oz ex-prisoner
06-23-2004, 04:53 PM
Stitched Up* by Forensic Science
This is an edited version of ‘DNA and The Justice Game’ first published in the Winter edition (June 2004) of The Griffith Review - Making Perfect Bodies.
I had just received double digits for the Brisbane National Australia Bank robbery when they transferred me into B Block at the Sir David Longland Correctional Centre. A jail with the fearsome reputation as the killing fields of the Sunshine State. This new age gladiator school of Queensland’s prison system had spawned a breed of violent younger prisoner I had never encountered during my years in southern prisons. They were fueled by a mixture of heroin and an insane desire to reach the top of the prison pecking order by killing each other. Their ascendancy was symbolised by the tattooed abbreviation NBK (natural born killer) which reinforced the reality of jail time becoming a terminal sentence inside SDLCC. In that feeding frenzy of reputation building I met Marc Renton.
Marc Andre Renton is no choir boy. A man in his late twenties who had already achieved a career criminal tag for armed robbery Marc walked the hard yards after he led the 1992 Townsville prison riot in a quest for humane treatment and better conditions for prisoners. It cost him a few busted bones and more years on top of his sentence but it also earned him respect in the yard. Not a respect fuelled by heroin, jail murders or NBK tattoos. It was a healthy respect for a stand-up bloke who would not take shit from the screws or the wannabes.
Older crims took the young Queenslander under their wing. He was a reincarnation of their heydays. A man with principles who cannot be bought or sold with a fifty dollar shot of heroin is rare in today’s maximum-security prisons. They showed their respect. Marc returned that respect by listening to the elder statesmen of the prison yard. He learned from their mistakes and benefited by their wisdom. Now it was his turn to ask for their help and advice.
I was one of the privileged to hear the story of a young man sent to prison for a crime he had not committed. A young man unskilled in the intricacies of a legal system that relied upon forensic scientists and their interpretation of DNA evidence to convict him. Marc simply said he had not committed the bank robbery he was in jail for. And I believe him.
Marc Renton’s introduction to the forensic interpretation of DNA evidence resulted from the testimony of forensic scientist, Ken Cox, from Brisbane’s John Tonge Centre. It was a turning point that put him in prison for 14 years on April 25, 1997 after he was convicted of robbing the Biggera Waters and Paradise Point National Australia Bank branches in May/June 1996. Brunetta Festa, 35, was also charged in relation to the Biggera Waters and Paradise Point bank hold-ups in what the Queensland media dubbed “The Bonnie and Clyde Robberies”.
Police arrested Renton at Runaway Bay on June 16, 1996 while he was unlawfully at large. He had been released from Borallon Correctional Centre where he was serving time for armed robbery but failed to report to a parole officer upon his release and an apprehension warrant was issued for his return to prison. He was charged with three bank robberies that occurred at Morningside, Biggera Waters and Paradise Point while he was free.
Police claimed distinct similarities existed between the three bank robberies that was consistent with a proposition that one offender had been involved in all three robberies. They targeted Marc Renton as that offender. The establishment of similar fact evidence was discredited by Renton’s acquittal for the Morningside bank robbery.
The trial of Renton and Festa on April 2, 1997 was marred with controversy from the outset when Festa jumped bail and fled interstate. Festa remained a fugitive until her 1998 recapture in Sydney, but her absence from the dock did not compel Judge Hangar to abort the trial and it continued with Renton as the sole accused.
Renton’s jury was allowed to witness the most stringent security precautions ever show-cased by the Queensland Police Department, despite a lack of evidence indicating Renton also intended to abscond. The security overkill included permanent manacles and leg shackles on Renton and use of the elite Special Emergency Response Team (SERT) to sweep courtrooms and visitors with metal detectors. Outside the Southport court complex police snipers displayed a presence from the roof for the remainder of the trial.
In that highly charged atmosphere Ken Cox testified he completed a second examination of a blue balaclava found inside the stolen white Ford Laser allegedly used in the Biggera Waters robbery and isolated a stain that yielded a DNA sample.
Cox had originally conducted an examination of the same blue balaclava on August 21, 1996 and during that examination he tested two areas of fabric in the balaclava in an attempt to isolate DNA that could originate from mouth cells via saliva but found none.
Although Cox’s second examination on April 17, 1997, two weeks into Renton’s trial, did not correspond with his examination of the blue balaclava eight months earlier, he swore that the newly found DNA samples belonged to Renton, Festa and a third unidentified person.
The Crown’s circumstantial case was bolstered by the interpretation of the DNA evidence delivered by Ken Cox and the timing of its inclusion restricted Renton’s defence counsel from conducting independent tests. The trial judge allowed the DNA evidence to go before the jury untested. As a result Renton was convicted.
When Marc Renton came back to prison with a 14-year sentence the Queensland Department of Corrective Services (QDCS) was determined to make him serve every day in the most punitive sections of the State prisons. It was easy to see this as payback for his participation in the 1992 prison riot.
Queensland prisoneaucrats take their revenge options very seriously and Renton was not legally or politically connected so they acted with impunity. They had no reluctance to make a man do hard time for a crime he claimed he didn’t commit.
I walked the yard with Marc inside B Block at SDLCC where I listened to his story. His sincerity had a ring of truth to it. DNA was the stumbling block I could not get my head around. Wasn’t DNA set in concrete? Irrefutable proof that tied an offender to a crime? So why would an obviously intelligent young prisoner persist in his claim of being innocent knowing that DNA evidence conclusively established guilt? You didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to realise something didn’t gel.
I vaguely remembered a similar situation of forensic evidence being discredited in the Lindy Chamberlain case. I realised Marc Renton needed: independent scientific examination of the DNA evidence to either prove or disprove his claim of innocence. Thus began a quest for the identity of the scientist who conducted that independent forensic testing in the Chamberlain case. The prison library gave up the name in the appendix of a book.
His name was Barry Boettcher, Professor Emeritus of Biological Science at the University of Newcastle and a Member of the Order of Australia for his work in the field of reproductive immunology, was the foremost DNA expert in Australia.
Professor Boettcher practiced and taught the principles of scientific method involving DNA structure and its use in forensic work. He also taught courses on forensic biology including the use of variable DNA sequences that resulted in collaboration with overseas scientists to publish studies of variable DNA sequences suitable for use in forensic work.
Marc Renton wrote to Professor Boettcher and asked for his help.
Professor Boettcher reviewed the evidence presented at Renton’s trial: trial transcripts, DNA profile collation sheets, gene scan analysis print-outs and two statutory declarations sworn by Ken Cox on October 14, 1996 and April 17, 1997. He concluded that the DNA evidence used to convict Renton was scientifically incorrect and that the methodology used by the Crown’s DNA expert was wrong.
In a statutory declaration Professor Boettcher explained his conclusions: “The DNA in the sample came from more than one person since normal persons have only one or two FES Alleles. The simplest explanation is that the DNA in the sample came from two people possessing the pairs of Alleles: 10/11 and 12/13 or 10/12 and 11/13 or 10/13 and 11/12 (Renton possesses the FES type 12/12).
“Since the most appropriate conclusion to be derived from the results obtained by Mr Cox is that the donors of the DNA isolated from the balaclava had one of the FES system combinations of 10/11 and 12/13; or 10/12 and 11/13; or 10/13 and 11/12, it should be concluded that Mr Renton’s DNA has not been identified as being present on the balaclava…
“It is apparent that, at the trial of Mr Renton, the court was given wrong scientific opinion about the possible presence of DNA originating from Mr Renton being found on the balaclava.”
Although Professor Boettcher’s interpretation of the DNA evidence cleared Renton of bank robbery the Queensland government was not convinced it was sufficient to release him from prison or institute an inquiry into his conviction. The options were running out for Marc Renton because he had already lost an appeal to the Supreme Court based on points of law and Queensland law only allowed one appeal against conviction. The fresh DNA evidence that established his innocence remained in limbo while he remained in prison.
Marc Renton’s conviction for a bank robbery rests on the suspect DNA evidence used at his trial. Professor Barry Boettcher’s scientific conclusions support Renton’s claims, but as the legal processes have been exhausted he enters his seventh year of walking the yard inside the maximum-security block at Townsville prison.
Renton’s case reinforces the jailyard philosophy that there’s no sympathy for an innocent man doing hard time inside the Queensland prison system. If you want sympathy - it’s in the dictionary. It’s between shit and syphilis.
I left the Queensland prison system and was paroled back to NSW in October 2000. I continued my journalism studies but the Renton case and the interpretation of DNA evidence in criminal trials kept niggling my brain like an itch you can’t get at. An innocent man doing hard time. I could relate to that. They fitted me up* for an armoured van robbery in ’91. I wasn’t good for it but they kept me in prison until they arrested two other blokes and then told me: “whoops, we made a mistake. Sorry about that” before letting me out again.
That’s how the game was played in my day. If they didn’t get you for what you did then they put you in jail for what they thought you did. As a career criminal I had experienced the fit-ups*, the verbals*, the pay-offs and the jail time. It was all part of the game. Like playing cops and robbers when you’re a kid – someone has to be the goody and somebody has to be the baddie. But when you’re a kid the game ends after your mother calls you in for dinner. The game never ended for Marc Renton. They are still playing with his life in the greatest game of all. The game they call justice and the scientific interpretation of DNA in Queensland.
*fitted up – prison jargon for being put in jail for something you didn’t do usually by corrupt or illegal police methods.
*stitched up – prison slang as above.
*verbals – prison jargon for fabricated confessional evidence usually as a result of police officers falsely testifying in court that the suspect made a confession.
*pay-offs – prison jargon for buying your way out of a charge. Corrupt dealings with the arresting police and/or prosecutor.
This is an edited version of ‘DNA and The Justice Game’ first published in the Winter edition (June 2004) of The Griffith Review - Making Perfect Bodies.
Available from Griffith University or ABC Booksahops.
This is an edited version of ‘DNA and The Justice Game’ first published in the Winter edition (June 2004) of The Griffith Review - Making Perfect Bodies.
I had just received double digits for the Brisbane National Australia Bank robbery when they transferred me into B Block at the Sir David Longland Correctional Centre. A jail with the fearsome reputation as the killing fields of the Sunshine State. This new age gladiator school of Queensland’s prison system had spawned a breed of violent younger prisoner I had never encountered during my years in southern prisons. They were fueled by a mixture of heroin and an insane desire to reach the top of the prison pecking order by killing each other. Their ascendancy was symbolised by the tattooed abbreviation NBK (natural born killer) which reinforced the reality of jail time becoming a terminal sentence inside SDLCC. In that feeding frenzy of reputation building I met Marc Renton.
Marc Andre Renton is no choir boy. A man in his late twenties who had already achieved a career criminal tag for armed robbery Marc walked the hard yards after he led the 1992 Townsville prison riot in a quest for humane treatment and better conditions for prisoners. It cost him a few busted bones and more years on top of his sentence but it also earned him respect in the yard. Not a respect fuelled by heroin, jail murders or NBK tattoos. It was a healthy respect for a stand-up bloke who would not take shit from the screws or the wannabes.
Older crims took the young Queenslander under their wing. He was a reincarnation of their heydays. A man with principles who cannot be bought or sold with a fifty dollar shot of heroin is rare in today’s maximum-security prisons. They showed their respect. Marc returned that respect by listening to the elder statesmen of the prison yard. He learned from their mistakes and benefited by their wisdom. Now it was his turn to ask for their help and advice.
I was one of the privileged to hear the story of a young man sent to prison for a crime he had not committed. A young man unskilled in the intricacies of a legal system that relied upon forensic scientists and their interpretation of DNA evidence to convict him. Marc simply said he had not committed the bank robbery he was in jail for. And I believe him.
Marc Renton’s introduction to the forensic interpretation of DNA evidence resulted from the testimony of forensic scientist, Ken Cox, from Brisbane’s John Tonge Centre. It was a turning point that put him in prison for 14 years on April 25, 1997 after he was convicted of robbing the Biggera Waters and Paradise Point National Australia Bank branches in May/June 1996. Brunetta Festa, 35, was also charged in relation to the Biggera Waters and Paradise Point bank hold-ups in what the Queensland media dubbed “The Bonnie and Clyde Robberies”.
Police arrested Renton at Runaway Bay on June 16, 1996 while he was unlawfully at large. He had been released from Borallon Correctional Centre where he was serving time for armed robbery but failed to report to a parole officer upon his release and an apprehension warrant was issued for his return to prison. He was charged with three bank robberies that occurred at Morningside, Biggera Waters and Paradise Point while he was free.
Police claimed distinct similarities existed between the three bank robberies that was consistent with a proposition that one offender had been involved in all three robberies. They targeted Marc Renton as that offender. The establishment of similar fact evidence was discredited by Renton’s acquittal for the Morningside bank robbery.
The trial of Renton and Festa on April 2, 1997 was marred with controversy from the outset when Festa jumped bail and fled interstate. Festa remained a fugitive until her 1998 recapture in Sydney, but her absence from the dock did not compel Judge Hangar to abort the trial and it continued with Renton as the sole accused.
Renton’s jury was allowed to witness the most stringent security precautions ever show-cased by the Queensland Police Department, despite a lack of evidence indicating Renton also intended to abscond. The security overkill included permanent manacles and leg shackles on Renton and use of the elite Special Emergency Response Team (SERT) to sweep courtrooms and visitors with metal detectors. Outside the Southport court complex police snipers displayed a presence from the roof for the remainder of the trial.
In that highly charged atmosphere Ken Cox testified he completed a second examination of a blue balaclava found inside the stolen white Ford Laser allegedly used in the Biggera Waters robbery and isolated a stain that yielded a DNA sample.
Cox had originally conducted an examination of the same blue balaclava on August 21, 1996 and during that examination he tested two areas of fabric in the balaclava in an attempt to isolate DNA that could originate from mouth cells via saliva but found none.
Although Cox’s second examination on April 17, 1997, two weeks into Renton’s trial, did not correspond with his examination of the blue balaclava eight months earlier, he swore that the newly found DNA samples belonged to Renton, Festa and a third unidentified person.
The Crown’s circumstantial case was bolstered by the interpretation of the DNA evidence delivered by Ken Cox and the timing of its inclusion restricted Renton’s defence counsel from conducting independent tests. The trial judge allowed the DNA evidence to go before the jury untested. As a result Renton was convicted.
When Marc Renton came back to prison with a 14-year sentence the Queensland Department of Corrective Services (QDCS) was determined to make him serve every day in the most punitive sections of the State prisons. It was easy to see this as payback for his participation in the 1992 prison riot.
Queensland prisoneaucrats take their revenge options very seriously and Renton was not legally or politically connected so they acted with impunity. They had no reluctance to make a man do hard time for a crime he claimed he didn’t commit.
I walked the yard with Marc inside B Block at SDLCC where I listened to his story. His sincerity had a ring of truth to it. DNA was the stumbling block I could not get my head around. Wasn’t DNA set in concrete? Irrefutable proof that tied an offender to a crime? So why would an obviously intelligent young prisoner persist in his claim of being innocent knowing that DNA evidence conclusively established guilt? You didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to realise something didn’t gel.
I vaguely remembered a similar situation of forensic evidence being discredited in the Lindy Chamberlain case. I realised Marc Renton needed: independent scientific examination of the DNA evidence to either prove or disprove his claim of innocence. Thus began a quest for the identity of the scientist who conducted that independent forensic testing in the Chamberlain case. The prison library gave up the name in the appendix of a book.
His name was Barry Boettcher, Professor Emeritus of Biological Science at the University of Newcastle and a Member of the Order of Australia for his work in the field of reproductive immunology, was the foremost DNA expert in Australia.
Professor Boettcher practiced and taught the principles of scientific method involving DNA structure and its use in forensic work. He also taught courses on forensic biology including the use of variable DNA sequences that resulted in collaboration with overseas scientists to publish studies of variable DNA sequences suitable for use in forensic work.
Marc Renton wrote to Professor Boettcher and asked for his help.
Professor Boettcher reviewed the evidence presented at Renton’s trial: trial transcripts, DNA profile collation sheets, gene scan analysis print-outs and two statutory declarations sworn by Ken Cox on October 14, 1996 and April 17, 1997. He concluded that the DNA evidence used to convict Renton was scientifically incorrect and that the methodology used by the Crown’s DNA expert was wrong.
In a statutory declaration Professor Boettcher explained his conclusions: “The DNA in the sample came from more than one person since normal persons have only one or two FES Alleles. The simplest explanation is that the DNA in the sample came from two people possessing the pairs of Alleles: 10/11 and 12/13 or 10/12 and 11/13 or 10/13 and 11/12 (Renton possesses the FES type 12/12).
“Since the most appropriate conclusion to be derived from the results obtained by Mr Cox is that the donors of the DNA isolated from the balaclava had one of the FES system combinations of 10/11 and 12/13; or 10/12 and 11/13; or 10/13 and 11/12, it should be concluded that Mr Renton’s DNA has not been identified as being present on the balaclava…
“It is apparent that, at the trial of Mr Renton, the court was given wrong scientific opinion about the possible presence of DNA originating from Mr Renton being found on the balaclava.”
Although Professor Boettcher’s interpretation of the DNA evidence cleared Renton of bank robbery the Queensland government was not convinced it was sufficient to release him from prison or institute an inquiry into his conviction. The options were running out for Marc Renton because he had already lost an appeal to the Supreme Court based on points of law and Queensland law only allowed one appeal against conviction. The fresh DNA evidence that established his innocence remained in limbo while he remained in prison.
Marc Renton’s conviction for a bank robbery rests on the suspect DNA evidence used at his trial. Professor Barry Boettcher’s scientific conclusions support Renton’s claims, but as the legal processes have been exhausted he enters his seventh year of walking the yard inside the maximum-security block at Townsville prison.
Renton’s case reinforces the jailyard philosophy that there’s no sympathy for an innocent man doing hard time inside the Queensland prison system. If you want sympathy - it’s in the dictionary. It’s between shit and syphilis.
I left the Queensland prison system and was paroled back to NSW in October 2000. I continued my journalism studies but the Renton case and the interpretation of DNA evidence in criminal trials kept niggling my brain like an itch you can’t get at. An innocent man doing hard time. I could relate to that. They fitted me up* for an armoured van robbery in ’91. I wasn’t good for it but they kept me in prison until they arrested two other blokes and then told me: “whoops, we made a mistake. Sorry about that” before letting me out again.
That’s how the game was played in my day. If they didn’t get you for what you did then they put you in jail for what they thought you did. As a career criminal I had experienced the fit-ups*, the verbals*, the pay-offs and the jail time. It was all part of the game. Like playing cops and robbers when you’re a kid – someone has to be the goody and somebody has to be the baddie. But when you’re a kid the game ends after your mother calls you in for dinner. The game never ended for Marc Renton. They are still playing with his life in the greatest game of all. The game they call justice and the scientific interpretation of DNA in Queensland.
*fitted up – prison jargon for being put in jail for something you didn’t do usually by corrupt or illegal police methods.
*stitched up – prison slang as above.
*verbals – prison jargon for fabricated confessional evidence usually as a result of police officers falsely testifying in court that the suspect made a confession.
*pay-offs – prison jargon for buying your way out of a charge. Corrupt dealings with the arresting police and/or prosecutor.
This is an edited version of ‘DNA and The Justice Game’ first published in the Winter edition (June 2004) of The Griffith Review - Making Perfect Bodies.
Available from Griffith University or ABC Booksahops.