Warney v. Mike Green

DNA Testing & Exoneration

 

89. Mr. Warney consistently maintained his innocence and worked tirelessly throughout this wrongful incarceration to clear his name. In the Fall of 2004, Mr. Warney sought access to the biological evidence in the criminal case in order to conduct DNA testing in support of his claim that he is factually innocent of the crime for which he was wrongfully convicted

 

90. On September 30, 2004, in response to a request from Mr. Warney's counsel, Robert Arguinzoni, an officer in the RPD Property Clerk's Office, reported that the RPD was in possession of a number of pieces of evidence from the crime scene of the Beason murder, including the knife used to kill Beason, the towel and tissue found in the bathroom, the victim's fingernail clippings, and the pornographic videotapes and boxes.

 

91. Mr. Warney, through his counsel, subsequently requested access to these items to conduct DNA testing on them at his own expense. The Monroe County District Attorney's Office, however, refused to consent to testing,

 

92. In October 2004, Mr. Warney filed a motion under New York State's post-conviction statute, N.Y. C.P.L. 440.30(1-a), to get access to the biological evidence for state-of-the-art DNA testing to support his claim off actual innocence. Specifically, Mr. Warney requested access to the victim's fingernail clippings, which had revealed traces of blood and foreign tissue likely to have come from the assailant as Beason defended himself, blood samples from throughout the crime scene, and the murder weapon.

 

93. The DA's Office, represented by defendants District Attorney Michael C. Green and Assistant District Attorney Wendy Evans Lehman, opposed Mr. Warney's motion, both in its opposition papers and during the November 15, 2004 hearing before Judge Francis A. Affronti of the Supreme Court of New York in Monroe County, disingenuonsly arguing that Mr. Warney had "not established due diligence in seeking DNA testing" and that Mr. Warney's claim that the DNA results could lead to the discovery of the real perpetrator was speculative.

 

94. In an opinion issued on December 15, 2004, Judge Affronti denied Mr. Wamey's motion, ruling that DNA results "would not provide evidence which is significantly different from that submitted to the jury which convicted him" and dismissing the possibility of a match in the state's DNA database to the real perpetrator as "conjecture proffered by defense counsel "that is "too speculative and improbable."

 

95. In February 2005, while Mr. Wamey's appeal of Judge Affronti's decision was pending. Second District Attorney Lany Bernstein, with the actual and constructive knowledge of District Attorney Michael Green, went ahead, without informing the court, Mr. Warney, or his counsel, and unilaterally submitted for testing the biological evidence that was the subject of Mr.Wamey's motion the very motion that the DA's Office was opposing on appeal on the grounds of undue delay and speculation.

 

96. The failure of the DA's Office to disclose its decision to test evidence, which could and did in fact consume some of the biological evidence that was the subject of Mr. Warney's motion, was an unconscionable act of contempt and deception to the court, Mr. Warney, and his counsel and is clear evidence of the bad faith of defendants Green, Bernstein, Lehman, and others in the DA's Office.

 

97. Upon information and belief, defendants Green, Bernstein, Lehman, and others in the DA's Office received a verbal report of exculpatory DNA test results from the Monroe County Public Safety Laboratory as early as 2005.

 

98. On February 17,2006, defendants Green, Bernstein, Lehman, and others in the DA's Office received a written report from the laboratory showing that DNA testing of the blood on seven key items from the crime scene the blue towel, tissue, dresser, inside left cuff of shirt, right sleeve of shirt, shirt collar, paper on the coffee table revealed a single male profile consistent with the DNA found in the biological evidence under the victim's fingernails. This single male profile did not match Douglas Warney.

 

99. On March 2,2006, the laboratory was informed that a search of the Combined DNA Indexing System (CODIS) database had resulted in a match of the DNA profile of Eldred

Johnson, who was in prison at the time and had been convicted of murder and several slashing/burglary-robberies. That same day, the laboratory informed Captain Lynde Johnston of the RPD and defendants Green, Bernstein, Lehman, and others at the DA's Office of the match.

 

100. On March 24,2006, RPD evidence technician Anne Garland examined the latent fingerprints on the videotapes found in Beason's bedroom and concluded that the previously unidentified print on one of the videotapes matched Eldred Johnson.

 

101. Neither defendants Green, Bernstein, Lehman, nor anyone else at the DA's Office informed Mr. Warney or his counsel that the DA's Office had unilaterally submitted the

biological evidence for testing and received exculpatory results until May 1, 2006 at least two-and-a-half months after the DA's Office learned of the exculpatory results.

 

102. On May 12,2006, defendant Green informed Mr. Warney's counsel that Eldred Johnson was interviewed on May II, 2006 and "orally admitted that he killed Beason and claimed that he acted alone and does not known Doug Warney." In addition. Green explained that the latent fingerprint found on the videotape matched Johnson.

 

103. On May 16, 2006, over a year-and-a-half after he had filed his initial post-conviction motion seeking access to the DNA evidence and nearly a decade after his wrongful conviction. Judge Thomas M. Van Strydonck of the Supreme Court of New York in Monroe

County vacated Mr. Warney's conviction, dismissed all charges against him, and ordered his release from prison.

 

104. Mr. Warney's arrest, indictment, prosecution, conviction, and decade of wrongful imprisonment would not have occurred in the absence of police and prosecutorial misconduct of the most extreme order. If not for the efforts of defendants, who deliberately deprived Mr. Warney of his constitutional rights with the knowledge and assistance of their fellow police officers, supervisors, the RPD, and the Monroe County District Attorney's Office, Mr. Warney would never have been arrested, charged, and convicted, and never would have lost a decade of his life in prison.