PDA

View Full Version : Woman on death row in Arizona may go free



jimnyc
03-15-2013, 10:54 AM
I don't recall this case. If what she is accused of is true, I hope she burns in hell. I don't know if she is getting off on this or if they made errors.


PHOENIX (AP) — A federal appeals court on Thursday threw out the convictions of a woman sentenced to death in the notorious 1989 killing of her 4-year-old son, ruling that the case was tainted by a detective with a history of lying under oath.

The ruling marked a surprising turn in a case that made national headlines with the brazen and gruesome nature of the crime. Prosecutors said Debra Jean Milke dressed up her son Christopher in his favorite outfit and told him he was going to see Santa Claus at a mall during the holidays.

Instead, he was taken into the desert by her boyfriend and another man and shot three times in the back of the head as part of what prosecutors said was a plot by Milke and the two other defendants to collect a $50,000 life insurance policy.

Milke would have been the first woman executed in Arizona since the 1930s had her appeals run out. The Arizona Supreme Court had gone so far to issue a death warrant for Milke in 1997, but the execution was delayed because she had yet to exhaust federal appeals.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that the prosecution failed to disclose information about a history of misconduct by a detective who testified that Milke confessed to plotting her son's murder.

That record included multiple court rulings in other cases that former Detective Armando Saldate Jr. either lied under oath or violated suspects' Miranda rights during interrogations.

Prosecutors are required to provide a defendant's lawyers with material that might support a not guilty verdict, including material that could undermine the credibility of a prosecution witness.

There was no other witness or recording of the purported confession by Milke, who has proclaimed her innocence.

"No civilized system of justice should have to depend on such flimsy evidence, quite possibly tainted by dishonesty or overzealousness, to decide whether to take someone's life or liberty," Chief Justice Alex Kozinski wrote in the decision.

The trial amounted to "a swearing contest" in which the judge and jury ultimately believed the detective over Milke, but they didn't know of his record of dishonesty and misconduct, Kozinski wrote.

The ruling reversed a U.S. District Court judge's ruling and ordered the lower court to require Arizona authorities to turn over all relevant personnel records for the detective.

Once the material is produced and defense lawyers have time to review it, prosecutors will have 30 days to decide whether to retry her. If they don't, she will be released from prison.

http://news.yahoo.com/convictions-woman-ariz-death-row-overturned-205132827.html

Voted4Reagan
03-15-2013, 11:05 AM
She deserves a new trial.

if the detective tainted the case with perjury it must be re-opened and reexamined in the interest of justice.

Robert A Whit
03-15-2013, 11:42 AM
I don't recall this case. If what she is accused of is true, I hope she burns in hell. I don't know if she is getting off on this or if they made errors.



http://news.yahoo.com/convictions-woman-ariz-death-row-overturned-205132827.html

That is the problem with lying cops. And the bottom fell out of the case.

We in the SF Bay area had hundreds, perhaps over a thousand, cases tossed out because the head of the SF crime lab took false reports to court and swore they were true. She got fired. I believe she ended up in a court being accused. I have to check though to be certain of what happened to her.

More on this case in San Francisco to show how cases are destroyed.

SAN FRANCISCO -- A mistrial was declared for a second time in federal court Thursday in the case of a former San Francisco police crime laboratory technician accused of taking small amounts of cocaine from the facility in 2009.
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco declared a mistrial after jurors in the trial of Deborah Madden, 62, of San Mateo, told her they had reached an impasse.
Madden was charged with violating a federal law that makes it a crime to obtain a controlled drug by means of fraud, deception or subterfuge.

Related ContentStory: Closing arguments heard in retrail of crime lab tech (http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/san_francisco&id=8971147)
Story: Mistrial declared in SFPD crime lab scandal (http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/san_francisco&id=8834640)
Story: Trial for woman at center of crime lab scandal begins (http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/san_francisco&id=8822844)
Story: Former SFPD lab tech pleads not guilty (http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/san_francisco&id=8458361)
Story: Former SFPD lab tech pleads guilty to drug charge (http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/san_francisco&id=8168755)
Story: No charges filed against SFPD crime lab tech (http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/san_francisco&id=7872902)
Story: San Francisco DNA lab chief resigns (http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/san_francisco&id=7515045)
Story: Crime lab scandal prompts call for independent testing (http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/san_francisco&id=7403326)
Story: Board of Supervisors investigates lab scandal (http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/san_francisco&id=7393609)
Story: New SFPD drug lab documents released (http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/san_francisco&id=7388255)

Her defense lawyers argued that there was no proof that she used deception or fraud to steal bits of cocaine evidence, as opposed to simply taking what was in front of her on her desk. Madden's first trial on the federal charge also ended in a mistrial in October, when jurors were unable to agree on whether the element of deception or fraud had been proved.
Illston ordered prosecution and defense lawyers to return to court on Feb. 15 for a status conference to discuss the next steps in the case.
Madden admitted in a police interview in 2010 that she took some cocaine, but maintained she merely picked up trace amounts spilled during weighing.
Madden's actions and other problems at the laboratory led to the temporary closure of the facility's drug analysis unit and the district attorney's dismissal of hundreds of criminal cases that depended on evidence analyzed at the unit.
Prosecutors argued that Madden acted deceptively by working late more than usual in November and December 2009 so that she could take cocaine when no one was watching, and by opening a colleague's locked evidence locker and re-stapling an envelope that contained drugs.
Prosecution witnesses testified that 10 evidence envelopes analyzed by Madden and her two colleagues at the unit in late 2009 appeared to be missing a total of about one-half ounce of cocaine when they were reweighed during the