Evidence

The concept of disclosing evidence dates to the American Revolution. To ensure fair trials, the nation's founders believed that the accused should be able to challenge evidence, and they incorporated that guarantee into the Constitution.Thirty-six years ago, the right to view evidence was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Brady vs. Maryland. John L. Brady, charged with murder in Anne Arundel County, asked to see statements that his co-defendant had provided to police. Prosecutors turned over statements -- but not the one that said the co-defendant confessed to the killing.

Two Baltimore circuit judges will begin resolving evidence disputes in criminal cases this month in a move that could improve the quality of justice in the city and ensure that the constitutional rights of criminal defendants are protected.Judge John N. Prevas and Judge William D. Quarles were publicly appointed yesterday to handle disputes over the exchange of evidence, a process known as discovery. Prevas, while maintaining his caseload, will be the primary judge. Quarles will assist him when necessary.

Two Baltimore circuit judges will begin resolving evidence disputes in criminal cases this month in a move that could improve the quality of justice in the city and ensure that the constitutional rights of criminal defendants are protected.Judge John N. Prevas and Judge William D. Quarles were publicly appointed yesterday to handle disputes over the exchange of evidence, a process known as discovery. Prevas, while maintaining his caseload, will be the primary judge. Quarles will assist him when necessary.

A judge will be appointed to resolve disputes over the exchange of evidence in Baltimore's Circuit Court, signaling a crackdown on persistent problems that have led to a wrongful murder conviction, trial delays and case dismissals.During a meeting on Wednesday, Judge David B. Mitchell, in charge of the city's criminal docket in Circuit Court, informed the prosecutor's, public defender's, and clerk's offices that he plans to name a judge to improve the process of sharing evidence, according to several participants.

Four years after two Washington lawyers were slain execution-style in their weekend home on the Severn River, Anne Arundel prosecutors are trying for a second time to persuade a jury that an Arnold man committed the crime.Scotland E. Williams' 1995 double murder conviction and the death sentence he requested were overturned by the Maryland Court of Appeals in July 1996.In the retrial, which opened yesterday, jurors are in for lengthy biology lessons, according to one defense lawyer.Prosecutors are armed with a new kind of DNA evidence not available in the first trial.

NEW YORK -- Stopping just short of ruling out sabotage as the cause of the crash of Trans World Airlines Flight 800, FBI Director Louis J. Freeh said yesterday that the evidence in the case points to a "catastrophic mechanical failure" and emphasized the need to draw the criminal inquiry to a close.Freeh's comments sent the strongest signal yet that the FBI was moving toward abandoning its search for clues to a crime in the July 17 midair explosion of the Boeing 747 off Long Island that killed 230 people.

PITY THE unfortunate prosecutors in the O.J. Simpson case. The only thing they have going for them is the evidence.There is a temptation among serious people to dismiss the trial of O.J. Simpson as a gaudy circus act. Certainly the attention of Larry King, Geraldo Rivera, the tabloids, Time, Newsweek and the rest has made it seem so. Nor does the show-biz defense team of strutting peacocks lend the trial an aura of gravity.And yet, the outcome is important. If people do not have confidence in the proper administration of justice, the effect is deep demoralization.

An Anne Arundel Circuit Court jury was expected to decide today whether Scotland Eugene Williams is guilty of shooting to death two lawyers in their weekend home near Annapolis in May.The jury began deliberating late yesterday afternoon over the fate of Mr. Williams, 31, of Arnold.He is charged with first-degree murder, robbery, burglary, theft and handgun violations in the deaths of Jose E. Trias, 49, and Julie Noel Gilbert, 48, Washington lawyers whose bodies were found May 16 in their home in Winchester on the Severn.

The other day, a Senate committee was talking about universal health care and the need to assure that no one is discriminated against for reasons of age, sex, or any other reason. It is a fine concept but it made my blood run cold.That's because these decisions seem to wind up being made by federal bureaucrats. And they have a strange way of dispensing what they consider to be justice.An example is a case I wrote about recently, that of a restaurant operator named Hans Morsbach, who runs several restaurants in Chicago's Hyde Park area.

For years they sat in prison, convicted of heinous crimes they say they didn't commit. Then a scientific test gave credence to their claims of innocence and, almost miraculously, helped set them free.From Maryland to Kansas, at least nine defendants -- including two who faced the death penalty -- had rape or murder convictions overturned through a technology known as "DNA typing."Their release from prison not only changed the public persona of these men, it exposed -- in the view of those familiar with these cases -- the fallibility of a system that purports justice for all."

After deliberating a little more than three hours over two days, a Baltimore jury yesterday found Brandon Grimes, 23, guilty of first-degree murder in the shooting death of city police officer and father of five Troy Lamont Chesley Sr. Grimes, who was also convicted yesterday of illegal gun possession and using a handgun to commit a violent crime, could receive a combined maximum sentence of life in prison without parole plus 20 years, said Joseph Sviatko,...

The idea that something as complicated as violent crime can be simply solved by forensic science has had major appeal since Sherlock Holmes. But real life is usually more messy than an episode of CSI. Still, it is gratifying when science delivers the goods, as DNA analysis has recently in Maryland and across the nation. This week, the Maryland State Police reported that they recently matched evidence from a slaying more than 15 years ago with a DNA sample from a fast-growing database gathered from convicted felons.

Bloodied clothing that might exonerate a man convicted of killing his ex-boss more than 30 years ago could be sitting inside a city warehouse uncataloged - or it might be buried in a pile of items damaged during Tropical Storm Isabel. But city prosecutors and police have told a judge that a thorough search for the evidence - as ordered by Maryland's highest court - will require them to inventory storage facilities that are "larger than the size of a football field" and comb through storm-damaged items at a cost of $50,000.

WASHINGTON -- Gay pornography found on the computer of a Navy doctor can be submitted as evidence in his trial on charges that he made secret video recordings of Naval Academy midshipmen having sex in his Annapolis home, a military judge ruled yesterday in a decision that could put the physician's career in jeopardy. Even if Cmdr. Kevin Ronan is found innocent at the conclusion of his trial this month, the emergence of such evidence often triggers a military investigation into a service member's sexual orientation.

Maryland's highest court yesterday demanded that police and prosecutors conduct thorough searches before declaring trial evidence to be permanently missing - checking storage rooms, offices and even judges' chambers if necessary. The unanimous ruling by the Court of Appeals involved a request for DNA testing of bloody clothing from a man convicted 33 years ago of killing his ex-boss in Baltimore, and it comes after the disclosure of other recent problems with the Police Department's storage of crime evidence.

In a major break for a former Navy football player accused of rape, new test results show that neither of his two alleged victims was given a date-rape drug, his civilian attorney said yesterday. The results of a second hair analysis, requested by military prosecutors, contradict previous evidence in the Naval Academy's case against Kenny Ray Morrison, 24, said William Ferris, his lawyer. Samples from the two women, who said they were attacked on separate occasions this year, tested negative for gamma-hydroxybutyrate, or GHB, a common date-rape drug.

WASHINGTON -- The Navy judge supervising the rape court-martial of former Naval Academy quarterback Lamar S. Owens Jr. chided military prosecutors on Thursday for having "weak facts" and "anemic witnesses." The statements - which were not made in front of the jury - were among several unusual comments Cmdr. John Maksym made on the fourth day of the military trial at the Washington Navy Yard. On a day that was largely overshadowed by Maksym's refusal to allow one expert witness for the prosecution and his decision to severely limit the testimony of another, a friend of the accuser testified that Owens admitted to the rape.

WASHINGTON --A grand jury charged yesterday that a former federal prosecutor in Detroit who led one of the Justice Department's biggest terrorism investigations concealed critical evidence in the case in an effort to bolster the government's theory that a group of local Muslim men were plotting an attack. The prosecutor, Richard G. Convertino, and a State Department employee who was a chief government witness were indicted on charges of conspiracy and obstruction of justice. The grand jury charged that they had conspired to conceal evidence from the jury about photographs of a U.S. military hospital in Jordan that was the supposed target of a terrorist plot concocted by the Detroit defendants.

RICHMOND, Va. -- Here among 660 cardboard boxes neatly stacked in a state warehouse are tiny scraps of hope that were long ago packed away by a forensic scientist named Mary Jane Burton. As a serologist for Virginia from 1973 to 1988, Burton ran blood tests on evidence collected from crime scenes throughout the state. But the statuesque widow who worked nights and weekends did something no other lab worker did: She saved thousands of bits of clothing and cotton swabs used in her tests, taping them to worksheets and tucking them into case files.

Six years ago, the Baltimore Circuit Court judge who sentenced a college student to life in prison in a murder case that hinged on gunshot residue said he would set the man free if evidence was found showing he did not commit the crime. Tyrone Jones was back in court yesterday. Jones and a team of public defenders are arguing in a motion for a new trial that two particles of gunshot residue found on his left hand June 24, 1998, the evening of a fatal shooting in East Baltimore, could have come from the way the Baltimore Police Department collected the tiny scraps of evidence.