Scott Cunningham, the Winston-Salem police chief, is recommending against a re-investigation of the Jill Marker case. The last best hope for Kalvin Michael Smith, who may well have been wrongly convicted of the severe beating of Marker, is a case review by Chris Swecker, a former prosecutor and FBI assistant director, who has been called in by Smith’s supporters. The city council should insist that Cunningham cooperate, including by giving Swecker full access to his officers who worked the case.
“I’ve spent an entire career putting bad guys in jail,” Swecker told the Journal Wednesday. “The only reason somebody like me would get involved in a case like this is because there are questions about whether justice was done.”
Smith, who has long said he is innocent, has been in prison since his 1997 conviction in the severe beating of Smith at the Silk Plant Forest store where she worked. An investigative series in the Journal, the Duke Law School innocence project and a citizens’ review committee — assisted by Lt. Joseph Ferrelli and Sgt. Chuck Byrom of the Winston-Salem department — have raised major questions about the case. No physical evidence ties Smith to the crime, and much of the witness testimony is shaky.
Cunningham, a former Cary police chief who took the reins here more than two years ago, embraced reforms that his predecessor, Pat Norris, began in the wake of the Marker and Darryl Hunt cases. Hunt spent more than 18 years in prison, wrongly convicted of the 1984 murder of Deborah Sykes. He was exonerated after DNA evidence led to the real killer.
Cunningham made his recommendation after a lengthy review of the case with some of his top officers and public-safety attorney Lori Sykes. (See excerpts from that review below.) It might be difficult for a relatively new chief, especially one from outside the department, to re-open an investigation from long before his tenure, especially when the vast majority of his officers are good ones. Cunningham has proceeded with good ideas for moving his department forward through programs such as putting extra officers to work in high-crime neighborhoods.
But justice demands that all measures be exhausted to solve the questions raised by the Marker case. A fresh set of eyes could be crucial. Swecker would be ideal. He recently co-produced a report that detailed myriad problems in the handling of blood evidence by the State Bureau of Investigation lab. Attorney General Roy Cooper, who oversees the SBI, requested the audit. Smith’s supporters say they will pay the costs of Swecker’s investigation.
All that’s needed from the city council is a mandate for cooperation. It should do that. It’s time for all the questions about this case to finally be answered, including the biggest one: Was Kalvin Michael Smith wrongly convicted, and is the real assailant still on the streets?
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