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.
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