Police Department Blamed For Tim Masters Debacle
The special prosecutor in the Tim Masters case is blaming the Fort Collins police department for numerous evidence violations.
On at least four occasions, Fort Collins detectives failed to turn over documents to the attorneys who tried the case - and those lawyers failed to ferret out all relevant information, Adams County District Attorney Don Quick concluded in a report filed in court Friday.
But Quick stopped short of concluding that the omissions amounted to an "intentional hiding" of evidence that could have helped Masters win an acquittal after he was charged in the Feb. 11, 1987, killing of Peggy Hettrick.
Masters, who spent 91/2 years in prison in the slaying, had his conviction tossed out last month after the discovery that skin-cell DNA on the dead woman's clothing was linked to her former boyfriend.
A Fort Collins police spokeswoman did not return a message seeking comment.
Hettrick, a 37-year-old manager at a Fort Collins Fashion Bar clothing store, walked to a bar late the night of Feb. 10, 1987. After leaving, she was accosted, stabbed in the back and sexually mutilated. Her body was discovered the next morning in a south Fort Collins field.
Masters, arrested 11 years later, was convicted in 1999.
In recent years, attorneys for Masters mounted a case for a new trial, finding hundreds of pages of documents that were not turned over to his original defense team.
They argued that the materials would have boosted his acquittal chances.
But before a judge decided that issue, the DNA evidence came to light, and Masters walked out of court a free man Jan. 22.
In Friday's report, Quick wrote that "the trial prosecutors were not given the four items of evidence described above by the Fort Collins police department."
"Nevertheless, the law imposes upon the prosecution the duty to disclose even if they are unaware of the evidence," the report said.
Quick found no evidence that Fort Collins police Lt. Jim Broderick, one of the lead investigators in the case, intentionally hid information. But it noted that he "did not convert some of his notes to formal reports on matters that should have been disclosed to both the prosecution and defense."
Rocky Mountain News
3 comments:
“From Ft. Collins To Dallas, Texas Police and Prosecutional Misconduct Undermines U.S. Justice System"
State of Texas v. Lakeith Amir-Sharif
F0525061, F0559639, F0600180,MA0521971,MA0425257
Dear Friends:
This letter is to update you about the case of Lakeith Amir-Sharif (“Sharif“) who is currently awaiting trials April 21, 2008 on trumped up charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, to wit: a car, and stalking; the latter charge is 3 year old and has not been reset for trial as of this date due to the fact the indictment obtained by the racist and corrupt administration of former D.A. Bill Hill is unlawful and statutorily invalid because the requisites for charging Sharif with Stalking don‘t exist. Newly-elected District Attorney Craig Watkins has been made aware of all of these facts prior to and since his election, but nothing has been done to uphold the law and U.S. Constitution by ending this miscarriage of justice, and thus prevent another innocent man from being railroaded to prison like so many others have been done.
These charges against Sharif lack a lawful or factual foundation because they’re based on lies, revenge, police, prosecution and judicial misconduct, yet with the complicity of various other court officials, local and state politicians (many of whom are defendants in federal civil right lawsuits filed by “Sharif” filed over the horrible conditions and treatment of prisoners while he was in the Dallas County jail during the past 16-months) the Dallas County DA’s Office, headed by Craig Watkins, the first African-American elected to this position, continues to pursue this malicious prosecution at a cost to taxpayers that now exceeds a quarter of a million dollars, and counting.
It is becoming more and more obvious with each passing day that Sharif’s prosecution has nothing whatsoever to do with him supposedly having broken the law, but rather he is being persecuted for his constitutionally protected activities (i.e. his free speech found on numerous web sites & blogs, plus his federal civil right lawsuits that exposes and challenges the injustices within the Dallas County judiciary, the County Commissioners Office, the Dallas Sheriff’s Department, and the Dallas County Jail).
Few, if any, Texas media outlets or elected leaders in Dallas County or the Texas State Legislatures in Austin, have not heard about the persecution of Sharif and the wasteful spending of taxpayers money, the unethical acts and abuses of power by the judges, police, and others involved in Sharif’s cases in order to carry out this travesty of justice, yet none of them have had the courage nor decency to take a principled stance in the name of truth and justice and demand answers and an end to this egregious injustice.
To find some of the answers as to why there was a Fake Drug Scandal in Dallas, and why 15 recently exonerated citizens were railroaded to prison and why 400 plus others imprisoned citizens from Dallas County alone are claiming they were railroaded and that DNA testing will prove their innocence, you need to look no further than the case of Sharif and the many things we’ve pointed out to the world via MTWT’s website at:
www.angelfire.com/crazy4/texas/
www.angelfire.com/crazy4/texas/taxpayerquestions.html
www.angelfire.com/crazy4/texas/fakedrugsfakevictims.html
www.angelfire.com/crazy4/texas/lawbreakslaw.html
www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/pt/slideshows/2008/01/010308_exonerated,
Your support is needed to end this gross perversion of justice in the case of “Sharif“, and other defendants like him, please visit MTWT’s and contact web mistress Kay Lee at kaylee1@charter.net or contact Sharif at amirsharif1@hotmail.com
“There is no crueler tyranny than that which is exercised under cover of law, with the colors of justice”… U.S. v. Jannotti, 673 F.2d 578, 618 (3rd Cir. 1982)
It appears this prosecutorial misconduct goes on all over the nation. A case of fact exists right here in Denver county. DA Joe Morales, suppressed evidence in a case that sent a young white woman to prison for 6 years. The facts of the suppression were sent to Cynthia Mares an investigator with the supreme court attorney regulation council. The whole incident was swept under the rug by Mares and the council. My question is, how do we get rid of corrupt people like DA Joe Morales?? djw
put all these prosecutors in jail for there actions,now
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