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It appears the next key date is Feb 26. From the Howard County Times (MD):

http://news.mywebpal.com/news_tool_v2.c ... lnews&om=1

Fingerprint evidence challenged

Lawyer: Analysis flawed in Mt. Hebron brawl case

01/24/08
By Mike Santa Rita


An attorney for a man who is charged with killing an 18-year-old man during a brawl at Mt. Hebron High School in 2007 wants fingerprint evidence excluded from his client's upcoming trial.

The fingerprint analysis that Howard County police conducted in building a case against Kevin Francis Klink is based on subjective methods and easily plays into the biases of investigators, Samuel Truette, an Assistant Howard County Public Defender who is representing Klink, wrote in a motion filed Dec. 3 in Howard County Circuit Court.

Klink, 19, formerly of Columbia, is charged with first- degree murder in the killing of Robert Brazell Jr., 18, who died Feb. 25, 2007, one day after a fight on the Mt. Hebron High School football field.

Brazell, who was from Ellicott City, died as the result of being struck in the head with an aluminum baseball bat during the fight, according to police.

The fight occurred shortly after midnight on Feb. 24, 2007, and involved a group of approximately 20 people gathered on the football field, police said, adding that the fight, which was prearranged, originated as a conflict between students of Hammond and Mt. Hebron high schools, but involved students from other schools.

In April 2007, a grand jury indicted Klink on a charge of first-degree murder in Brazell's death. It also indicted Klink on charges of first-degree assault, riot, wearing and carrying a dangerous weapon with intent to do injury and possessing a deadly weapon on school property. His trial is scheduled for Feb. 26.

In his motion, Truette wrote that the method police used in evaluating fingerprint evidence against Klink relies on the subjective analysis of a police expert. The method is known as the Analysis, Comparison, Evaluation, Verification, or ACE-V method.

Under the ACE-V method, an examiner will take a print found at a crime scene and compare it with a second print, checking for similar features, Truette wrote.

This subjective interpretation plays into the examiner's "confirmation bias," in which the examiner has "a tendency to seek out and interpret evidence in ways that fit existing beliefs," Truette wrote.

"So long as the criteria is subjective, confirmation bias may be impossible to avoid," he wrote, adding that the judgment of fingerprint examiners also might be clouded by other crime scene evidence, oral reasons that investigators give for believing that a suspect is guilty, or a description of the suspect's prior criminal record.

The method of fingerprint verification in which a colleague checks the work of an examiner also is suspect, Truette wrote.

"Reliability is ensured through 'verification' by another analyst who, too, knows it when she sees it," he wrote, "How can the validity of a 'method' (be) predicated on standards intrinsic to the examiner?"

In his motion, Truette does not mention the fingerprint examiner by name, nor state where police discovered the fingerprints they analyzed in their case against Klink.

Hafner's methods defended

In a Dec. 20 response to Truette's motion, Senior Assistant Howard County State's Attorneys Susan Weinstein and Danielle Duclaux name the fingerprint examiner as Al Hafner of the Howard County police department.

The prosecutors state that Hafner has been qualified more than twenty times in Howard courts as an expert in fingerprint identification and that the methods he uses are widely accepted in the field of fingerprint analysis.

"Fingerprint identification in general and the technique used by Mr. Hafner in this case specifically are generally accepted in the relevant scientific community," Duclaux and Weinstein wrote.

A hearing on Truette's motion is set for Feb. 26.

Truette did not return a telephone call seeking comment.

Duclaux and Weinstein declined a request to comment through Wayne Kirwan, a spokesman for Howard County State's Attorney Dario Broccolino.

E-mail Mike Santa Rita at Mike Santa Rita@patuxent.com

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Guilty plea in Hebron killing


State agrees to lesser charges in bargain
01/31/08
By Jennifer Broadwater

A Columbia man accused of killing 18-year-old Robert Brazell Jr., of Ellicott City, during a February 2007 brawl outside Mt. Hebron High School entered into a plea bargain this week, admitting to voluntary manslaughter.

Kevin Francis Klink, 19, of Columbia, had been charged with first-degree murder in the death of Brazell, who died from blunt force injury to his head following a late-night brawl outside the Ellicott City school.

In a plea hearing before Howard County Circuit Court Judge Lenore Gelfman on Jan. 29, Klink pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in Brazell's death. He also pleaded guilty to carrying a dangerous weapon with the intent to injure for his use of an aluminum baseball bat during the brawl.

Under the terms of the agreement, prosecutors will ask Gelfman to sentence Klink to 13 years in prison at a hearing Feb. 26, according to Wayne Kirwan, a spokesman for acting Howard County State's Attorney Dario Broccolino.

Klink is being held without bond at the Howard County Detention Center.

Rematch of a fight

According to a statement of facts read into court record by Assistant State's Attorney Susan Weinstein at the plea hearing, police were called to Mt. Hebron Feb. 24, 2007 at about 12:30 a.m., after receiving a report of a serious assault.

At the school, police and emergency personnel found Brazell lying unconscious on the school's track. Brazell was airlifted to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore to be treated for a large gash on the back of his head. He died Feb. 25, 2007.

Police detectives interviewed roughly 30 people connected to the incident, according to the statement of facts. The interviews indicated the fight was an arranged rematch between a student from Atholton High School and his friends and a group of students from Mt. Hebron High School.

A prior fight between the groups occurred Feb. 19, 2007 near Town and Country Boulevard in Ellicott City, according to the statement.

Some of the teens involved in the rematch brought baseball bats. About 15 of the Mt. Hebron students came to the football field from a nearby party on Robert Jay Way, according to the statement.

After shouting threats and profanities at one another, a fight between the parties ensued during which Klink struck Brazell on the back of the head with a baseball bat, witnesses told police.

During an interview with a detective Feb. 24, Klink said he joined in the altercation to defend a friend being beaten by three other teens.

"The defendant said he then took a level swing with the bat and connected with what he thought was the male's shoulder area," according to the statement. "The male then hit the ground, but maybe got back up. The defendant stated that he ran, telling his friends that things went bad."

Police recovered a black aluminum baseball bat from the crime scene and an analysis revealed Klink's fingerprints on the handle and Brazell's DNA on the head of the bat, according to the statement of facts.

In the statement, prosecutors described the incident as a "mutual affray" and wrote that although Klink was attempting to defend a friend he considered to be in peril, they believe Klink "used an amount of force which was objectively unreasonable" in wounding Brazell, causing injury that ultimately led to his death.

Brazell's father, Robert Brazell Sr., did not return a telephone call from a reporter seeking comment. The younger Brazell was a student at Mt. Hebron High School prior to his withdrawal in December 2006.

Not on the docket

Following the brawl, police charged Klink, of the 6800 block of Allview Drive in Columbia, with first- and second-degree murder, first- and second-degree assault and reckless endangerment.

In April 2007, a grand jury indicted Klink on charges of first-degree murder, first-degree assault, riot, carrying a dangerous weapon with intent to injure, and possessing a deadly weapon on school property.

Klink is a 2006 graduate of Oakland Mills High School.

Prosecutors declined to comment on the case until the time of sentencing, Kirwan said.

Klink's attorney, public defender Samuel Truette, also declined to comment on the plea bargain.

The Jan. 29 plea hearing was not listed on the Circuit Court's docket, as the plea deal was worked out late Jan. 25 and early Jan. 28. Gelfman agreed to an expedited hearing on the matter, according to Kirwan.

E-mail Jennifer Broadwater at Jennifer Broadwater@patuxent.com