Review panel wants witness

The city panel reviewing the case of Jill Marker, a woman nearly beaten to death in 1995, wants to subpoena a former detective whose work in the case has come under fire.

The Silk Plant Forest Citizen Review Committee last week discussed the idea of obtaining testimony from retired detective Don Williams, who has long been a linchpin the case.

The man convicted in the assault, Kalvin Smith, has been in prison for more than 10 years and says he is innocent.

The review panel came to a consensus that Williams will be needed to answer critical questions about suspects and witness testimony in the brutal beating of Marker, who was left severely disabled and is now blind and living in Ohio with 24-hour care.

"Having truthful answers from Williams would be helpful in this case," committee Chairman Guy Blynn said. "We need to think about whether we should ask the city council to subpoena Williams."

The issue of whether a citizen review committee should have subpoena power came up during the formation of the Silk Plant panel. A similar citizen review committee that studied the Darryl Hunt case did not have subpoena power, which some members said hurt its ability to get at the truth.

In setting up the Silk Plant committee, the city council decided after debate that if the panel wanted to subpoena witnesses, it would be able to do so through the council.

If Williams is subpoenaed, the city council would conduct the interview with him, with members of the review panel there to delegate questions, Blynn said.

There is a chance any interview with Williams will be private, without even the panel present to ask follow-up questions or clarify responses. That possibility last week left some members of the panel feeling that more facts should be mined before seeking a subpoena.

"I would like to hear what he has to say," committee member Barry Lyons said. "But we're going to need something very compelling before asking the city council to subpoena Williams. I think we can find a lot of facts without him testifying right now."

Blynn requested that Sgt. Chuck Byrom, one of two Winston-Salem officers assisting the panel in examining the police's work in the case, put together an extensive set of questions to give to the city council to ask Williams in the event that he is subpoenaed.

Williams has come under fire for his work on the case and how he handled evidence. 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 the defense of Kalvin Smith, the man who in 1997 was convicted of assault and sentenced to as much as 29 years in prison for Marker's beating.

Most notably, Williams failed to 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 identify another man, the first suspect police had in the case. Williams also lost rec­ords of Smith's polygraph test, though police reports indicate that Smith passed the test.

Williams has declined public comment on the case since December 2004.

Earlier this year, Smith's attorneys asked for a new trial, alleging that Smith was wrongfully convicted because of withheld evidence by authorities, false statements by witnesses and an ineffective defense attorney.

The N.C. Attorney General's Office last month answered Smith's motion by saying that it did not raise any new issues and that his arguments had no merit.

A hearing scheduled for the week of Sept. 29 will determine whether both sides will put on evidence for a judge, who would then decide if Smith should get a new trial.

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 was able to obtain original statements from witnesses in the case who now say they were coerced to give false statements by the police.

Blynn said that in the coming weeks the committee would examine how written statements were taken in the investigation.

Lt. Joseph Ferrelli, the other officer assisting the panel, said that Williams took only written statements at a time when the department had recently outfitted interview rooms with recorders.

That didn't set well with Blynn and other members, who said that there are pitfalls in written statements.

"They allow the officer to lead the suspect in the direction they want," Blynn said. "All of these policies depend on the spirit of the investigating officer."

Panel member James Taylor said he didn't understand why Williams would choose to take written statements when he could have recorded them.

"If he [Williams] had the ability to record, why didn't he in a case as high profile as this?" Taylor asked.

The committee is trying to complete a report of its findings by mid-December.

Blynn said that if the review panel wants to subpoena Williams, it needs to act soon. He also said that in the coming months he would be scheduling more meetings of the committee and ask for the public's comment.

"We have a clock running," he said. "If we're going to do something with this information, we need to do it soon."

■ Erik Spencer can be reached at 727-7284 or at ehill@wsjournal.com.

■ The Silk Plant Forest Citizen Review Committee's next meeting is scheduled for Aug. 25 in Public Meeting Room 530, Stuart Municipal Building, 100 E. First St.