custody. Many of these defendants filed lawsuits and received settlements as a result of the errors. 58 of the 607 people filed claims asking for compensations. At the time of this report’s publication, only 14 of these claims were granted, 36 had been denied, and some were still pending, despite all 58 having been credible. A total of five million dollars was awarded to the 14 defendants, and this fee would have been much larger for taxpayers if all 58 people had been awarded compensation. Looking at all 607 cases, the report estimates that the wrongful convictions cost taxpayers $221 million for prosecution, incarceration, and settlement. The remaining cases out of the initial 692 examined are referred to in the report as group exonerations as they were cases that had multiple defendants. The most prominent of these was the 2002 Rampart Police Scandal in which a group of LA police officers admitted to falsely arresting or accusing hundreds of mostly Latinx residents of various crimes, 228 of which received civil settlements. LA paid more than 70 million dollars in settlements related to that scandal, and the total cost has been reported as between 125 million and one billion dollars. The settlement costs includes payouts to three LAPD officers who had lost their jobs over the scandal, despite having not been involved. The total cost to California taxpayers for all 692 of these cases was more than 282 million dollars. This doesn’t include the cost of people who were arrested but never convicted which adds cost to taxpayers significantly.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The money owed to Mr. Armstrong that wasn’t covered by insurance was to be paid by an increase in property taxes to Greensboro residents. Kirk Turner, who was one of two cases covered in this podcast where the accused was declared not guilty, recently won a $200,000 civil suit against the SBI. His case, however, cost the state way more than that. Greg Taylor sued and was awarded $4.6 million from the SBI. By 2013, the SBI and its insurers had paid about 16.4 million dollars between three wrongfully convicted men who spent a combined 40 years behind bars or in detention. Leslie Lincoln, the other case F’d Up covered where the accused wasn’t convicted, you may remember from episode three as having lost everything. She got a lawyer and tried to sue but the lawyer was lagging and doing nothing so she got a new lawyer. This one also dragged his feet on the issue, and ultimately the statutes of limitations ran out. Leslie suffers from PTSD and lives in section 8 housing. Jess says that her situation is more the norm than those who received millions of dollars. In 2012, when Mr. Armstrong was exonerated, there was about a year between when he was released and when he received his payout which Jess says is the case for any of the exonerated who are fortunate enough to be awarded a payout.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Priya spoke to Saundra Westervelt and Kim Cook for this episode. Saundra is a professor emerita at UNCG and Kim is a professor of sociology and criminology at UNCW. They’ve dedicated decades to studying and writing about the post-exoneration process and what happens to exonerees once they’re released. When someone is exonerated, they sometimes only receive a couple of hours notice, and have to walk out of prison in the clothes they were wearing when they went in, sometimes decades ago and with no car or transportation. Some people may be lucky enough to have someone still to pick them up or bring new clothes but for a lot of people, years in prison leads to a loss of connections in the outside world. It’s possible that an exoneree has been transferred to a prison hours away from wherever they live, assuming they even still have a home. Many people walk out of prison, finally free after spending years inside for crimes they didn’t commit and find themselves in an entirely new world with no clue of where to go or what to do. Unlike parolees, there are no programs in place to help the exonerated rejoin society. There use to be halfway houses specifically for exonerees, but over the years it became defunded. Programs like the Innocence Project or Center on Actual Innocence help the exonerees that they were working with but there are still many exonerees that weren’t working with a program like these. Exonerees can’t just pick up their cell and call an Uber or a Lyft, because they don’t have phones and may not even be aware of ride services like that. There may be a payphone outside of prisons, but one still may not know anyone’s numbers. Kim Cook told Priya that every exoneree has PTSD, but that it’s what they call Continued PTSD because it continues to happen as they’re faced with all of the challenges of the outside world. Prison takes away your ability to make decisions so sometimes even being faced with what we would consider a small decision (like which cereal to buy) can lead to a panic attack, as this happened with one of the people Kim Cook was working with.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;A lot of exonerees have limited stamina from being cooped up and find it difficult to walk long distances, and they sleep on the floor because they aren’t used to having a comfortable bed. Essentially, after spending years confined to a cell with limited yard time, especially with speed of which technology and everything has evolved, everything can be overwhelming. Some exonerees give talks on what happened to them in order to try and enact change and will find themselves lost and disoriented on the way to these talks. The New York Innocence Project has two social workers who help exonerees which really should be standard. You may remember all of the milestones that Greg Taylor missed like his daughter’s wedding and graduation, and every exoneree has some version of that story. There are so many relationships and milestones that slipped away while they were in prison and coming to terms with that can be extremely difficult to say the least. In some cases, some exonerees may feel resentment for loved ones who didn’t believe they were innocent or towards people who moved on to a new relationship. To pile onto all of the depression and PTSD, is a rising feeling of bitterness over the injustice, and, in some cases, guilt for leaving their friends, and what was essentially their support system for years, behind in prison.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Priya says there were so many things she hadn’t considered and she’s not alone. I’m sure many of us thought that when someone is exonerated, that’s their happy ending and didn’t realize how many hoops they still have to jump through.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Next week F’d Up will be exploring more of the costs and aftereffects of exoneration and another fucked up case. We think that’s the end, but then… Jess tells us,&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;“Hey everybody…. we just wanted give you all an update about LaMonte Armstrong. We recorded this episode a little while ago, we were trying to be respectful of Mr. Armstrong’s first name and not mispronounce it. We found out recently that the people who knew him best called him L.A. One of those people was Kim Cook, she posted about him very recently, because, tragically, a couple of weeks ago - as of this airing - he passed away from cancer. We reached out to Kim to ask what she’d like to say and she gave us permission to read out what she’d written on social media: ‘There’s s deep sadness in my heart today. My friend LA has passed away. It seems like I’ve known him for a long time, and i don’t recall exactly when we first met. We hit it off right away. Every time he came to Wilmington we would meet up for a visit. We often enjoyed seeing each other at The Innocence Network conferences, and he bought me funny gifts (like a New York Yankees jacket - I’m a Boston Red Sox gal), and always made me laugh. We both joined the Board of Directors of Healing Justice before it was publicly launched. Please join me in donating to his beloved Healing Justice in his memory. Thx.’&lt;/p&gt;
</description>

The first part of "The Cost is F'd Up" explores the F’d Up ramifications on taxpayers due to these wrongful conviction cases and the even more F'd Up ramifications on newly released exonerees. 

The Cost is F'd Up - Part One

The Audit is F’d Up – Part Two Recap 
Written by Brandi Abbott
This week’s episode picks up with a continuation of the audit and the case of a man named Daniel Green.
Daniel Green was at a cookout on July 22nd, 1993 when he ran into his friend Larry Demery. Demery asked him if he wanted to come with him to New York to make a delivery, Daniel declined and Demery left the party alone. A few hours later he was back and freaking out. He asked for Daniel’s help and this time Daniel went with him.
That same day, a man named James Jordon, the dad of Michael Jordan, attended the funeral of a friend in Wilmington, North Carolina. He headed home at 12:30 AM. It was about a two hour drive and he must have been tired because he pulled off of the highway to take a nap.
On August 3rd 1993, a fisherman discovered a body in a remote swamp in South Carolina and it appeared the body had been in the swamp for about a week. On August 5th, the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Department were notified that an abandoned and stripped Lexus, belonging to James Jordan had been found. His family hadn’t spoken to him since July 22nd but no one had filed a missing person’s report. On August 7th, the coroner in Marlboro County, South Carolina cremated the body, saving the jaw and hands for identification purposes and on August 13th the teeth were matched to James Jordon.
Back on June 22nd, Demery didn’t admit to Daniel that what he needed help with was moving a body until they were back at his car. Damery told Daniel that he went to a hotel for a drug delivery, that the man he was delivering to tried to proposition him which led to a fight, and there was a shooting. James Jordan is the man who was shot.
On August 15th 1993, Demery and Daniel were arrested for murder. They had ridden around in James Jordan’s car for three days. They made calls from his car phone, including to 1-900 sex numbers, and made home movies using James Jordan’s video camera which included Daniel wearing the championship ring and watch Michael Jordan had given his father. Both Daniel and Demery had pasts involving spending time in jail. The cops tried tactics to get them to turn on each other, including threatening them with the death penalty and it worked for Demery. Between the time Demery took his plea offer and his testimony, he changed the story on what happened that night but the plea offer stood. He testified that he and Daniel tried to rob James Jordan, and that Daniel shot him. Daniel was convicted of first degree felony murder and was sentenced to life in prison plus ten years.
Daniel has maintained throughout that he was not involved with the robbery or murder, but his conviction was upheld by the North Carolina Court of Appeals in 1998 and the North Carolina Supreme Court in 1999. He filed a Motion for Appropriate Relief, known as an MAR, in 2000. His appointed council had done basically nothing, and in the 2008 after Daniel filed a supplemental MAR, the judge decreed his case would be reviewed and he would be appointed new council. In 2010 he asked for the NCCAI’s representation but they declined because he had recently been appointed new council.
Daniel’s case was on the list of 230 cases impacted by the SBI’s shoddy practices. The same bloodstain reporting issues from Greg’s case were present in Daniel’s, and Chris Mumma agreed to take on his case in 2016. Chris reviewed his case and increasingly felt like he wasn’t involved in the robbery or murder and the NCCAI joined his co-council.
The SBI complained that the audit done by Swecker and Wolfe looked at their old science through a modern science lens. This doesn’t really work, though, as the audit focused on their practices and reporting, or misreporting rather, not on their actual &quot;science&quot;. Jennifer Elwell testified and dismissed the audit completely, though she admitted she only read parts of the report. She claimed that Swecker and Wolf didn’t understand forensic science, which seemed to be the common consensus across the SBI lab. Elwell refused to acknowledge that either she or the SBI were in error. In 2011, DA’s offices in NC had gone though about 150 cases from the report and claimed that these seemed okay as there was other strong evidence in every one of the cases. If that were true though, would this episode on Daniel Green even be happening?
The phone calls made from James Jordan’s car was pointed at as the most important evidence by law enforcement including the sheriff, as it linked Daniel and Demery to the car. They failed to mention, however, that the second call made was to a drug dealer named Hubert Deese, the sheriff’s son. Demery and Deese were former coworkers who use to work about two miles from where the body was found in South Carolina. Deese was never interviewed by the police. He was interviewed by the prosecutors, but the defense was never aware. Daniel’s attorneys knew that the phone calls from the car were important to the prosecution’s case and that they were making a big deal out of them, but as far as they knew, the phone calls had only been to sex lines.
The coroner noted in his report that there was no hole in the victim’s shirt to match the bullet hole in his chest, but law enforcement did not collect the shirt as evidence. The shirt was given to the funeral home and was buried due to an offensive oder, but was later exhumed and there actually was a bullet hole.
Demery, who was considered the star witness, had been given that plea deal. He was originally sentence to life plus 20 years, but his deal made him eligible for parole in 2015. Priya couldn’t find anything saying whether or not he’d been released. The defense was never informed about the plea deal. The prosecution also didn’t read out the list of their potential witnesses to the jury to make sure there’d be no issues. One of the jurors had been accused of sexual misconduct by two of the witnesses. There was a witness who claimed Daniel had robbed him, but, it turned out, was just plain racist and said that all black people look alike. Elwell recanted her own testimony. She originally testified that she found James Jordan’s blood in his car, but her tests were all inconclusive. She admitted to withholding four inconclusive tests results that could have undermined the prosecutor’s theory of how James died. Daniel’s attorneys claim that the DA intentionally exaggerated Elwell’s findings and withheld her notes. The judge stated that withholding the results of the tests were a violation of his order. Right after Daniel was convicted, Elwell claimed she was ordered by a supervisor to destroy the only known samples of James Jordan’s blood, and that she had never before been asked to do that by a supervisor. The defense stated that they had never been informed the samples were destroyed.
One of Daniel’s attorneys said the judge who sentenced Daniel to prison filed an affidavit stating that if Elwell has changed her opinion on the substance found in the car then her testimony at trial would constitute as false and misleading testimony on material fact. The blood evidence was the only physical evidence supporting Demery’s version of events and was critical in his conviction, making what was said earlier, about all of the 150 cases in the audit having other strong evidence, false. Despite all of this, Daniel is still in prison.
In regards to the Derrick Allen case, which was covered last week, the local paper says the hearing for him touched on the issue of whether the SBI lab is independent or whether it tips the scales of justice in the courtroom in the favor of the prosecution and police. National Academy of Science issued a report in 2009 that said that crime labs should be independent and out from under the influence of prosecutors or police. So, of course, a former judge with no science background named Joe John was appointed interim director of the SBI Crime Lab by Attorney General Roy Cooper. After being there for a month, Joe John told the News and Observer that his impression was that the lab workers were not puppets of law enforcement. He said the analysts told him that they believed their customer was the criminal justice system as a whole. However, Elwell told the News and Observer that the SBI lab was drawing new guidelines to provide a stricter standard of customer service for their client, the state of North Carolina.
Joe John did an internal investigation of the lab at the instruction of the DA’s office and found an additional 74 cases that were not included in the audit. These were found by hand reviewing files. Elwell was the analyst in 38 of those cases, and Deaver was the analyst in one. Deaver had 50 cases in the original audit and Elwell had 37. This new investigation brought her total to 75 mishandled cases. Spittle had 90 cases in the audit and 26 in this new investigation so he still holds the lead for worst lab analyst ever. Jess reminds us that the former SBI director, Robin Pendergraft, said that all of the problems at the SBI Crime Lab were just one guy.
Defense attorneys were worried about the prosecutors reviewing the cases. Diane Savage said that there was no way for prosecutors to know how a jury would respond if it learned about improperly handled evidence. The News and Observer interviewed the Foreman of the jury in Kirk Turner’s case who said jurors were stunned by the SBI’s conduct. When asked about Gerald Thomas he said he was very conservative and a “law and order guy” but that he didn’t know what word to use but “fraud”. Prosecutors, however, felt that only by them looking though the cases would the result be true justice. DA Willoughby looked though all of the cases that went through his office, and they all appeared to be fine in his opinion. You may remember him from episode two wherein it was revealed he didn’t like the Innocence Inquiry Commission. He stated that the status of his cases would not change, and that most of them had confessed before there was any blood evidence. Willoughby also said that the science needed to be accepted as science whether it was unhelpful or not and that he didn’t think anyone was tipping the scales in the favor of the prosecutors.
When the report of the independent investigation was released, Swecker said that the way the SBI lab reported impacted the decisions that were made. It could have resulted in situations where material favorable to the defendant was not disclosed. So there are those that may have had other evidence against them and with the addition of the blood evidence, they may have plead guilty in the face of all of that evidence. Chris Mumma said she didn’t think that there was anyone who would be surprised that the DAs felt that there was additional evidence of guilt on top of the blood evidence as that was why they were prosecuting in the first place, and that she wanted the defense to review those cases as well. SBI Greg McLeod acknowledged the concern raised by defense attorneys and urged prosecutors to complete their case files for review.
Priya takes a moment to say how affected she’s been by these cases and names some of the people they’ve covered so far whose lives were ruined or impacted. For good news, F’d Up has been assured that every name on both lists have now been thoroughly looked into and justice has been pursued or is being pursued. After the initial audit Jennifer Elwell was suspended, though they don’t know if she was ever fired, due to her 37 cases in the initial audit. Deaver was suspended with pay, which I would just call a vacation. Attorney General Roy Cooper said that the SBI was going to make changes to its procedures and promised to send the cases flagged in the audit back to the courts for review. Changes were being made and many of the convicted were being released. However, getting out of prison isn’t as easy as you would think. Next week’s episode will take a look at the challenges the exonerated face.

<description>&lt;p&gt;The Audit is F’d Up – Part Two Recap&lt;br /&gt;
Written by Brandi Abbott&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;This week’s episode picks up with a continuation of the audit and the case of a man named Daniel Green.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Daniel Green was at a cookout on July 22nd, 1993 when he ran into his friend Larry Demery. Demery asked him if he wanted to come with him to New York to make a delivery, Daniel declined and Demery left the party alone. A few hours later he was back and freaking out. He asked for Daniel’s help and this time Daniel went with him.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;That same day, a man named James Jordon, the dad of Michael Jordan, attended the funeral of a friend in Wilmington, North Carolina. He headed home at 12:30 AM. It was about a two hour drive and he must have been tired because he pulled off of the highway to take a nap.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;On August 3rd 1993, a fisherman discovered a body in a remote swamp in South Carolina and it appeared the body had been in the swamp for about a week. On August 5th, the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Department were notified that an abandoned and stripped Lexus, belonging to James Jordan had been found. His family hadn’t spoken to him since July 22nd but no one had filed a missing person’s report. On August 7th, the coroner in Marlboro County, South Carolina cremated the body, saving the jaw and hands for identification purposes and on August 13th the teeth were matched to James Jordon.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Back on June 22nd, Demery didn’t admit to Daniel that what he needed help with was moving a body until they were back at his car. Damery told Daniel that he went to a hotel for a drug delivery, that the man he was delivering to tried to proposition him which led to a fight, and there was a shooting. James Jordan is the man who was shot.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;On August 15th 1993, Demery and Daniel were arrested for murder. They had ridden around in James Jordan’s car for three days. They made calls from his car phone, including to 1-900 sex numbers, and made home movies using James Jordan’s video camera which included Daniel wearing the championship ring and watch Michael Jordan had given his father. Both Daniel and Demery had pasts involving spending time in jail. The cops tried tactics to get them to turn on each other, including threatening them with the death penalty and it worked for Demery. Between the time Demery took his plea offer and his testimony, he changed the story on what happened that night but the plea offer stood. He testified that he and Daniel tried to rob James Jordan, and that Daniel shot him. Daniel was convicted of first degree felony murder and was sentenced to life in prison plus ten years.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Daniel has maintained throughout that he was not involved with the robbery or murder, but his conviction was upheld by the North Carolina Court of Appeals in 1998 and the North Carolina Supreme Court in 1999. He filed a Motion for Appropriate Relief, known as an MAR, in 2000. His appointed council had done basically nothing, and in the 2008 after Daniel filed a supplemental MAR, the judge decreed his case would be reviewed and he would be appointed new council. In 2010 he asked for the NCCAI’s representation but they declined because he had recently been appointed new council.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Daniel’s case was on the list of 230 cases impacted by the SBI’s shoddy practices. The same bloodstain reporting issues from Greg’s case were present in Daniel’s, and Chris Mumma agreed to take on his case in 2016. Chris reviewed his case and increasingly felt like he wasn’t involved in the robbery or murder and the NCCAI joined his co-council.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The SBI complained that the audit done by Swecker and Wolfe looked at their old science through a modern science lens. This doesn’t really work, though, as the audit focused on their practices and reporting, or misreporting rather, not on their actual &amp;quot;science&amp;quot;. Jennifer Elwell testified and dismissed the audit completely, though she admitted she only read parts of the report. She claimed that Swecker and Wolf didn’t understand forensic science, which seemed to be the common consensus across the SBI lab. Elwell refused to acknowledge that either she or the SBI were in error. In 2011, DA’s offices in NC had gone though about 150 cases from the report and claimed that these seemed okay as there was other strong evidence in every one of the cases. If that were true though, would this episode on Daniel Green even be happening?&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The phone calls made from James Jordan’s car was pointed at as the most important evidence by law enforcement including the sheriff, as it linked Daniel and Demery to the car. They failed to mention, however, that the second call made was to a drug dealer named Hubert Deese, the sheriff’s son. Demery and Deese were former coworkers who use to work about two miles from where the body was found in South Carolina. Deese was never interviewed by the police. He was interviewed by the prosecutors, but the defense was never aware. Daniel’s attorneys knew that the phone calls from the car were important to the prosecution’s case and that they were making a big deal out of them, but as far as they knew, the phone calls had only been to sex lines.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The coroner noted in his report that there was no hole in the victim’s shirt to match the bullet hole in his chest, but law enforcement did not collect the shirt as evidence. The shirt was given to the funeral home and was buried due to an offensive oder, but was later exhumed and there actually was a bullet hole.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Demery, who was considered the star witness, had been given that plea deal. He was originally sentence to life plus 20 years, but his deal made him eligible for parole in 2015. Priya couldn’t find anything saying whether or not he’d been released. The defense was never informed about the plea deal. The prosecution also didn’t read out the list of their potential witnesses to the jury to make sure there’d be no issues. One of the jurors had been accused of sexual misconduct by two of the witnesses. There was a witness who claimed Daniel had robbed him, but, it turned out, was just plain racist and said that all black people look alike. Elwell recanted her own testimony. She originally testified that she found James Jordan’s blood in his car, but her tests were all inconclusive. She admitted to withholding four inconclusive tests results that could have undermined the prosecutor’s theory of how James died. Daniel’s attorneys claim that the DA intentionally exaggerated Elwell’s findings and withheld her notes. The judge stated that withholding the results of the tests were a violation of his order. Right after Daniel was convicted, Elwell claimed she was ordered by a supervisor to destroy the only known samples of James Jordan’s blood, and that she had never before been asked to do that by a supervisor. The defense stated that they had never been informed the samples were destroyed.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;One of Daniel’s attorneys said the judge who sentenced Daniel to prison filed an affidavit stating that if Elwell has changed her opinion on the substance found in the car then her testimony at trial would constitute as false and misleading testimony on material fact. The blood evidence was the only physical evidence supporting Demery’s version of events and was critical in his conviction, making what was said earlier, about all of the 150 cases in the audit having other strong evidence, false. Despite all of this, Daniel is still in prison.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In regards to the Derrick Allen case, which was covered last week, the local paper says the hearing for him touched on the issue of whether the SBI lab is independent or whether it tips the scales of justice in the courtroom in the favor of the prosecution and police. National Academy of Science issued a report in 2009 that said that crime labs should be independent and out from under the influence of prosecutors or police. So, of course, a former judge with no science background named Joe John was appointed interim director of the SBI Crime Lab by Attorney General Roy Cooper. After being there for a month, Joe John told the News and Observer that his impression was that the lab workers were not puppets of law enforcement. He said the analysts told him that they believed their customer was the criminal justice system as a whole. However, Elwell told the News and Observer that the SBI lab was drawing new guidelines to provide a stricter standard of customer service for their client, the state of North Carolina.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Joe John did an internal investigation of the lab at the instruction of the DA’s office and found an additional 74 cases that were not included in the audit. These were found by hand reviewing files. Elwell was the analyst in 38 of those cases, and Deaver was the analyst in one. Deaver had 50 cases in the original audit and Elwell had 37. This new investigation brought her total to 75 mishandled cases. Spittle had 90 cases in the audit and 26 in this new investigation so he still holds the lead for worst lab analyst ever. Jess reminds us that the former SBI director, Robin Pendergraft, said that all of the problems at the SBI Crime Lab were just one guy.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Defense attorneys were worried about the prosecutors reviewing the cases. Diane Savage said that there was no way for prosecutors to know how a jury would respond if it learned about improperly handled evidence. The News and Observer interviewed the Foreman of the jury in Kirk Turner’s case who said jurors were stunned by the SBI’s conduct. When asked about Gerald Thomas he said he was very conservative and a “law and order guy” but that he didn’t know what word to use but “fraud”. Prosecutors, however, felt that only by them looking though the cases would the result be true justice. DA Willoughby looked though all of the cases that went through his office, and they all appeared to be fine in his opinion. You may remember him from episode two wherein it was revealed he didn’t like the Innocence Inquiry Commission. He stated that the status of his cases would not change, and that most of them had confessed before there was any blood evidence. Willoughby also said that the science needed to be accepted as science whether it was unhelpful or not and that he didn’t think anyone was tipping the scales in the favor of the prosecutors.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;When the report of the independent investigation was released, Swecker said that the way the SBI lab reported impacted the decisions that were made. It could have resulted in situations where material favorable to the defendant was not disclosed. So there are those that may have had other evidence against them and with the addition of the blood evidence, they may have plead guilty in the face of all of that evidence. Chris Mumma said she didn’t think that there was anyone who would be surprised that the DAs felt that there was additional evidence of guilt on top of the blood evidence as that was why they were prosecuting in the first place, and that she wanted the defense to review those cases as well. SBI Greg McLeod acknowledged the concern raised by defense attorneys and urged prosecutors to complete their case files for review.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Priya takes a moment to say how affected she’s been by these cases and names some of the people they’ve covered so far whose lives were ruined or impacted. For good news, F’d Up has been assured that every name on both lists have now been thoroughly looked into and justice has been pursued or is being pursued. After the initial audit Jennifer Elwell was suspended, though they don’t know if she was ever fired, due to her 37 cases in the initial audit. Deaver was suspended with pay, which I would just call a vacation. Attorney General Roy Cooper said that the SBI was going to make changes to its procedures and promised to send the cases flagged in the audit back to the courts for review. Changes were being made and many of the convicted were being released. However, getting out of prison isn’t as easy as you would think. Next week’s episode will take a look at the challenges the exonerated face.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>

Part two of the F’d Up results of the audit of the NC SBI Crime Lab.  They're still F'd Up.  And another F'd Up case.

The Audit is F'd Up - Part Two

Priya Hubbard and Jessica Borges invite their friend Keith over for rosé to tell him about their in-depth investigation of one of the biggest crime lab scandals of the century.

F'd Up

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