Barry Morphew, a lawyer who represented seven people whose bodies were found inside burial pits, filed a notice of claim against Adams County District Attorney John Conklin and investigators involved in the investigation on Friday. Morphew alleges that false statements, withholdings of exculpatory evidence and serious errors were made during the investigation that resulted in his client’s false conviction.
Morphew’s client, Jeffrey Samuels, was one of the people who went to high school with Jerry Stranahan. In 1991, Samuels confessed to having sex with Stranahan in 1979.
Morphew will move forward with a civil suit on the basis that he can show that evidence of possible DNA from several crime scenes has been kept from Samuels.
Morphew told the Los Angeles Times that DNA evidence points to a common suspect. Samuels also is a registered sex offender and the prosecution did not know that when they entered his DNA into the system. According to the Times, that disclosure was part of a stipulation made by the district attorney’s office, which the district attorney’s office admitted on Friday.
In his notice of claim, Morphew points to alleged gross mismanagement of evidence by the county, asserting that the possession of his client’s DNA evidence violates federal and state law.
Read the full story at the Times.
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