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Council favors forcing Silk Plant Forest detective, panel to meet
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Published: November 11, 2008
A detective who has repeatedly refused to discuss his work on the Silk Plant Forest case may be forced to answer questions from a citizens' committee.
The Silk Plant Forest Citizen Review Committee had asked Winston-Salem's City Council in August to subpoena retired detective Don Williams, the detective who investigated the brutal beating of Jill Marker in 1995.
Supporters of Kalvin Smith, the man convicted in 1997, believe that Smith is innocent and that his conviction was built on testimony of unreliable witnesses, most of whom have since recanted and have said that they were pressured by police and prosecutors.
City council members voted 7-1 last night to recommend issuing a subpoena, which would compel Williams to testify and to bring any documents he has about the case.
They will make a final decision Monday, at their regular meeting.
Council Member Wanda Merschel cast the opposing vote. She said she needed more time to clear up her questions about how questions will be asked to Williams. She declined to elaborate on her questions.
Council Member Nelson Malloy said he voted yes because the citizens' committee has to try to resolve all the questions it can about the investigation.
"We have an obligation to do all we can," he said.
If Williams is subpoenaed, he would answer the questions in a closed session. City Attorney Angela Carmon said that is because Williams' testimony would deal with personnel-privacy issues shielded by state law.
The citizens' committee would be allowed to attend that closed session. The questions would be asked either by the city attorney's office or by investigators from the Winston-Salem Police Department assigned to the citizens' committee.
Barry Lyons, a committee member, said that the subpoena was needed because the committee --which is charged with independently investigating the case -- was basically at an impasse. "We have so many pieces to this puzzle," Lyons said "We need to put together as many pieces as possible."
Williams either made or was present for the major decisions in the case -- what leads to pursue, when to drop a suspect and how to document the work.
In a five-part investigation of the case by the Winston-Salem Journal in 2004, Williams admitted that he intentionally did not document certain evidence in order to avoid giving it to Smith's defense attorney.
Williams didn't document a key photo lineup, shown to Marker after the attack, in which she had trouble pointing Smith out as her attacker, but did apparently indicate that another man, the first suspect police had in the case, was in the Silk Plant Forest, the store where Marker was attacked.
Williams also lost records of a polygraph test for Smith, though police reports indicate that Smith passed the test.
A persistent question, also raised in the Journal's series, has been whether Marker had the ability to identify her attacker, given that she suffered brain damage.
Marker, who was pregnant when she was attacked, gave birth to a son while in a coma. She is now living in Ohio with her parents and is under 24-hour care.
Smith's claim of innocence has been taken up by the Innocence Project at Duke University Law School, which has been conducting its own investigation of the Marker case since July 2003.
The project's work led attorneys for Smith to ask in April for a new trial. At a hearing in September, a judge allowed 5 of Smith's 11 claims in arguing for a new trial to go forward.
The hearing to decide on those claims is scheduled for the week of Jan. 5.
■ Dan Galindo can be reached at 727-7377 or at dgalindo@wsjournal.com.
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