Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Bulletin: Douglas Prade; Ohio; Former Akron Police Captain alleges department-wide conspiracy led to his murder conviction. Lawsuit claims fabrication of false reports from the crime scene and destruction of exculpatory evidence relating to a gunshot residue test. Akron Beacon Journal;


STORY: "Former Akron Police Capt. Douglas Prade alleges department-wide conspiracy led to his murder conviction," by reporter Ed Meyer, published by the Akron Beacon Journal on February 11, 2014.

GIST: "Former Akron Police Capt. Douglas Prade has filed a federal lawsuit that says he was framed for the 1997 murder of his ex-wife. The suit names virtually all of the Akron Police Department’s commanding officers and investigators who worked on the notorious case. In all, attorneys for Prade name 22 people, some still active on the department, as defendants. In what was described as “the ultimate irony,” the suit says that “officers in the very police department that Douglas Prade had dedicated his career to serving participated in framing him for a crime he did not commit.” A conspiracy was at work behind the scenes to “fabricate false reports” from the crime scene, Prade’s suit claims, along with various acts of police misconduct, including “witness manipulation, fabrication, destruction and suppression of evidence” as well as perjury at his 1998 Summit County jury trial..........After serving nearly 15 years of a life sentence for aggravated murder, Prade was freed on Jan. 28, 2013, by a Summit County judge’s decision declaring him innocent of the slaying.
That ruling, by now-retired Common Pleas Judge Judy Hunter, was based on new DNA tests that excluded Prade as the contributor to a central piece of crime-scene evidence: a bite-mark impression on a small section of fabric from the lab coat of his ex-wife, Dr. Margo Prade.........In the 21-page lawsuit, Prade specifically names former Capt. Mary Myers, now an associate professor of criminal justice technology at the University of Akron, as a “significant factor” in what he termed his “wrongful conviction.” The alleged conspiracy began to play out, the suit charges, with a claim by Myers that she incorrectly performed a gunshot residue test on Prade’s hands, thus being unable to obtain any results. “In fact, this GSR test revealed that there was no gunshot residue on Mr. Prade’s hands,” the suit states. “Defendant Myers hid the true results of this test and destroyed the evidence relating to the test in order to conceal [potentially exonerating evidence] from Mr. Prade’s defense.”"

The entire story can be found at:

http://www.ohio.com/news/former-akron-police-capt-douglas-prade-alleges-department-wide-conspiracy-led-to-his-murder-conviction-1.465977

PUBLISHER'S NOTE:
Dear Reader. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog. We are following this case.

I have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses several thousand posts. The search box is located  near the bottom of the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and myself get more out of the site.

The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at:

http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith

Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
 
http://smithforensic.blogspot.ca/2013/12/the-charles-smith-award-presented-to_28.html
 
I look forward to hearing from readers at:

hlevy15@gmail.com. The Reid technique;