Facing Life in Prison Based on Shoddy Evidence, a Florida Mother Makes a Deal 

Two months before she was supposed to go on trial for killing her child Michelle Taylor stood before a Florida judge and listened quietly as the prosecutor recited the accusations against her Taylor had long insisted she was not what the state made her out to be a mother who set fire to her home to collect insurance money killing her -year-old son David in the process Now there was proof she d been telling the truth The key arson evidence had been dismantled with several top scientists saying that the forensics did not hold up But prosecutors refused to drop the charges instead giving Taylor s lawyer a deadline According to defense attorney John Rockwell if she did not take a plea deal by her next court hearing all future offers were off the table After several sleepless nights Taylor walked into the St Johns County Courthouse on April and entered a plea no contest to manslaughter She was up there for maybe three minutes revealed Megan Wallace Taylor s fiercest advocate who watched in the gallery alongside Taylor s mother Six-and-a-half years after the fire destroyed Taylor s home and upended her life the conviction happened in the blink of an eye Related The Arson Evidence Doesn t Hold Up Florida Is About to Convict Her for Murder Anyway I examined Taylor s episode in an in-depth story published by The Intercept last month It described how she was accused of arson after escaping a nighttime fire that broke out in her St Augustine home on October Bystanders described her panic as she screamed that her son was inside trying repeatedly to reenter the house Taylor swore she had no idea how the fire started or why David did not make it out The two had been watching TV in her bedroom that night Taylor recounted investigators when she heard smoke detectors go off and encountered thick black smoke outside her door She and her -year-old daughter Bailey escaped through a window Taylor explained but David turned to look for the family dog and never emerged Functionaries became suspicious after an accelerant-detecting canine alerted in different parts of the house prompting investigators to collect five fire debris samples from the scene The samples were sent to the State Fire Marshal s Bureau of Forensic Services lab which shared three of them positive for gasoline Subsequent samples also revealed gasoline according to the lab proof positive of arson Detectives also uncovered red flags in Taylor s financial history pointing to a feasible motive including evidence that she and her husband were behind in their mortgage and that she had fraudulently solicited donations from area churches But the gasoline was the only direct evidence of arson and eventually that evidence began to fall apart Veteran fire scientist John Lentini first raised alarm in January writing in a defense record that the gasoline findings were based on a misinterpretation of chromatographic figures from a state lab that routinely identified gasoline where it does not exist Lentini who had filed a complaint against the lab nearly a decade earlier leading to a temporary suspension of its professional accreditation declared it was the sixth circumstance he had seen in which a person was falsely accused of arson based on the lab s faulty gasoline analysis It was the sixth development he had seen in which a person was falsely accused of arson based on the lab s faulty gasoline analysis Lentini s overview was shared with the state s lead fire investigator a special agent with the federal Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives who forthwith emailed it to two ATF chemists During depositions in April those experts agreed that the evidence shown in his statement did not show evidence of gasoline As the event approached trial two more forensic chemists reexamined the evidence One looked at the lab records another veteran chemist Laurel Mason of Analytical Forensic Associates examined the carbon strips used to test the fire debris samples in Like Lentini those experts concluded that there was no evidence of gasoline Rockwell a private defense attorney in Jacksonville who started representing Taylor last year had just disclosed Mason s analysis of the carbon strips in February when prosecutors revealed a new statement of their own The chemist who tested the fire debris samples in issued an amended lab assessment in the occurrence backtracking on her earlier findings Of the three positive samples that first set the occurrence into motion only one really contained gasoline she wrote In total four fire debris samples she first declared contained gasoline were changed to overview no evidence of an accelerant Rockwell a former prosecutor described the amended account as mind-blowing As he wrote in a subsequent court filing the state s assessment appears to have been suspiciously back-dated to January to make it look like it was submitted before Mason s expert assessment a hasty attempt to rehabilitate the state s forensic evidence in the face of his experts findings I ve never seen that in any situation in my life he described me But Rockwell also knew the danger Taylor faced if she went to trial Although the discredited evidence severely undermined the circumstance the state hoped to present to the jury prosecutors did not literally have to prove how the fire started in order to win a conviction They only had to convince jurors that Taylor had committed arson in order to collect insurance money which they planned to do by relying on circumstantial evidence of fraud In Florida a guilty verdict on a first-degree felony murder charge means a mandatory life sentence Rockwell pursued what he deduced to be the least risky option for his client negotiating the best deal manageable then convincing her to take it They re still doing the exact same thing Without any punishment or sanctions or anything And that s horrifying Because that can affect somebody for the rest of their life On the morning of the hearing Rockwell met Taylor her mother and Wallace at the courthouse in St Augustine where he went over the plea deal one more time In exchange for the no-contest plea the state had agreed to drop the arson charge at Taylor s sentencing which was scheduled for May Seventh Judicial Circuit Court Judge Lee Smith would then have a range of sentencing options from three to years With credit for the nearly three years Taylor spent in the local jail Taylor could serve as little as a insufficient months in prison Michelle Taylor right after a hearing at the St Johns County Courthouse in St Augustine Fla on July Liliana Segura I think she made the right decision Rockwell recounted me reemphasizing that Taylor maintains her innocence Now he plans to present his experts opinions at the sentencing hearing where he will address the flawed forensics the amended summary and the disturbing history of the state fire marshal s lab They re still doing the exact same thing he revealed Without any punishment or sanctions or anything And that s horrifying Because that can affect somebody for the rest of their life In an email Bryan Shorstein executive director of the Seventh Judicial Circuit state attorney s office declined to comment about the plea deal since it is still an ongoing development A spokesperson representing the fire marshal s office declined to comment A week after the court hearing Wallace accompanied Taylor to the local Dollar Tree to buy Easter supplies for Taylor s nieces and for Wallace s daughter In a text Wallace sent a photo a neat row of pastel baskets placed high on a closet shelf with candy and bunny ears peeking over the side The holidays have been painful for Taylor who has been out on bond for almost a year As the sentencing approaches she worries about her mother and one of her sisters both of whom have terminal cancer according to Wallace Even a short prison sentence could keep her away from them when they need her bulk Meanwhile on Facebook a local news story about the plea deal put Taylor s mugshot back in circulation along with outraged comments calling her a murderer who is getting off easy But for now Taylor can t worry about what other people think only about her sentencing where she will decisively speak for herself She is trying to hold onto hope that the judge who has presided over her matter for years sees the event clearly In her mind Wallace declared she thinks that Judge Smith knows she s innocent The post Facing Life in Prison Based on Shoddy Evidence a Florida Mother Makes a Deal appeared first on The Intercept