Last fall, I wrote and published a series of articles detailing the efforts of “The Mike Chapel is Innocent Project.” They are a group of passionate supporters that believe Gwinnett County Police officer Michael Chapel was unfairly convicted of the 1993 murder of Emogene Thompson.
In those articles, I asked that anyone from the prosecution or investigation side of the case reach out and offer their side. Recently, former Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter, who tried the Chapel case, did just that. This is the second article from our interview, where Mr. Porter addresses the points made by the Chapel supporters. There will be more articles to follow, with other topics addressed.
Danny Porter began his career with the Gwinnett County District Attorney’s Office in 1981 as an Assistant District Attorney. By the time he was elected District Attorney in 1992, he had tried multiple murder cases, including three death penalty cases. As District Attorney, he tried several high-profile cases, some covered by national media. He was elected to seven terms and served as DA until 2020.
Click here to read Chapter 1
This chapter of our interviews covers questions concerning how the blood and DNA evidence was recovered from Chapel’s rain jacket and tested and handled in the investigation and trial.
-The presence and location of blood spatter on Chapel’s rain jacket is one of the cornerstones of the Chapel is innocent support’s argument. Why was the DNA on Mike Chapel’s rain jacket was never tested, where was the spatter located, and was cost your reason for not testing it, as Chapel supporters have suggested?
Porter-In every trial, you face certain strategic decisions that you have to make regarding evidence, and in this case, the raincoat was one of those. When the crime lab and the medical examiner informed me that there was high-velocity blood spatter on the rain jacket, on the right sleeve, and on the right chest, I was faced with one of those decisions. The crime lab, in their analysis of the amount of blood, and you have to remember this was back in the ’90s when, in order to do a DNA analysis, you had to have a pretty large sample. The crime lab said they thought there was less than a 50% chance of getting a DNA profile from the amount of blood on the rain jacket. The odds were low that we would be able to get a DNA profile from the amount of blood that was on the jacket. Attempting would not only have destroyed the sample for the future but would have destroyed the jacket because they would have had to cut it to pieces. I made the strategic decision that the jacket was a better exhibit for the jury to understand the case because everything about the case indicated that the most likely scenario was that somebody reached in through the partially lowered window on the driver’s side and shot her at point-blank range. That would require a right-handed person to reach in. I thought it made more sense to keep the jacket intact rather than cut it into pieces for a minimal result. I also had to accept that the exhibit was contaminated for future testing because it was evident when the evidence came back from the jury on the first day that they had handled the jacket. Those were risks and decisions I had to make as part of the strategy in the case. It had nothing to do with economics.
In 1995, you had to have a large sample to get a DNA profile. Today you can get a DNA result from a minuscule sample. If they detect DNA in a test, they do what’s called amplification. In other words, they copy the molecule over and over until the sample is large enough to test. We did not have access to that in 1995. This was the second or third trial using DNA evidence in Georgia. Clearly, it was coming onto its own because we were at the same time as the O.J. Simpson case. All the questions about O.J.’s handling of the evidence we also faced. We faced a contamination argument, and they made an argument that it had been planted, that the sample had been contaminated. We faced all of the same questions that were raised in the O.J. Simpson case, except that we were able to answer those questions.
Since technology has changed, what would be negative about testing the blood and garment now?
“As soon as the jacket went out with the jury and we realized it had been handled, it was contaminated, and it was not suitable for testing after that. Even with the new technology, it’s able to differentiate between different strands. It would be nearly impossible to overcome that contamination.
Two motions were filed [after the verdict] to test the DNA. In 1995, we didn’t have a statute in Georgia that allowed for post-conviction DNA testing. The important thing to remember is that Johnny Moore [Chapel’s trial attorney], who was hired by the court and had access to court funds, could have filed a motion for independent testing at the time of trial. I don’t recall whether he filed that motion or not, but it was available to Chapel at the time of the trial. They could have had an independent expert look at it. Later, after the Chapel case, the legislature passed a statute for independent testing. In that statute, it allows for post-conviction independent testing if certain requirements are met—one of them being that the evidence would have made a difference in the jury’s verdict. In the first motion that was filed, it was filed by an attorney, and we had a hearing, and we made our arguments. My argument included that the DNA if it existed on the jacket, was merely cumulative of all the other evidence and was not decisive, which I still maintain. Judge Bishop ruled that it was cumulative and was not decisive.
Under the Georgia statute, you only get two shots at the motion. After two, you can’t file it again. You can’t keep repeating, say, item A, test that. They have to get it all in two motions. Chapel made a mistake because he filed the second motion by himself, what’s called pro se. He did it wrong because it has very specific requirements for notice to the state, filing. There are a lot of procedural rules about filing for an independent test, and he didn’t follow those, so the second motion was dismissed on procedural grounds.”
