Murder Count Dismissed in Case Involving Chemist’s Errors

A judge dismissed a murder charge Wednesday against a defendant in a case involving the testimony of a chemist who made numerous errors at the Los Angeles Police Department crime lab.

Prosecutors were aware that Jeff Lowe had incorrectly weighed narcotics in 27 cases but did not disclose that information to the lawyer representing murder defendant Phillip Rawl, the judge said.

Lowe had analyzed Rawl’s blood and testified as an expert witness against him in two trials. Juries in both deadlocked on a vehicular murder count against Rawl.

At the first trial in October 2003, Rawl was convicted of gross vehicular manslaughter and two counts of driving under the influence causing injury. Rawl was driving on Interstate 5 in June 2002 when he was involved in an accident that killed one of his passengers and injured another. His blood-alcohol level, according to Lowe, was 0.13 at the time.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Stephen A. Marcus said Wednesday that he believed the district attorney’s office should have turned the evidence over to Rawl’s attorney, David Kaloyanides.

“They were honor-bound to disclose this information,” Marcus said during the hearing. “I believe this information clearly goes to Lowe’s credibility.”

Marcus said he did not believe the information would have changed the outcome of the murder case, in part because there was no evidence the chemist made any errors in analyzing blood. But the jurist said the evidence was a factor that helped “tip the scales” in his decision to dismiss the murder charge.

The more significant factor, Marcus said, was that he did not believe a third jury would convict Rawl. On the murder charge, the first hung 6 to 6 and the second voted 10 for conviction and two for acquittal. The judge let stand the convictions on the other counts and sentenced Rawl to eight years in state prison.

Kaloyanides had accused the prosecutors of intentionally failing to tell him of Lowe’s errors, which the attorney believed would have affected how the jury viewed Lowe’s testimony. Lowe told jurors in the trials about the level of alcohol in Rawl’s blood, plus its effect on driving ability.

“It should have been disclosed. It wasn’t,” Kaloyanides told the judge. “That’s misconduct.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Louis Parise countered that the office did not believe the information had to be turned over to the defense. “There is really no evidence that he did anything wrong with respect to blood alcohol,” Parise said in court.

Lowe started at the crime lab in 2000 and analyzed blood and alcohol evidence before moving to the narcotics-analysis unit.

The weighing problem came to the attention of Lowe’s supervisors after a judge ordered evidence reweighed in one case. The lab then reviewed the rest of his narcotics cases and sent corrections on 27 cases to prosecutors.

Kaloyanides said he believed that there were actually 391 weight discrepancies, based on an LAPD chart. But the lab’s assistant director, Joseph Hourigan, testified Wednesday that most of the discrepancies were not significant.