DRUG CASE DROPPED AFTER RULING ON LAB

Prosecutors have dropped a felony cocaine charge against a Capitol Heights
man after a judge ordered them to turn over detailed information about the
Prince George's County police drug lab, in what some say could be the
beginning of fallout from problems there.

Defense lawyers say the decision to drop the charge of cocaine possession
with intent to distribute against Kenyon K. Edwards further calls into
question the integrity of the lab, accused in a federal civil lawsuit of
having botched drug tests in criminal cases.

"I think it's telling," county Public Defender Joseph M. Niland said. "When
you drop a felony in this situation, it speaks for itself. I don't know
what they're going to use as an excuse, but it's peculiar they would do that."

Prince George's State's Attorney Jack B. Johnson and his spokeswoman, Paula
Burr, did not respond to phone calls seeking comment. Assistant State's
Attorney David Whitacre, a top supervisor in Johnson's office, also did not
return phone calls. County police spokesman Royce D. Holloway did not
respond to a phone call seeking comment.

Lawyers from Niland's office and private defense attorneys have filed more
than 100 motions on behalf of defendants in individual drug cases seeking
details and documents from the police drug lab. The motion in the Edwards
case was the first one granted.

By dropping the drug case Nov. 1, the Prince George's state's attorney's
office avoided being forced to provide detailed information to defense
attorneys on the practices of the drug lab and the qualifications of its
chemists. The lab tests samples in about 3,000 criminal drug cases
annually, and the state's attorney's office relies on those test results in
prosecuting cases.

Controversy surrounding the lab has roiled the Prince George's criminal
justice system since August, when news reports made public allegations
contained in a federal civil lawsuit filed by a former police lab chemist.
Kelly Lynn Campbell alleges she was fired in March for speaking out about
testing problems in the lab.

After the allegations surfaced, the public defender's office in Prince
George's filed a motion seeking to force police officerse and prosecutors
to provide detailed documents about the inner workings of the drug lab. A
Circuit Court judge denied that motion, after which the public defender's
office and some private defense attorneys began filing motions.

The state's attorney's office dropped the charge against Edwards, 25, nine
days after Circuit Court Judge Sherrie L. Krauser granted a motion by
Edwards's attorney, Assistant Public Defender Janet Hart, ordering
prosecutors to provide internal documents about the lab's chemists, their
qualifications, their methods and their equipment.

While the charge against Edwards was dropped, two of his three
co-defendants--who were charged based on the same evidence that was used
against Edwards--have pleaded guilty, and the case against the third
co-defendant is pending.

On Nov. 1, James Kevin Butler, 18, pleaded guilty to one count of
possession with intent to distribute cocaine, according to Circuit Court
records. On Oct. 22, Nicolo Terrance Jones, 19, pleaded guilty to the same
charge, according to court records. The case against Donald Avery Moore,
the fourth co-defendant, is pending.

Butler acted as his own attorney and did not file a motion seeking
information on the drug lab. Jones's attorney also did not file such a
motion. Moore's court file was not immediately available.

Edwards and the others were charged in a case in which county narcotics and
SWAT officers, executing a search warrant, raided a Capitol Heights
apartment and found the four young men in possession of a razor, a plate, a
scale and 161 small plastic bags, all of which field-tested positive for
cocaine, according to police charging documents. Police also found four
handguns, one outfitted with a laser sighting, and a Chinese-made SKS
assault rifle, according to charging documents.

Johnson has said that police officials have assured him that the police lab
is functioning properly, adding that he took police at their word.

However, Hart's 21-page motion seeking internal drug lab files recounted
several instances in which drug lab manager John Porter described problems
with equipment that called test results into question.

For instance, in an Aug. 12 affidavit made in connection with the public
defender's challenge to the drug lab, Porter, who is not a certified
chemist, said some test results were considered matches for illegal drugs
even if the tests did not conform to textbook standards for that particular
instrument, according to Hart's motion.

In a July 27 deposition given in connection with Campbell's lawsuit, Porter
said that after drug lab chemists brought the problem to his attention, he
did some "experimentation" with the lab device to assuage the concerns of
his chemists, according to Hart's motion.

"John Porter substituted his judgment for that of the instrument
manufacturers as well as the certified chemists by experimenting with
expensive, complicated technical equipment, by his own admission," Hart's
motion said.

Hart's motion also cited testimony Porter gave in the July deposition in
which he said some files in the computer that controls a device used for
testing drug samples were "corrupted" last year.

In the deposition, Porter admitted he did not determine how long the files
had been corrupted. He also did not know whether any of the drug samples
that had been tested while the computer files were corrupted were retested
to ensure their reliability, according to Hart's motion.

In motions filed by his staff, Niland is questioning the reliability of
drug lab findings dating from Nov. 4, 1998, when Campbell was scheduled to
testify in a drug case in Circuit Court.

On that date, according to Campbell's lawsuit, which is pending in U.S.
District Court in Greenbelt, Campbell told three prosecutors she could not
vouch for the test results showing the substance in question was cocaine.
Campbell also told the prosecutors about problems with test results in
other cases, according to the lawsuit.

Porter had ordered her not to retest any drug samples, according to
Campbell's lawsuit.

Prosecutors dropped the drug case in which Campbell was scheduled to
testify. Police internal affairs investigators eventually found that Porter
had committed no wrongdoing and that Campbell had lied to prosecutors and
failed to prepare for the drug case that was dropped. She was fired by
Police Chief John S. Farrell in March.

Edwards, the defendant whose drug case was dismissed this month, pleaded
guilty in 1996 to one count of robbery and was sentenced to three years of
supervised probation. He still faces a charge of first-degree murder
stemming from the July 1993 slaying of Gary Senior, who was shot to death
in Landover. Edwards also faces a weapons charge, according to court records.