Some routine housecleaning turned into a headache for the Buchanan County prosecutor's office.
The prosecutor charged Dallas Cox, 28, with second-degree murder in the beating and eventual death of Stephen Akin, 26. Mr. Akin died one week after the assault last October, to which his uncle, Kenneth Akin, pleaded guilty in November. Mr. Cox's trial was set to start Tuesday in front of Judge Dan Kellogg until a St. Joseph police detective discovered earlier this month that an officer destroyed most of the physical evidence in the case by mistake.
So instead, the two sides met in court Tuesday to argue the defense's motion for the judge to dismiss the case. Mr. Kellogg said he will rule on the motion Oct. 9. If the case does proceed, it's scheduled for trial on March 9, 2010.
According to testimony from Russell Martin, who manages the St. Joseph Police Department's evidence room, the department assigned Lynn Garland to the evidence room after the longtime officer suffered a heart attack. Mr. Martin instructed Mr. Garland to look at cases from 2005 that could be purged because they exceeded the three-year statute of limitations (homicide cases have no such statute, though assault cases do).
For reasons unknown to Mr. Martin, Mr. Garland ended up going through a few 2008 cases. The Stephen Akin case had a "PG" stamp on it, meaning that Kenneth Akin pleaded guilty. Police also originally labeled the case as an assault case before Stephen Akin died. Mr. Garland ended up destroying the evidence last March, apparently believing it was an assault case that had concluded.
Mr. Garland, who since has retired, destroyed a CD of pictures of the victim in the hospital, photos of the defendant's hands, nail scrapings and hair from the victim and the athletic shoes Mr. Cox was wearing when police arrested him on Oct. 8, 2008, two days after the assault. Neither police nor the prosecutor's office sent off the shoes, hair or nail scrapings for testing.
Mr. Cox's private attorneys, Kevin Baldwin and Eric Vernon, contend they didn't know the state hadn't tested the evidence until depositions on Sept. 9, the same day the Police Department discovered Mr. Garland had destroyed the evidence. Mr. Vernon argued Tuesday that the evidence could've cleared his client of guilt in the case.
"This time, (the police) did not do a good job. They knew those shoes had exculpatory value," Mr. Vernon told the judge. "They exercised indifference to my client's constitutional rights."
Mr. Vernon contends that had his client committed the crime, there would be trace DNA evidence on the shoes or in the hair. Thus, if testing found no trace evidence, Mr. Cox didn't commit the crime, the attorney's argument concludes.
Detective Byron Weed, who led the investigation until November 2008, testified Tuesday that he couldn't verify whether the shoes Mr. Cox was wearing when arrested were the same pair he had on the day of the crime. Mr. Cox is accused of kicking the victim in the head.
Mr. Weed said he didn't send the nail scrapings or hair for testing, either, because Stephen Akin had been in the hospital, had staff clean him up and had undergone surgery before the samples were taken, thus removing their value as evidence, in the detective's mind.
Assistant Prosecutor Ron Holliday told the judge that for charges to be dismissed, the defense would have to show police destroyed the evidence "in bad faith." He argued that the defense never raised an issue about the shoes until after Mr. Garland had destroyed them.
"Not once has the defense told me they wanted to test evidence," Mr. Holliday said to the court. "This is, by all inferences, just a mistake."
County Prosecutor Dwight Scroggins told the News-Press afterward that no other motions arose in other cases from Mr. Garland's mistake.
"We went through all of the cases that had evidence destroyed," Mr. Scroggins said. "We determined that, fortunately, there was nothing in any of the cases that was of importance."
R.J. Cooper can be reached at rjcooper@npgco.com.
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Thecitizen says...
This is crazy! Police destroying evidence? I feel sorry if justice will not be served because of some stupid mistake. Or was it a mistake?
September 30, 2009 at 8:16 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
mm1967 says...
UNEXCUSABLE now we have a chance a person charged with someones death will get off due to our police dept mistakes.
September 30, 2009 at 8:36 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
taxedout says...
I wonder what else was thrown out that may not be important now but could be in the future. I would suggest an independent investigation of Mr. Garland's financial records for the past year. What a bonehead mistake, if it was a mistake to take into retirement. Perhaps a few years of pension payments (Garland's) should be diverted into a fund to educate police officers on evidence procedures.
September 30, 2009 at 9:25 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
heritage_sarahhochschwender says...
not good. this reads like the script of a disaster movie on flaws in our justice system...........
i could swear i have seen this on an episode of CSI.....
September 30, 2009 at 9:51 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
grannytuff says...
Garland was told specifically to go through 2005 cases, so he had absolutely no business going near 2008 files. This was a mistake? Frankly, I find it hard to believe that he did this accidently. Surely police training educates officers better than this:.
Sounds like maybe he was snooping into files he had no business in. Hopefully an external investigation will check into this.
Now it is possible that a person involved in killing another human being may go free due to this seriously careless incident.
Is this the only 2008 case that had its contents destroyed? Truly Unbelievable!!
September 30, 2009 at 9:52 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
ksmith says...
I find it funny that he "retired". I am sure he did, before all this came about. Just another way they each stand up for there own.. That is such a problem with this police department (and many others). They need to take things seriously and quit trying to protect there own. This will all get swept under the rug since he is retired.
September 30, 2009 at 10:05 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
rjcooper (R.J. Cooper) says...
It should be noted that Mr. Garland retired in May, and they didn't realize he had mistakenly destroyed evidence until September. And, according to testimony Tuesday, there were at least two other 2008 cases destroyed, though Mr. Scroggins said the purged evidence didn't have an effect on those cases.
September 30, 2009 at 11:04 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
equinelady says...
I think individuals should know what they are talking about before they start making accusations, re comments. One must know and understand the circumstances behind actions taken! The information has been; shall we say; conveyed with out full understanding of Mr Garland's instructions from certain entities. Officers of Garland's high standards do not destroy evidence arbitrarily. Perhaps other officers in the department might want to think about the apparent lack of support from the SJPD for one of their own. Officer Garland gave 20 years exemplary service to your community, he retired with extremely high honors and praise from the force. Your citizens should be thankful they have such fine individuals working for the police department!
September 30, 2009 at 3:46 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
grannytuff says...
rjcooper - Thanks for the update.
If you know, how can they be sure Garland was responsible? It doesn't say in the article when the evidence was actually destroyed. I really hope they aren't just blaming him because he retired and isn't there to defend himself. He has been retired for 4 months. Could it have happened by someone else after he retired, or even many months before?
Wonder if they will plea bargain now?
September 30, 2009 at 4:16 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
grannytuff says...
equinelady - Would you care to expand on this? Maybe you could enlighten us as to what really happened. We want the truth, though we seldom get that these days.
September 30, 2009 at 4:21 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
grannytuff says...
beam8653 - good job beam, you just blew his cover.
I have re-read all of the comments and cannot see where anybody said he wasn't a really nice person. I do aggree with one statement you made, it is definitely messed up.
September 30, 2009 at 4:35 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
rjcooper (R.J. Cooper) says...
According to the motion, Mr. Garland destroyed the evidence on March 25, 2009. Mr. Martin testified that he came across Mr. Garland going through the 2008 files during Mr. Garland's time working in the evidence room.
September 30, 2009 at 4:40 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Agent_Provocateur says...
Yeah Beam8653 really a great guy. You should be happy for your friend that the pd lost this evidence he is facing murder 2 and I doubt that evidence would have exonerated him. We are all entitled to our opinion here on this forum and my opinion is it's pretty messed up to kick somebody's head in!
Even more messed up to get by with it.
September 30, 2009 at 4:50 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
singlemomof3 says...
The article says that most of the evidence was destroyed, what happened to the remaining? It wasn't just the one officer that made a mistake, the DA did as well and so did the detective in charge of the investigation. Why wasn't any of the evidence tested? How can the DA rest on his laurels and not make sure he actually had a case to begin with? Without the evidence we won't know if there was a case. Serious case of bad judgement!
September 30, 2009 at 5:25 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
safd says...
Im sure glad that we can determine that a man is guilty before he has even had his trial. Accidents happen people, glad to know that some of the people that posted comments on here have never made a mistake before and are perfect.
As far as the evidence being destroyed.. If you read the story close, it states that the evidence was marked "PG" (Pled Guilty). and with 2 people on trial for this case, I can see where the mistake happened, especially if the detective had no knowlegde of the case and that another charge had been filed in place of the assault charge.
And its a common occurance for the Prosecuting Attorneys office to drop assault charges and file murder charges if a victim later dies from injuries from the altercation.
BOTTOM LINE IS ACCIDENTS HAPPEN AND NO ONE IS PERFECT!!
September 30, 2009 at 9:17 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
donaldo says...
we are all human and have made mistakes in our lives.i have never screwed up like this but we are innocent until proven guilty. did i say proven? well, it is the police dept. job to prove him guilty. if they cant do that now all i can say is they didn't do there job. granted the officer that got rid of evidence made a mistake. to err is human , to forgive is divine! what ever happens someone will live with this on their minds until they go to there graves.whoever was responsible , i hope this act bothers you till the end! ! !
September 30, 2009 at 9:56 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
singlemomof3 says...
Safd,
I don't see how the mistake was made. The officer was purging cases that were 3 yrs old. It doesn't matter if the box had PG on the side or not.
September 30, 2009 at 10:03 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
younggrandma says...
Why with something as important as evidence is there no plan in place to keep this from happening? There should be at least two people that need to look over the files and both should have to sign off Ok-ing the evidence to be distroyed. One should be from the police department and one needs to be freom the DA's office. These departments are going to have to get together ASAP and put a proven plan into place since crime in St. Joseph is on the rise. Maybe no evidence should be distroyed, how many people have been in prison for years and freed with DNA with old evidence. No one knows what kind of technology we will have in the next few years.
September 30, 2009 at 11:03 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Jbaldy45 says...
Single mom of 3 what do you mean you can't see how the mistake was made. What are you blind?????? I'll bet you're one of those who has never made a mistake and even if you did you wouldn't own up to it. The PG stamped on the box of evidence has alot to do with it.
But again since you have never made a mistake you wouldn't know about that would you.
beam 8653 I don't know your friend at all but i very seriously doubt the SJPD would have bothered to arrest and charge him unless they had some serious evidence to back the accusation up. Also it's not cool to tell everyone to shut the F*** up when we all have a right just like you to post comments (good or bad).
October 1, 2009 at 12:33 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
amother says...
it always amazes me how the citizens of st. joe always turn on the police dept at the drop of a hat...but have no problem with doctors nurses first responders etc.. making a mistake that kills someone or does permanent damage to someone we are all only human everyone has made mistakes in thier lives but because this man was an officer some of you are accusing him of doing it on purpose that he was paid to do it this just goes to show me that i did the right thing by moving out of st. joe if the evidence was so important then dna tests should have been done on it right away what was the prosecuter waiting on this is not the job of the sjpd this is the job of the prosecuter to make sure they have a solid case so if you want someone to blame id say scroggins is your man
October 1, 2009 at 3:38 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
singlemomof3 says...
Trust me, I have made mistakes. I never said I was perfect. I just don't see how when the officer was purging 2005 cases that he threw out evidence from 2008... I can't believe that the sjpd doesn't have 2 people checking the boxes. What procedures have been put in place to prevent this from happening again? Overall I am a great supporter of the sjpd. I said from the start of this convo that everyone dropped the ball, the DA, the detective & the retired officer. Its too late for this case, we won't know if the evidence would have brought back a conviction or not. I just hope that safeguards have been put in place to prevent this from happening again.
October 1, 2009 at 5:45 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
huggies58 says...
No one is perfect, and you say he was suppose to being working on 2005 not 2008. Have any of you been given a ticket and not been able to read the handwriting. Maybe the 08 looked like an 05 to the detective that purged the file. Unless you were there u dont know what happened. I am not perfect and have made a few mistakes in my job. And as for the evidence, yes it should of been sent away for dna, but also the victim made a statement before he died, in that statement he says that this Dallas cox is the one that kicked him in the head when he was down. So was the victim lying. You are right, you never know the entire story until the evidence comes out and you sit through the trial, but just because someone is a good father does not mean they could not harm someone or get in a fight. You think you know someone and then boom, they do something you never thought they would do. To me if they drop this case, we will never know for sure if we was guilty or not due to the evidnece being destroyed. Will that make him any less guilty, no, he went that day knowing that the uncle was going to do something and he did not try and stop it.
October 1, 2009 at 5:46 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
LibertyOrDeath says...
More lost faith in the executive branch.
And we're passing laws that allow them to collect DNA from SUSPICION of cases and we're to believe the samples will be destroyed if/when innocence is proven?
Yeah right.
This might be an accident, but a very poor one. If anyone knew all the steps that one must go through to even collect evidence and then store it and allow others to view it, there are far too many "sign-off" points that it should be near impossible to make this mistake.
I don't trust them as far as I could throw them.
October 1, 2009 at 7:28 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
race17fan says...
Wow, did some of you jack asses read what you wrote? Let's talk *hit on someone you don't know or what really happened. He help protect your asses for 20 years and look how you act online because the SJPD needed to blame someone for their mess up and who to blame, someone that doesn't work there anymore......ummm
October 1, 2009 at 7:52 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
LibertyOrDeath says...
Det. Garland, whom I know, is not the subject of this story in my eyes.
The yet again failing executive branch is the problem. Like the federal and state governments, it's entirely too large. It needs to be shrunk immediately.
October 3, 2009 at 11:15 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
deb2007 says...
this isnt the first murder case this has happened on, believe me. as far as detective garland, someone didn't do their job, why was 2008 in with 2005, i don't believe just one man is responsible for this and amother is correct, it is the job of the prosecutor to get the evidence where it needs to be. when will everyone listen? when will anyone be proactive and find someone to run against dwight and clean out the pa's office? this tiny town is waaaaay to political for it's size, the buck doesn't stop with officer garland.
October 3, 2009 at 12:02 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )