A choose overturned the conviction in a 1994 Boulder homicide case Friday due to flawed DNA testing by disgraced Colorado Bureau of Investigation scientist Yvonne “Missy” Woods.
It’s the primary case to be thrown out because the CBI starting in 2023 found tons of of legal investigations by which Woods cut corners in her DNA testing — a scandal that has value Colorado tens of millions of {dollars} already and shaken the state’s legal justice system.
Boulder District Court docket Choose Nancy Woodruff Salomone vacated the first-degree homicide conviction of 49-year-old Michael Clark, who has been serving a sentence of life with out parole since being convicted in 2012 within the cold-case taking pictures loss of life of Boulder metropolis worker Marty Grisham.
A listening to is scheduled for June 6 at which Boulder County District Lawyer Michael Dougherty is predicted to announce whether or not or not he’ll retry Clark on fees stemming from the 1994 killing.
“This can be a actually good day,” mentioned Adam Frank, Clark’s legal professional. “Michael Clark’s conviction is gone.”
Dougherty had filed a movement late Friday afternoon asking the choose to vacate Clark’s conviction as a result of Woods’ interpretation of the DNA testing within the Grisham case is now in query after an impartial lab retested crime scene proof.
“Primarily based on these outcomes, in addition to the numerous claims of juror misconduct and ineffective help of counsel, our workplace decided that the conviction have to be vacated,” Doughtery mentioned in an announcement. “It’s the proper factor to do, after contemplating all three points. In gentle of the costs on this case, we are going to rigorously and totally analyze all of the proof to find out the precise and simply final result.”
The juror misconduct declare concerned the invention that one of many jurors ignored the choose’s directions and visited the crime scene in the course of the trial, in accordance with the DA’s movement.
With the conviction vacated, Clark’s $100,000 bail is reinstated, in accordance with prosecutors. He’s anticipated to be transferred to the Boulder County Jail from the Fremont Correctional Facility on Monday, and is eligible to be launched if he posts bail. He’s married and has three youngsters.
“We need to get him house to them as quickly as humanly attainable,” Frank mentioned.
Clark was at all times a suspect within the 1994, killing however investigators solely had circumstantial proof on the time. It was Woods’ DNA testing of a Carmex lip balm container discovered on the scene that led investigators to lastly cost Clark within the chilly case in 2012.
Doughtery’s movement to vacate mentioned an impartial lab retested Woods’ authentic evaluation and created a brand new pattern from the Carmex container. It was testing of that new pattern that discovered new outcomes that might statistically exclude Clark.
“There may very well be various causes for these outcomes, together with the advances in DNA expertise,” the DA’s movement acknowledged. “Whatever the motive, that is new proof.”
Grisham, who labored as town of Boulder’s data companies director, was shot 4 occasions on the night time of Nov. 1, 1994, after he answered a knock at his condo door. The killer fled earlier than Grisham’s girlfriend may see him.
The killing was a chilly case for practically 20 years earlier than Boulder police reopened it in 2009. In 2011, Woods took DNA samples from the Carmex container and decided they excluded 99.4% of the world’s male inhabitants, however may embrace Clark.
Clark was charged with first-degree homicide and convicted by a jury in 2012.
He already had introduced up the DNA testing in an enchantment of his homicide conviction, saying his protection lawyer by no means employed one other DNA skilled to problem Woods’ conclusions.
Then the CBI found in 2023 that Woods had mishandled tons of of DNA samples and coated up her shortcuts by altering, deleting or omitting knowledge from lab work — skipping protocols which can be in place to make sure correct outcomes.
Woods was charged with 102 felonies in January. That case is pending.
Her shoddy work has rattled Colorado’s justice system. Whereas Clark turns into the primary particular person to efficiently problem a conviction, others are anticipated to observe.
The CBI estimates Woods’ misconduct has already value the company greater than $11 million, a determine that features state funds allotted to pay for re-testing and compensate district attorneys’ workplaces throughout Colorado to deal with wrongful-conviction claims tied to Woods’ work.
Sign up to get crime news sent straight to your inbox each day.
Initially Revealed:
