Colorado Bureau of Investigation under fire for not notifying defendants evidence used against them may have been falsified
The Colorado Bureau of Investigation is under the microscope.
State lawmakers grilled CBI Director Chris Schaefer about the agency's handling of a scandal involving evidence in thousands of criminal cases.
All of the cases were handled by now former DNA analyst Yvonne "Missy" Woods, who appeared in court on Thursday on 102 felony charges related to tampering with or falsifying evidence.
The legislature allocated millions of dollars last year for CBI to retest DNA in the cases, but the agency is still sitting on most of that money.
Schaefer told the Joint Budget Committee analysts have discovered anomalies in more than 1,000 cases handled by Woods over the last 29 years.
Schaefer says they notified Colorado district attorneys and retested DNA in the cases where DAs requested it -- just 14 so far. He admits CBI has not notified defense attorneys, victims or defendants, some of whom were convicted and sent to prison on the basis of the evidence.
"According to our accreditation standards, we give all that information to the DA's offices. I can't speak as to what they did with it," Schaefer told the committee.
Schaefer says the lab would lose its accreditation if he shared information about evidence with anyone other than district attorneys. If they don't want to retest the evidence he says there's nothing he can do.
That didn't sit so well with state Sen. Jeff Bridges. "If it's just given to the DAs, but the folks wrongly convicted don't know that their DNA evidence is in question, then, that seems like a problem," Bridges said.
James Karbach with the Colorado State Public Defender agrees. "A contract for accreditation is supposed to enhance the reliability of the lab and ensure it not inhibit doing justice when major misconduct has occurred," Karbach said.
Karbach says public defenders have filed open records requests with district attorneys, but the Colorado Attorney General has worked to block the release of information, despite the possibility that people were wrongfully convicted on the basis of falsified evidence.
Retesting DNA, Karbach says, isn't enough. "Is there enough material on the test to retest the swab that's already been tested?" Karbach asked. "Was it touched or contaminated in any way? Or do you retest by taking a new swab? If you swab the same area, are you testing the exact same DNA or is it microscopically different in some way? There's a much more detailed look and review of these cases that needs to occur."
That's why Karbach is working with state lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to bring a bill that would start by guaranteeing defendants and victims are notified in cases of lab misconduct. "Once they get notice, we ought to give defendants who have been convicted the right to have a lawyer appointed if they can't afford it to assist them in figuring out if there's merit to a post-conviction motion and getting all the facts to put that in writing to a court to ask for relief," Karbach said. "Can it all be perfectly sorted out? It remains to be seen. But right now, we're not even on track to have a process and the resources and procedures to fairly do that. And for the integrity of our system of justice, we've got to do it."
While CBI says it's identified anomalies in about 1,000 cases, Karbach says it hasn't said how it did so or what an anomaly even means. That's why he wants the agency to turn over all the cases Woods worked, so public defenders can review them for themselves.