Article: Attention to Details!

[Ann Horsman]

From the Aiken Standard, Aiken, SC

Man found not guilty of burglary


An Aiken man who has twice been convicted of burglary was found not guilty by a jury Wednesday, in a case in which crucial evidence was called into question.

After deliberating for less than an hour, the 12-person panel agreed unanimously that Albert Cave Jr. was not guilty of first-degree burglary.

Upon hearing the verdict, Cave stood silently while his attorney nodded in agreement with the jury.

Cave had been accused of breaking into an Aiken home two years before and stealing a laptop computer. He could have received a life sentence if convicted of the crime because of his two burglary convictions.

A palm print identified by an expert witness as Cave's was found on a plastic container inside his home. However, the container - the only direct evidence presented by the Attorney General's Office - was left unattended by case detective Billy Royster for four days before being logged into evidence, the defense said. This violated Aiken Department of Public Safety procedure; however, Royster testified that the evidence was secure and locked in his lab. The object was a generic tub the victim used to contain change.

"Under oath, the evidence custodian can't tell you where this was for four days," said defense attorney Aaron Walsh.

In his closing arguments, Walsh attacked the case against his client, including that an officer at the crime scene was never identified in documents, that the date a fingerprint card was created was never noted on it and that the print examiner was not properly certified - all against ADPS procedure.

The expert witness who concluded that Cave's palm print matched the one found in the victim's home was not a certified latent print examiner, as required by ADPS procedure.

The expert, Lt. Clay Adams of the Aiken County Sheriff's Office, is experienced and has been trained in matching prints but has not reached that specific certification.

Contact Mike Gellatly at mgellatly@aikenstandard.com.

http://www.aikenstandard.com/Local/0107Burglary

[Pat A. Wertheim]

From the Aiken Standard, Aiken, SC

Man found not guilty of burglary


An Aiken man who has twice been convicted of burglary was found not guilty by a jury Wednesday, in a case in which crucial evidence was called into question.

. . . This violated Aiken Department of Public Safety procedure. . .

. . . an officer at the crime scene was never identified in documents, that the date a fingerprint card was created was never noted on it and that the print examiner was not properly certified - all against ADPS procedure.

The expert witness who concluded that Cave's palm print matched the one found in the victim's home was not a certified latent print examiner, as required by ADPS procedure. . .

You can write your policies and procedures any way you want them. If you don't want to do something, don't write a procedure requiring it. If the procedure is adopted anyway, violate it at your own risk.

[Gerald Clough]

There's nothing in the evidence handling or analysis that necessarily invalidated its meaning, but it wasn't just about not following procedure. I don't know if they were just spanking the state for generally sloppy case work or not, but it's not impossible that they started connecting dots between evidence floating around for days where it wasn't supposed to be, vagueness about when a print was lifted from that evidence, and a procedurally improper examiner. After all, that print was the case. And I wouldn't be surprised if they looked at all the flaws and saw that they all could have been done properly with no real extra effort. That sometimes starts looking like there were other reasons besides simple slackness. Kind of a perfect defense storm, this time. He could hit the state's only direct evidence at every stage, from creation to interpretation. I guess if there's good news, it's that the agency got a lesson in multiple key points and don't have get spanked on multiple cases to learn them all. And they'll no doubt be seeing old Albert again.

And it was kind of nice to see a defense attorney really performing. In the last analysis, they're the reason we do things so right. I've sure dealt with a bunch of them who wouldn't have put it together like that.