Defenses told evidence may be tainted

Hillsborough's new state attorney says problems in the FBI crime lab may have affected murder cases.

By DAVID KARP

© St. Petersburg Times, published January 6, 2001

TAMPA -- About three years ago, Hillsborough State Attorney Harry Lee Coe learned that evidence used in a handful of murder cases might have been tainted because of bad work by the FBI's crime laboratory.

Rather than notifying defense attorneys, Coe sat on the information. He wrote federal authorities that his staff did not have the time to research potential problems in the cases.

On Friday, Coe's successor as state attorney finished notifying 30 defendants and their lawyers that bad evidence might have been used in their cases.

New State Attorney Mark Ober made it his top priority in his first week in office to finish the work.

"If we are going to fight (cases) in the courthouse, it's got to be a fair fight," Ober said. "We can all sleep better at night if we all do the right thing."

The notifications don't mean convicted murderers will go free automatically. Defense lawyers will have to argue that the FBI's bad evidence would have made a difference in the outcome of a case.

Two of the defendants convicted with the tainted evidence already have completed their sentences, and one defendant has died. Ober assigned the office's investigators to track down some of the defendants.

Some of the 30 defendants include well-known convicts such as serial killer Bobby Joe Long, and defendants Mark Kohut and Charles Rourk, two Lakeland men convicted in 1993 of kidnapping a New York City tourist and setting him on fire.

Those convictions won't necessarily be thrown out, Ober said.

In those cases and others, prosecutors relied on other evidence, besides that provided by the FBI, to win a conviction.

Ober turned down the FBI's request for his office to determine on its own how the tainted evidence might have affected a case.

That's a decision for a judge to make after hearing from prosecutors and defense attorneys, Ober said.

"We need to make certain that people convicted are done so in an ethical, honest manner," Ober said.

- Times staff writer David Karp can be reached at (813) 226-3376 or karp@sptimes.com.

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