Colorado’s public defenders on Friday called for state funding to mount a response to revelations that a Colorado Bureau of Investigation scientist mishandled DNA testing in hundreds of cases and superiors within the agency failed to stop her misconduct for years.
The Colorado Office of the State Public Defender in January sought $5 million in state funding to investigate claims of wrongful conviction due to the CBI scientist’s flawed work, but legislators never approved that budget request, even though Colorado’s district attorneys received $4.4 million to handle such claims.
The public defender’s office renewed its call for funding Friday after a CBI internal affairs report made public this week showed that DNA scientist Yvonne “Missy” Woods was allowed to stay on the job despite years of repeated concerns about the reliability and quality of her work.
“The detailed revelations in the IA report regarding Ms. Woods’ misconduct are outrageous and shocking,” the public defender’s office said in its statement Friday. “The report shows that many people at CBI knew about these problems and that some consciously chose to cover it up, which let it continue. It could have and should have been stopped years ago.”
The longtime DNA scientist widely and routinely deleted, manipulated and altered DNA data in her lab work, the CBI report found. The agency has identified problems in more than 650 of Woods’ cases, and the review is still ongoing. She retired in lieu of termination last year after a 29-year career.
The ripple effect of Woods’ actions are just beginning to hit the courts. On Thursday, prosecutors in Boulder offered a plea deal to a triple murderer that allows him the opportunity to leave prison in his lifetime, and said the deal was due in part to Woods’ misconduct on the case.
James Karbach, director of legislative policy for the public defender’s office, said the agency is still considering how much money it now needs to handle wrongful conviction claims due to Woods’ unethical work.
When the agency requested the $5 million in January, the plan was to split that funding between the public defender’s office and the Office of Alternate Defense Counsel, which provides attorneys to indigent people when the public defender’s office cannot, testimony in budget hearings showed.
The $5 million request was tailored in response to $7.5 million in funding that was given to the CBI on Jan. 18 to address Woods’ misconduct. About $4.4 million of that funding was set aside for district attorney’s offices to use to address claims of wrongful conviction.
That money is structured as a reimbursement fund, said Tom Raynes, executive director of the Colorado District Attorneys’ Council. Prosecutors will keep track of the time spent on work related to Woods’ misconduct and apply for reimbursement from the CBI, he said.
On Friday, he called the appeal for public defender funding a “legitimate” request.
When the funding was first requested, legislative staff for the Joint Budget Committee strongly recommended legislators give the green light during a Jan. 30 hearing, but lawmakers expressed concerns that the budget request was rushed.
“I feel it’s a bit premature, though, for me to give them this much money right now,” said Democratic Rep. Shannon Bird, chair of the Joint Budget Committee. “I just feel hesitant. It seems like they’re just being reactive to what the district attorneys and CBI had said.”
“There may be a need, there may not be a need,” Republican Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer said. “I don’t know, and nobody else really knows until they start digging and find out what is going on.”
It’s since become clear that “there have likely been hundreds of public defender clients who were given intentionally manipulated data and who were prosecuted with unreliable evidence,” the public defender’s office said in its statement.
“This has become about more than just one long-standing analyst tampering with evidence and deleting data, but it also is about the systemic failures of an accredited state crime lab, the people and the processes that should have stopped this from happening over and over for years,” the statement said.
The public defenders called on the CBI to be more forthcoming and transparent about impacted cases.
“A lab scandal like this can only be fairly addressed if clients and their lawyers receive timely, complete transparency from CBI,” the statement said, “which is still not happening.”
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