Results of Investigation Into APD DNA Crime Lab to Be Released

Following a 25 page formal complaint against the APD DNA lab, the results of a full investigation are expected to be announced Tuesday morning.

The complaint was written by former lab employee Cecily Hamilton, who outlined quality assurance and personnel issues, that she claimed existed within the lab.  Her report is titled "Critical Issues Within the APD DNA Laboratory.

Austin Police Department investigators conducted an internal investigation.  The results turned out to be unfounded according to that investigation on March 22, 2010.  But an external review was ordered by APD and turned over to the Texas Rangers.  The results will be released Tuesday morning.

The initial complaint came as a surprise to leaders at the police department and begged questions of the number of cases tried inside the Travis County Courthouse that might need to be retried due to potential evidence contamination.  Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg spoke about the complaint earlier this year along with Chief Acevedo.  At the time, Lehmberg did not believe there to be a substantial amount of cases that would need to be brought back into court.
 
Tuesday morning, APD and the Travis County District Attorney's office will announce the findings by DPS.  Those results will be posted to ACS as soon as the information becomes available.  (Top Photo: Statesman.com; Bottom Photos: News 8 Austin)

Time Warner To Move Access Channels to Digital Tier

Time Warner Cable will move several public access channels to a digital tier that is only accessible with a digital converter box from the cable company. The channels include AISD-TV (Channel 22), City of Austin (Channel 6), Travis County TV (Channel 17), Austin Community College's Instructional TV (Channel 19) and channelAustin's public access channels (Channels 10, 11 and 16).

If you have an analog or standard-definition television, you will only be able to view these Public, Educational and Government (PEG) channels on the digital converter box beginning Friday, October 1. Basic tier subscribers will not be charged for the box through December 31, 2015, while standard tier customers are eligible to receive the box free for one year if they request it before December 1, 2010.

The City of Austin channel is also available as a live webcast or video on demand at www.cityofaustin.org/channel6. Travis County TV is also available online at www.co.travis.tx.us/media_services/default.asp. Some of ACC's ITV programming is available for viewing at on-campus media centers and online as well.

Service is not affected for Grande Communications, Suddenlink or AT&T U-Verse customers. The providers of the affected channels have made it clear that they have objected to the change. If you have further questions about the move or about how to obtain a converter box, call Time Warner Cable at 485-6000.

Mayor Explains Hard Decision on Rejecting $750,000 Settlement

Thursday night Mayor Lee Leffingwell and the Austin city council, in a 4-3 vote, rejected a settlement proposal for $750,000 with the family of a man slain by Austin police officer Leonardo Quintana.  The shooting, which happened in May 2009 outside of an east Austin apartment complex, killed Nathaniel Sanders and injured Sir Lawrence Smith.  Officer Quintana approached a vehicle occupied by Sanders and Smith, and it was believed Sanders was sleeping.  But as Quintana got closer to the vehicle, the officer believed Sanders to have woken and that he was reaching for a gun.  That's when Quintana fired the shots that killed Sanders.

The event sparked outrage and a continuing heated relationship between members of the community and the Austin Police Department.  Earlier this summer, a settlement proposal reached the desks of the Austin legal department.  The terms of the settlement would give the Sanders family money in exchange for the family to drop the city and Quintana from a lawsuit.  Thursday, Leffingwell expressed his opposition to the settlement, but acknowledged several city council members supported the settlement.

The council eventually rejected the proposal, but by a very narrow margin.  Friday, Leffingwell released a statement explaining his decision and why he wants the case to be decided by a Travis County jury.  Here is Leffingwell's response to the community (photo from Statesman.com).

Last night the Austin City Council voted 4-3 to allow the legal case surrounding the death of Nathaniel Sanders II to proceed to trial.  I joined the majority in voting against the proposed settlement.

This was perhaps the most difficult decision that this Council has faced over the past year, and it’s easy for me to see how reasonable people would disagree about the best path forward.   I don’t condemn anyone's point of view, or their vote.

This was a tragedy for the Sanders family, and a tragedy for Austin as a whole. Unfortunately, nothing that we do is going to change that.   That much is simple.

But the facts of the case are complex, as evidenced by the different conclusions that different people and groups have reached after reviewing the facts as we know them.

I think it was reasonable, from the taxpayer's perspective, for the city’s legal team to have recommended a settlement that they believed could be less than the possible cost to taxpayers to move forward with litigating the case.  I understood the business case.

I also understood the emotional appeal of settling.  Some have argued passionately that this settlement would have helped to heal the Sanders family, and I do not discount the importance of that.   My heart goes out to this family.  If there was something meaningful that I could do to make this situation better for them, I would do it.

But ultimately, after thinking and talking about it for many months, I believe that what's most important in all of this is to understand as best we can exactly what happened that night, so that we can then do everything possible to prevent it from happening again.

It would be a huge failure on our part not to learn from this tragedy.  That should begin with determining, as completely and as impartially as possible, exactly what happened.  I believe the most appropriate place to do that is in the courtroom, in front of a jury.

I’m fully aware that my decision was hurtful to some in the community, and I regret that.  I would like to have been able to make a decision last night that would have perhaps provided some immediate relief to people who I know are suffering. 

But I believe that our larger and longer-term responsibility – as difficult as it may be emotionally – is to make a full, fair and final determination about exactly what happened, so that we can then get on to the work of trying to keep it from happening again.

Jury Doubles Convicted Woman's Prison Sentence

A week-long sentencing retrial for a woman previously convicted of tampering with evidence and hindering apprehension in a 2005 murder case did not end the way she expected. The jury slapped 26 year old Laura Hall with the maximum sentence possible under the law: 10 years in prison for the tampering with evidence charge, and one year for hindering apprehension.

In 2007, Hall was found guilty of mutilating the body of Jennifer Cave, after Colton Pitonyak shot and killed the 21 year old woman. On a separate charge, the jury also found that she helped Pitonyak run away to Mexico, avoiding a call to authorities after seeing Cave's lifeless body on the bathroom floor of his apartment. Six days later, police caught up with the couple across the border.

But because prosecutors in the trial withheld evidence, an appellate court threw out the five year sentence originally given to Hall. Her conviction, however, stuck.

Monday, a jury selection process, which started with 120 people on the panel, weeded the pool down to nine men and three woman. Prosecutors, led by Travis County Assistant District Attorney Allison Wetzel, began presenting witnesses on Tuesday, including some of Hall's former cell mates.

"She [Cave] was just a dancer. That bitch deserved to die," said one of Hall's former cell mates recalling what Hall said about Cave in a conversation. Later in the week, Wetzel told the jury the witness had nothing to gain from testifying.

The state presented brand new evidence in court also - 19 phone calls Hall made from jail following her first sentence. The calls allowed the jury to hear Hall's frustration from being in jail, threats she made on Cave's family and her own parents, and, according to the state, the excitement she felt over violence. In one call to an unidentified man in 2008, Hall became fascinated about a story of a man jumping from a ledge at a mall several stories high. The unidentified man told Hall how the person almost landed on children which could have killed them. Hall became fascinated by the story, heard in her voice.

Defense attorney Joe James Sawyer began calling witnesses to the stand late Thursday, shortly after prosecutors rested their case. Loren Hall, Laura's father, talked about his daughter and maintained her innocence. During cross examination, Wetzel became frustrated with him for pronouncing his personal beliefs over his daughter's innocence. Wetzel firmly argued with him this trial is about punishment, not guilt or innocence.

The defense's tactic failed to work, however. Sawyer's focus remained on Colton Pitonyak, hoping the jury would find him responsible for the entire murder and mutilation. Sawyer continued to claim Pitonyak had control over Hall and that she was scared for her life. That's the reason, he says, she drove him to Mexico.

"You tell me if you believe for one second he ever listened to anyone tell him anything to do; that he didn't exist as the center of his universe and use others," Sawyer said in closing statements.

A DNA lab technician told the jury Hall's DNA can be excluded from some of the tools used in the mutilation of Cave. However, Hall's DNA was found on the pistol believed to have been the murder weapon, as well as several other objects in the apartment. That, said the state, confirms Laura Hall was in the apartment the morning of Cave's murder August 17, 2005, and that she participated in the mutilation.

"Make no mistake, we want it all," said prosecutor Christopher Baugh, an Assistant District Attorney.

For the Cave family, who watched the trial without speaking to the media, the sentence is a bittersweet victory. "How can you be satisfied when your child is gone?" asked Sharon Sedwick, Cave's mother. "There is no satisfaction. Do I feel like justice has been done, do I feel like justice has worked? Yes."

This was the Sedwicks third trial. They were in the courtroom during Pitonyak's trial and when the jury handed him a 55 year sentence for their daughter's murder. They were also in the courtroom during Hall's first trial. Asked if a sentencing retrial made him angry, Jim Sedwick, Cave's stepfather, said no.

"The system worked as it's supposed to work," he said. "Laura Hall, through the system, was entitled a new trial. The system worked as it was supposed to have worked."

The Hall family left the courtroom shortly after the verdict was read. In the hall, Loren told reporters he felt like his daughter did not receive a fair shake in the courtroom and stands by Laura. Hall's attorneys could not be reached for comment. An appeal is planned.

Hall's sentences will run concurrently. She also must pay $14,000 in fines - $10,000 on the charge of tampering with evidence and $4,000 for hindering apprehension.