Delayed Justice by Jack Branson

Author:Jack Branson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Prometheus Books

PRESERVE THE EVIDENCE.

Once evidence is obtained, it must be preserved for testing and for the trial. And in the event that the case goes cold, it must be successfully stored indefinitely.

“The Metro-Dade Police Department had evidence stored in a freezer,” recalls retired cold case investigator Greg Smith. “The freezer broke down over a weekend. By Monday, we'd lost evidence dating back to 1984. We learned a valuable and costly lesson: have a back-up generator.

“Preserving witness files is also a key to preserving evidence, and you have to preserve all evidence as carefully as you preserve a crime scene.”

Hindsight is always clearer, as the Madisonville (Kentucky) Police Department learned when the sole keeper of their evidence room absconded with thousands of dollars in weapons and drugs, rendering many of its cases unable to be prosecuted. The police chief was later quoted in the local paper as saying, “It's our full intention to correct this so it doesn't happen again.” Good, but it's so much better to anticipate such problems and never allow one person to be guardian over an entire evidence room.

“There was no reason in 1974 for a detective to preserve hairs,” says Judge Dennis Delano. “All that could have been done at that time was to compare them under a microscope to determine if they were similar to other hairs in question. But in the Barbara Lloyd case, the original lead detective, now in his eighties, told me that he kept them because he thought that someday they might be important. And they were.”

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