Did a Lawyer's Defense of a "Dirty CSI" Taint his Defense of a Killer?Attorney says "No."

"These were two different cases.  It never crossed my mind there would be a connection."--Defense Attorney Steve Lefler

When attorney Steve Lefler stop representing an accused murderer and start representing one of the crime scene investigators who helped put his client in jail?  Did the lawyer under cut one client in the service of another?  

Attorney Steve Lefler (right) talks to
reporters outside the courtroom

Convicted murderer Chris Edwards and his father think so.  On the witness stand Lefler, at times emotional, said "absolutely not. It did not have any impact in how I defended Chris Edwards."

Whether Lefler had a conflict of interest as two different homicide cases overlapped is one essential question as Edwards maneuvers to get a new trial.  He was convicted in 2009 of murdering Jessica O'Grady in his bedroom.  Her body has never been found.  A jury had no problem believing she had been murdered and Edwards was responsible. In the collective mind of the jury the quality of the criminal forensics work left room for no other conclusion. All appeals have been rejected.

  

Months later David Kofoed, the CSI who lead the evidence collection, was indicted by federal and state authorities for planting evidence in an unrelated double homicide in Murdock, Neb. In that case two innocent men were, for a time, accused of a murder they did not commit. It was Kofoed's bogus blood smear evidence was partly responsible for their indictment.  Lefler took Kofoed as a client to defend him; work which overlapped with filing appeals for Edwards. Kofoed was guilty and sent to prison.

At a March 13 hearing in Omaha Edwards' defense team laid out the justification for a new trial.  Known as an evidentiary hearing, it gives someone convicted of a crime an opportunity to raise new evidence not introduced at the original trial. The judge will decide if there is reason to re-try the case.

Edwards lead into court.

Seven years after presiding over the first trial Judge Russell Derr again heard testimony.  Two things were strikingly different. Edwards had a clean cut and preppy look in 2007. He walked into court this time in shackles, dressed in an orange jail jumpsuit with wavy brown hair flowing over his shoulders.

Even more startling was seeing Edwards' former defense attorney, Steve Lefler, on the witness stand.  He all but conceded the man he once defended was a murderer.  The evidence, Lefler testified, "was overwhelming." It was a much different picture than the vigorous defense Lefler previously brought to court.

The defense team in place now, Jerry Soucie and Brian Munnelly, raised a two-pronged attack. First, they have suspicions Kofoed planted blood evidence in the truck of Edwards' car and on other items found in the garage.  Those theories are summarized earlier in a legal brief offered the judge.  (Read NET News coverage of their case)

Most of the first day of the hearing focused on the second claim:  Lefler had a conflict of interest while preparing Edwards appeal when the attorney took on Kofoed as a client.

  

Soucie quoted pre-trial depositions in which Lefler questions Kofoed and refers to him as "a friend" and complimented his CSI skills. On the witness stand Lefler said the references were more reflective of a professional relationship than social friendship and a tactic he often used with many law enforcement officials to get them to feel comfortable and volunteer information helpful to his clients.

Questioned later by a Douglas County prosecutor, Lefler was asked if his strategy at for Edwards was influenced by any friendship. Lefler answered: "Of course not."

"If I thought Dave was dirty, if I thought he planted evidence, I would kill him in the courtroom," he added.

  

Apparently the convicted killer's father, Bob Edwards had suspicions about the attorney's loyalty and communicated it directly to Lefler. Lefler claimed the father said "becaue I was friends with Dave Kofoed... you screwed my son over."

Lefler claimed he was fully committed to his client and the Edwards family while preparing the case. "If I had a loyalty to anyone it was to Bob Edwards.  I promised myself I would leave no stone unturned" in preparing for the trial.

  

As for Kofoed's alleged discovery of blood in the trunk of Edwards' car, Soucie argued its a key element in convincing a jury that a homicide took place.  Prosecutors emphasized the suspected role of the Edwards car at the original trial, giving the jury the way to understand how the body was removed from the home and later dumped somewhere.

Edwards new defense team argues there are suspicious similarities in the impressive discoveries Kofoed made in the Edwards invetigation and days earlier at the scene of the Murdock killings. If one was a fake. Perhaps there was another.

  

Lefler took heated exception to Soucie's version.  "I will professionally disagree," Lefler said, leaning forward.  "The most damning piece of evidence was that mattress in the basement." A full size photo of the mattress, stained and deeply saturated with blood identified as O'Grady's blood, sat on an easel in the line of sight of the jury through much of the trial.

Late in the afternoon David Kofoed took the witness stand.  Court was adjourned after some scene setting questions, setting the stage for more direct questions on Friday.

WATCH THE NET NEWS DOCUMENTARY ON THE KOFOED TRIAL 

Beatrice 6 Trial: The cost of jailing the innocent

What is the price tag on being sent to jail for a murder you didn't commit? 

In a U.S. Federal District courtroom in Lincoln, Neb. today a jury is being chosen to answer that question. 

The case of the Beatrice Six is thought to be the largest 'false confession' case in American history.  Six people were sent to prison after going to trial, or pleading guilty, or no contest to charges related to the murder and rape of a 68-year-old woman.  The case became notorious in the news media, a rallying point for advocates of fair trails, and a major headache for leading law enforcement officials in Nebraska. 

The civil trial will determine if Thomas Winslow, Kathy Gonzalez, James Dean, Debra Shelden and Ada JoAnn Taylor deserve compensation for the years they spent in prison while the real killer was free.   White, who served over 19 years in prison, has since died.  Surviving members of his family are included among those seeking damages.

Attorneys for the group claim the actions of investigators with the Gage County Sheriff's Office wrongly put them in jail and violated their civil rights “with fabricated and coerced evidence to get convictions.” Those being asked to pay for the mistake include Deputy Burt Searcey, who lead the investigation and Wayne Price, a psychologist and reserve Sheriff’s Deputy. Payment is also being asked of Gage County.  The elected Sheriff at the time, Jerry DeWitt, has since died.

There were 24 prospective jurors being questioned by attorneys representing both sides.  While there has been dozens of prominent articles written on the case over the years, only three of jurors being questioned claimed to have heard anything about it.  The group was also asked how they felt about the concept of false confessions; when people confess and even plead guilty to crimes for which they are innocent.  At least four of the potential jurors admitted they had difficulty seeing how that could happen.

The legal teams will be able to eliminate some of the jurors prior to the trial beginning. 

The history of the case still seems unbelievable. 

In February 1985 someone raped and murdered of 68-year-old Helen Wilson in her home in Beatrice.  The crime horrified the town and after four years local police hadn't made an arrest.  After Searcey , a new deputy, took over the case for the Gage County Sheriff's Department, the investigation moved quickly. When the Sheriff announced six people had confessed to the crime it was a sensational development. 

Gonzalez, Dean and Shelden agreed to plead guilty and testify against White in exchange shorter sentences.  White was convicted of first degree murder and sentence to life in prison. Thomas Winslow confessed to raping Ms. Wilson and he was sentenced to 10 to 50 years in prison.

Years later, the evidence presented at trial, based largely on the group’s confessions, began to fall apart.  As summarized in the first filing in Winslow's lawsuit his accusers, "solicited, fabricated, manufactured and coerced evidence of an ever-changing story, which rarely, if ever, coincided with the immutable physical evidence at the scene of the crime."  Some of the confessions were based on the recollections of dreams some of the accused claimed to have had. 

The six accused killers appealed, asking for testing to compare their DNA with samples collected at the original crime scene. In 2007 the Nebraska Supreme Court allowed the new tests.  There was no match for any of the six.  As a result, they became the first people in Nebraska to be exonerated in a murder case because of DNA evidence.

In September 2012, under the Nebraska Claims for Wrongful Conviction and Imprisonment Act, Taylor was awarded $500,000, the maximum allowed by the state. Dean was awarded $300,000 of 2009.  Nebraska law doesn't allow paying anyone who's been wrongly jailed any more than half a million.  The judge who signed off on the settlement didn't think it was enough.  In his opinion granting the settlement, Gage County District Judge Daniel E. Bryan

Judge Bryan wrote “To try to attempt to place any value on one’s liberty to be free is a Herculean task."

The state didn't think the Beatrice Six deserved any compensation for their years in prison.  Attorney General Jon Bruning appealed the decision.

The DNA tests did not just clear the innocent.  They also identified the likely killer, and there was only one.  Bruce Allen Smith, of Oklahoma had been visiting his old home town at the same time as Ms. Wilson's rape and murder.  He went back home in a hurry.  He was only 30 when he died, seven years after the crime.

Meanwhile, the story will be retold again for the 12 jurors chosen to decide whether they felt members of the Gage County Sheriff’s Department set out to fabricate evidence and if so, what is the extent… and the cost… of the damages done to six people sent to prison for a murder they did not commit.