wheezer
08-20-2008, 04:34 PM
LANSING, Mich. - An assistant county prosecutor lost his job Wednesday after the release of an attorney general's investigation into the handling of a wrongful conviction in a 2005 killing.
Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III said he has withdrawn the appointment of assistant prosecutor Eric Matwiejczyk.
Matwiejczyk could not immediately be reached for comment.
The attorney general's office said there were grounds for the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission to review whether professional conduct rules were violated by failing to disclose key information in a timely manner. But the attorney general's office won't be filing criminal charges.
Claude McCollum served a year-and-a-half in prison after he was convicted of killing a Lansing Community College professor. He was released and exonerated last year.
The attorney general's report said the investigation "cannot conclude that there were any intentional misrepresentations made by law enforcement to McCollum's counsel. The failure to provide the exculpatory information in a timely fashion may have been caused by a miscommunication within the law enforcement community."
That rules out obstruction of justice charges. But professional conduct standards could be reviewed by the grievance commission.
Dunnings, who asked for the attorney general's review, said he will seek further independent review into the case.
The key piece of evidence was a report from a Michigan State Police detective.
Surveillance video showed McCollum was elsewhere on the small downtown campus at the time of the attack on 60-year-old Carolyn Kronenberg. Yet jurors weren't told during McCollum's 2006 trial that a state police detective's March 2005 report about the footage could have cleared his name.
The detective gave Matwiejczyk a copy of the report shortly before he testified during McCollum's trial, and it apparently surprised the Ingham County assistant prosecutor, according to the attorney general's investigation. The report said prosecutors made a copy of the report and gave it to McCollum's trial attorney, but it apparently wasn't reviewed at that time. It didn't come up during the detective's cross-examination by McCollum's attorney, Lee Taylor.
The detective's initial report contained a typographical error, and there also were conflicting interpretations of how firm the timeline established in the report was related to McCollum's presence in the vicinity of the crime. Prosecutors also had what they took as a confession from McCollum, although McCollum said he was innocent.
The detective re-examined video evidence and produced a supplemental report in late 2007 after police arrested another man in connection with Lansing-area killings.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-mi-wrongfulconvictio,0,1731855.story
Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III said he has withdrawn the appointment of assistant prosecutor Eric Matwiejczyk.
Matwiejczyk could not immediately be reached for comment.
The attorney general's office said there were grounds for the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission to review whether professional conduct rules were violated by failing to disclose key information in a timely manner. But the attorney general's office won't be filing criminal charges.
Claude McCollum served a year-and-a-half in prison after he was convicted of killing a Lansing Community College professor. He was released and exonerated last year.
The attorney general's report said the investigation "cannot conclude that there were any intentional misrepresentations made by law enforcement to McCollum's counsel. The failure to provide the exculpatory information in a timely fashion may have been caused by a miscommunication within the law enforcement community."
That rules out obstruction of justice charges. But professional conduct standards could be reviewed by the grievance commission.
Dunnings, who asked for the attorney general's review, said he will seek further independent review into the case.
The key piece of evidence was a report from a Michigan State Police detective.
Surveillance video showed McCollum was elsewhere on the small downtown campus at the time of the attack on 60-year-old Carolyn Kronenberg. Yet jurors weren't told during McCollum's 2006 trial that a state police detective's March 2005 report about the footage could have cleared his name.
The detective gave Matwiejczyk a copy of the report shortly before he testified during McCollum's trial, and it apparently surprised the Ingham County assistant prosecutor, according to the attorney general's investigation. The report said prosecutors made a copy of the report and gave it to McCollum's trial attorney, but it apparently wasn't reviewed at that time. It didn't come up during the detective's cross-examination by McCollum's attorney, Lee Taylor.
The detective's initial report contained a typographical error, and there also were conflicting interpretations of how firm the timeline established in the report was related to McCollum's presence in the vicinity of the crime. Prosecutors also had what they took as a confession from McCollum, although McCollum said he was innocent.
The detective re-examined video evidence and produced a supplemental report in late 2007 after police arrested another man in connection with Lansing-area killings.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-mi-wrongfulconvictio,0,1731855.story