Fairfax County Police Watch: Austin police use of doctored DNA report in interrogation raises legal questions

ByTony Plohetski
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Updated: 8:08 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 28, 2012
Published: 7:58 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 28, 2012

As his defense lawyers were working to free Michael Morton from prison because of a wrongful conviction that raised questions of prosecutor misconduct, Austin police doctored a crime lab report to use during the interrogation of a suspect in a related case, the American-Statesman has learned.
Austin police officials and Travis County prosecutors confirmed last week that they are looking into the techniques investigators used as they questioned Mark Alan Norwood during lengthy interviews in September.
The detectives used what Police Chief Art Acevedo called "an investigative prop" when seeking information from Norwood in the 1988 bludgeoning death of Debra Masters Baker in her home.
Officials at the state crime lab told Austin police cold case investigators that DNA tests had linked Norwood to the crime scene, officials said. But investigators did not yet have the written report, so they took a DNA report from a separate case, altered it to indicate it was from the Baker case and showed it to Norwood during the interrogation, officials said. Acevedo said the scientist who conducted the test also had authorized them to share the result.
Norwood didn't confess and has not been charged in Baker's death but remains a suspect, according to Austin police.
Norwood's lawyer and legal experts said they do not think the officers' actions will impede the case because Norwood did not confess, but several raised concerns about whether the detectives' actions may have violated laws on evidence tampering.
Acevedo said that investigators have since received the final report and that "the essence of the report is consistent with the prop used by the investigators."
Norwood is in the Williamson County Jail awaiting trial in the 1986 death of Christine Morton, whose husband served almost 25 years in prison for the crime but was declared innocent and released last year. A former prosecutor is facing allegations that he violated state law by hiding several pieces of evidence favorable to Morton.
Police are generally allowed to deceive suspects during interrogations in an effort to get a confession, but the creation of a false government document to use in such interviews raises legal questions. A March 2010 decision by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals threw out the confession of a man in San Antonio after a detective obtained the statement by using a falsely created report showing the suspect's fingerprints were on a gun used in a homicide.
The ruling said the detective violated state document tampering laws, which are intended to help "maintain honesty, integrity and reliability of the justice system." Officials have said the detective in that case was not charged with a crime.
The court said, "Neither police nor private individuals have a license to fabricate documents or other evidence and then use them to affect a criminal investigation or proceeding. This is exactly the type of law violation that the Texas Legislature intended to prohibit when it enacted (certain laws concerning confessions) — conduct by overzealous police officers who, despite their laudable motives, break the penal laws directly related to gathering and using evidence in their investigations."
That ruling helped prompt Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg to ask prosecutors in the Travis County attorney's office to review whether investigators may have violated the law by creating the altered DNA report.
A prosecutor from Lehmberg's office was present for Norwood's interrogation and was immediately troubled by the use of the altered document, she said. The prosecutor did some research on the legality of the technique and told his supervisors what had happened, Lehmberg said, adding that her office later informed Norwood's lawyer about the matter.
"It is important that the public have confidence not only in our conduct, but in the integrity of the evidence," Lehmberg said. "We will step up training to make sure officers understand what trickery and deception is allowed, and some is condoned, but that it has limits."
Travis County Attorney David Escamilla said he will review the information he received from Lehmberg's office and "take any appropriate action." Escamilla's office has been asked to oversee the inquiry because of the assistant district attorney's involvement in the case.

Morrogh finds cop he doesn’t love. In other news, hell freezes.

Probe of fatal police shooting goes to federal authorities

By Justin Jouvenal/Post

The Fairfax County prosecutor has turned over the investigation of a fatal police shooting of an unarmed Springfield man to federal authorities, citing complications with the five-month-old case.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Morrogh said the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia has agreed to continue the probe into the death of 46-year-old John Geer, who was shot during a standoff with Fairfax County police in August. No one has been charged in the incident.

“There is a conflict of interest that has arisen in the case,” Morrogh said Thursday. “And there is a second potential conflict of interest that has arisen out of my office. . . . This is the prudent thing to do.”

Morrogh declined to describe the nature of the conflicts because the investigation is ongoing. The U.S. attorney’s office said Thursday that it could not confirm or deny any investigation or comment on pending investigations.

Police went to Geer’s Pebble Brook Court home on Aug. 29 because of a report of a domestic disturbance. Geer’s father, Don Geer, said his son was upset because his girlfriend, the mother of his two children, had decided to leave him.

John Geer had thrown his girlfriend’s belongings in the front yard. She called police and told them that Geer had a firearm. Police said they tried for about 50 minutes to persuade Geer to leave the home, but he refused.

Don Geer said he watched the climax of the encounter. He said that he could not hear what officers were saying to his son but that he saw him standing with empty hands resting on top of a screen door at the home’s entrance.

At some point, John Geer began to slowly lower his hands and an officer opened fire, hitting Geer in the chest, his father said. Geer retreated inside and closed the door. A SWAT team eventually entered the home and found Geer dead.

Don Geer said detectives later told him that his son did not have a gun on him at the time of the shooting but that there was a holstered handgun a couple of steps from the front door.

Don Geer said it appeared to him that the shooting was unjustified, but he was unsure what to make of the probe being turned over to federal authorities.

“I don’t know whether that’s good or bad — if I had a better idea of why they are doing it, I could form an opinion,” he said.

Geer and friends of his son have been critical of how long the investigation has taken, but Morrogh said police and prosecutors were working to explore all the evidence. He did not think federal prosecutors would have to start from scratch.

“No one wants these things to linger on,” Morrogh said.

Our ink will outlast his career

Under the reign of former Chief of Police Rhorer the Fairfax County Police arrested a man for not wearing clothes in his house while he made coffee, set up an eye doctor on a gambling charge and then used the SWAT team to kill him. An investigation into the charge that the Doctor’s primary clients were cops has never been investigated. The police gunned down an emotionally unstable man because cop who shot him wrongly assumed the man was trying to escape. He wasn’t. The cops also shot dead four other citizens under highly questionable circumstances. The department under Rhorer was sued multiple times by citizens. So did they fire Rhorer? Naw they promoted him. According to news reports Rhorer draws a salary of $191,168 per year as Deputy Fairfax County Executive as well as a concurrent pension from the Fairfax County police of $173000 per year.

Occupation by force

According to the most recent U.S. Census figures, nearly one in five Fairfax residents (17.5 percent) is of Asian descent while Hispanics make up nearly 16 percent of Fairfax’s overall population. Those numbers drop considerably when applied to the Fairfax County Police Department, where only 4.3 percent of officers are Asian and 4.1 percent Hispanic. White officers make up 84 percent of Fairfax County’s 1,360-member police department, significantly higher than the county’s general population (54 percent white). Almost 90% of the force lives outside the county.