Monday April 20, 2009
In a recent high profile case, involving the murder of former Baltimore City Councilman, Kenneth Harris, certain incriminating evidence may be excluded from the trial. In October, a city homicide detective put in a request to a District Court judge for a suspect’s DNA. He explained that Charles McGaney was potentially guilty for the murder of a teenager one year earlier.
However, the detective did not explain that his true motive was to investigate the Harris case and utilize the DNA information to pin the murder of Harris on McGaney. It was found that the results of the DNA test were negative for the killing of the teenager, Terrence Regan, but traces of his DNA were found on evidence that was collected during the processing of the Harris case.
Latex gloves, a coat and a bandanna were all discarded along the killer’s escape path, and all contained certain incriminating amounts of McGaney’s DNA. This evidence may be enough to convict the man of murder in the first-degree. However, because the investigating detective used deception to obtain the DNA samples, they may be thrown out of the case. This means that they will not be considered in any judge or jury decision.
