Detective problems detailed

Crime technicians with the Winston-Salem Police Department wrongly destroy fingerprint evidence they don't deem "of value," and supervisors often don't hold detectives accountable for writing reports on time, a city-commissioned review has found.

The review by Risk Management Associates of Raleigh also found that police and city officials have yet to carry out needed reforms and that police obey an unwritten rule to get permission from the district attorney's office to pursue cases.

RMA's report was delivered to members of the Winston-Salem City Council on Thursday night. RMA is expected to present the report Monday afternoon during a meeting of the council's finance committee. The Winston-Salem Journal requested a copy of the report earlier this week.

RMA consultants spent nine days in Winston-Salem as part of their review, interviewing police, prosecutors, public defenders and city-council members.

The city paid RMA $40,500. Members of the city council said they wanted an in-depth check on police detectives after a citizens review committee found problems with two high-profile cases: the 1995 near-fatal beating of Jill Marker and the wrongful conviction of Darryl Hunt for the 1984 murder of Deborah Sykes.

Police arrested Kalvin Smith in the Marker case and a jury convicted him, but his supporters and the Duke Law School Innocence Project have argued that Smith is innocent.

City officials reached yesterday either would not comment on the 45-page report or said they had yet to read it.

City Manager Lee Garrity said he expects that the city will come up with plans to respond to the report's recommendations.

"I'm not going to comment on the RMA report until after I've had a chance to read the whole thing and hear RMA's presentation on Monday," Garrity said.

Police Chief Pat Norris did not return a phone call requesting comment.

On the whole, the police department's criminal-investigations division has well-trained, hardworking detectives, the review said.

"The RMA consultants were impressed with their candor and positive attitude in spite of the unrelenting criticism, political posturing, and bureaucratic interference to which they believe the department has been subjected over the past few years," the consultants wrote.

Technicians need more training, better pay for those with college degrees, and major changes in how they collect evidence, the RMA report said.

In some cases, technicians are destroying prints that they believe are not "of value," and they do not keep a record of what prints were destroyed or who approved destroying them. A supervisor reviews which prints are destroyed.

The practice is used for crimes that are not considered major crimes, but the department has no written policy defining what counts as a major crime, the consultants wrote.

Without a record, it's impossible to know if a technician is making mistakes, destroying evidence that either helps convict or acquit, the report said.

Among the problems consultants identified in the detective division were long delays in completing reports in major cases. The report said that supervisors did little to require detectives to finish the reports.

Police have been holding onto all files in a case until all reports are complete, then turning the file over to District Attorney Tom Keith's office. Prosecutors are then responsible for giving copies of all reports to the defense attorney for the accused.

Part of the problem is Keith's office, which tells police to turn over the evidence all at once, the consultants said.

"There's no reason for 99 percent of the report to be sitting on the detective's desk, waiting for 1 percent to be completed," Mike Longmire, one of the RMA consultants, said in an interview yesterday.

Keith said in an interview yesterday that his worry is that if evidence trickles in, it can get lost. He said he has come to realize that defense attorneys need evidence earlier so that they can get started on their research.

"I never thought about that from their point of view," he said.

Keith said it would take more state and local money to improve the situation -- for example, a system for electronically filing reports, assistants to make copies, and detectives to help on cases.

The existing process, which the consultants referred to as "dysfunctional," causes cases to move slowly to trial. For example, a public defender might be assigned to a man charged with murder, then find out a year later -- when police have turned over their reports -- that a witness in the case has been represented by the public defender's office in the past.

The case would then have to be given to an attorney outside of the public defender's office because of the possible conflict of interest. A new attorney would then have to research the case, leading to more delay.

The consultants said that detectives also are not making the most of a new system that allows them to videotape interviews. All important interviews, including those of victims and witnesses, should be videotaped, and not just interviews of suspects, the report said.

RMA also found other policies that, if changed, would make the department appear more open and more independent of Keith's office. For example, the review said that it appeared that the department has an unwritten rule that detectives need permission from Keith's office to charge someone with a felony.

"This practice is not common in North Carolina," the consultants wrote.

Keith denied the existence of an unwritten rule, saying that his office puts an assistant district attorney on call to consult, not to give permission.

"There's not a rule that says, ‘Thou shalt not get a warrant without talking to us,'" he said. "They can do whatever they want to do."

The consultants said that their review found that police were clearing some cases inappropriately by writing that the district attorney's office declined to prosecute, or that a victim would not cooperate.

According to state and federal crime-reporting guidelines, clearing a case that way requires police to investigate and develop a suspect first, which was not always being done, the consultants said.

In one case, a sexual assault, the victim was never contacted, yet the case was declared cleared.

City officials also have yet to act on plans to improve pay for detectives, the consultants said. Keith has long complained that detectives often have to transfer to the patrol division to make more money.

"WSPD is and will continue to be a prime recruiting source for other agencies offering better pay and opportunities for advancement," the consultants wrote.

One effect of not investing in the detectives' division is that it appears not many police officers are interested in new detective positions.

Ten new detective positions that police are filling drew 24 applications, out of 267 officers eligible. Four of the 24 later withdrew their applications.

"The prestige, pay incentives and career-advancement opportunities for investigators in comparable agencies are obviously absent in the Winston-Salem Police Department," the report said.

■ Dan Galindo can be reached at 727-7377 or at dgalindo@wsjournal.com.

Where police could improve

Here are some of Risk Management Associates' findings and recommendations:

• ROLL CALL: Investigators begin their work day at 8 a.m., but with a daily roll-call meeting at 9 a.m., the real work of the day typically doesn't begin until after 10 a.m. RMA recommends that the traditional roll-call meeting for CID be replaced with weekly meetings of investigators with their sergeants, and more administrative and departmental information be handled by e-mail.

• WORKING WITH THE DA: It has become an unwritten requirement in Forsyth County for law enforcement to review probable cause in all felony cases with the district attorney's office. RMA found such practice uncommon in North Carolina, and suggests that the practice be suspended, though it does promote the idea of CID investigators maintaining a liaison with assistant district attorneys.

• INDEPENDENT REVIEW PROCESS: The police department has still not established, as the city manager and a citizens committee had recommended, a way to independently review specific cases. The idea was to make an honest effort to get input and feedback on the quality of work performed by CID on such cases.