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Wednesday, June 22, 2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Temporary fire
closure lifted
DA is gunning for justice in review
The Deschutes and
Ochoco National Forests
and Crooked River National
Grassland and have lifted the
temporary area closure on
federal lands surrounding the
Akawana Fire.
The approximately
50-acre closure of Oregon
Department of Forestry
(ODF) protected lands,
Crooked River National
Grassland and National
Forest lands on the Sisters
Ranger District was put
in place while firefight-
ers worked to contain the
BEND (AP) — At
first, authorities in Oregon
believed the lab tech had
been stealing drugs from
just one batch of evidence.
Then they saw drugs were
missing from other cases she
had worked. And then they
finally concluded she had
also stolen evidence from
ones she had not worked on.
The number of possi-
bly contaminated convic-
tions grew, from one to now
around 1,500 in Central
Oregon’s Deschutes County
alone.
District Attorney John
Hummel is vowing to re-
examine each conviction,
arguing that revisiting them
is critical to ensure that the
public has confidence in the
justice system. So far, he has
recommended 10 convictions
be overturned.
“I want people to say:
‘You know what? When the
DA stands up and says he
thinks someone is guilty, he
is doing that based on solid
evidence,” said Hummel,
whose county’s natural
beauty belies a reputation
for misdeeds by its own
lawmen.
Hummel said he has seen
the consequences when peo-
ple lose faith in their justice
system, pointing to his expe-
rience in a post-civil-war
Liberia when he’d find smol-
dering bodies during morn-
ing walks, the victims of mob
justice.
Nika Larsen, the lab tech-
nician from the state police
lab in Bend, is suspected of
removing drugs and replac-
ing them with over-the-coun-
ter medications.
Hummel said a joint
investigation by his office,
the U.S. attorney, the Oregon
Department of Justice and
the Umatilla County district
attorney is wrapping up and
By andrew Selsky
Associated Press
Akawana fire. Ninety-five
percent containment has been
achieved and the public can
safely return to the area.
Smoke will potentially be
visible within the fire area for
the next couple of weeks. If
you are recreating in the area,
use caution. If you see smoke
within the burn area, do not
report it.
The Akawana Fire area is
2,094 acres and was managed
by Oregon Department of
Forestry, Team 3. The wild-
fire was started by lighting
on June 7.
consultant: ore. berry
crop early, good quality
SALEM, Ore. (AP) —
Oregon’s berry crop is high-
quality despite unusual
weather this season, accord-
ing to crop consultant Tom
Peerbolt.
Record winter rain was
followed by unseasonable
heat waves and stretches of
cool days, The Capital Press
reported. The weather swings
caused berries and many
other crops to appear about
two weeks earlier than usual.
“The earliness of every-
thing has thrown everybody
off center a bit,” explained
Peerbolt, who co-owns
Peerbolt Crop Management
in Portland with his wife,
Anna. “It’s hard on logistics
when everything comes at
once.”
Oregon ranks first nation-
ally in blackberry production,
third in raspberries and straw-
berries and fourth in blueber-
ries and cranberries.
The strawberry harvest is
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wrapping up, said Peerbolt,
while harvesting is underway
for several types of blueber-
ries and raspberries.
Oregon’s premier type of
blackberry, the Marion, is
traditionally harvested the
day after the Fourth of July
holiday. This year it will
likely start about two weeks
earlier than that, according to
Peerbolt.
He said the thornless Black
Diamond and Columbia Star
blackberry varieties will be
harvested even earlier.
The early harvesting
doesn’t seem to have had a
negative impact on the crop,
said Peerbolt.
“Boy there’s beautiful ber-
ries out there,” he said. “Very
good quality and very good
size — mainly in blueberries
but in caneberries as well.”
He said the harvest came
early last year, too, but
Peerbolt said this year’s
moisture made a difference.
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an announcement is forth-
coming on who will take the
lead on prosecution.
Meanwhile, his office is
reviewing all those convic-
tions. So far, a judge has
thrown out at least one con-
viction for methamphetamine
possession. The lawyer for
another one of the 10 asked
the court on June 8 for his
client’s conviction to be
thrown out.
George Burgen had been
sentenced to 10 days in
jail after a sheriff’s deputy
stopped his car and found a
small plastic bag in his wal-
let, a thin line of a substance
on the bottom. An official
document refers to it as
“meth (residue).”
“Those 10 days in jail, I
don’t know how I get those
back,” Burgen said in an
interview in his house in the
woods near the Deschutes
River. “But I was guilty. I did
have it in my possession.”
Burgen doesn’t trust
police and cited crimes com-
mitted by officers, including
a former sheriff who was
imprisoned for embezzling
hundreds of thousands of
dollars and a deputy con-
victed of giving drugs to
teenage girls and sexually
abusing them.
“Of those in the justice
system, some are criminals
themselves, so who are they
to be convicting,” Burgen
wondered over a cup of cof-
fee, a letter from his attor-
ney on the table in front of
him. “The hypocrisy is just
amazing.”
He said he appreciates
Hummel’s efforts.
“People have to have faith
in their justice system, which
has been so screwed up in
this county,” Burgen said.
“I’m glad we have a DA who
is looking at the whole pic-
ture in this way.”
Burgen said he had quit
using meth long before he
was busted. “I decided I was
getting too old to do this,”
he said, adding that he had
forgotten that he still had the
tiny amount in his wallet.
Some other counties
are also investigating pos-
sible tampering of evidence,
including Umatilla, where
Larsen previously worked at
a lab in Pendleton.
Hummel’s office has
posted a spreadsheet, track-
ing all the cases. The Oregon
Innocence Project has
applauded Hummel’s actions
and transparency and called
on other counties to follow
his lead by opening their own
files to the public.
Kevin Sali, a defense
attorney who is on Gov.
Kate Brown’s work group
investigating the Oregon
State police forensic labo-
ratory system, said prob-
lems go beyond a few ana-
lysts tampering with the
evidence.
Sali said the group needs
to try to improve the process
“at every level,” from elimi-
nating influence and pressure
on technicians to come up
with results that please police
and prosecutors, to making
clear to juries when a find-
ing is not purely scientific
but is subject to an analyst’s
interpretation.
Hummel said he expects
his review to be completed in
September.
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