After LeBlanc provided the erroneous fingerprint match, Gallagher then identified Cowans as the man who shot him, in what we are to believe was an honest mistake. A mistake, incidentally, that Lacey and McEwen did not make — neither IDed Cowans.
If Gallagher’s ID was simply a mistake, this should seriously trouble any prosecutor, because then no juror should ever trust any eyewitness identification. Gallagher’s ID of Cowans, judging by his testimony, was as ideal as one could possibly hope for. A trained law-enforcement professional, Gallagher got multiple eye-to-eye looks at the suspect standing, sitting, and in motion, outside on a cloudless, sunny afternoon — and then engaged in a direct hand-to-hand struggle with him.
After the exoneration, Gallagher continued to insist that his identification was correct. Others have raised questions about Gallagher’s testimony. According to a Boston Herald report, O’Toole suggested Gallagher as a potential suspect, in addition to LeBlanc and McLaughlin, when she referred the case to Reilly for investigation in early 2004.
The Herald also reported that O’Toole recommended that Reilly consider charges against Sergeant Detective Kevin Waggett, the officer who arrested Cowans on a warrant violation and got the ball rolling in his eventual conviction. Waggett, the Herald said, had a prior beef with Cowans.
Waggett was among the first to respond to the scene of Gallagher’s shooting, and he questioned witnesses, including Lacey and McEwen. He also happened to be the patrol partner of John Callahan, the man who mislabeled McEwen’s elimination prints. And Waggett’s brother, Frederick Waggett, was a top member of the BPD gang unit, working closely on a number of cases with homicide detectives Herbert Spellman and John McCarthy, the detectives who led the Cowans investigation. The cases those three were working included several with cooperating informants. (Including, coincidentally, Edward Mills, who provided information that John Tibbs, not Marion Passley, committed the murder of Tennyson Drakes, for which Passley was wrongfully convicted in 1996.)
Fighting transparency
The failure of officials at the city, county, and state levels to come to grips with the Cowans case leaves unfulfilled the promises made in 2004, in the wake of a string of wrongful conviction stories, to rebuild the city’s trust in its criminal-justice institutions. That’s why civil lawsuits, like the one the city just settled with Cowans, represent a last chance for the public to get a glimpse of a criminal-justice system gone wrong. It is not a subject public officials want to pursue.
Neil Miller, who spent 10 years in prison for a rape he did not commit, received a $3.2 million settlement from the city, but no acknowledgment of the wrongdoing it was paying for and no action was taken against any officers involved. Donnell Johnson, exonerated of the murder for which he spent five years of his life incarcerated for, lost his civil suit, although the judge admonished the detectives. The city has never admitted culpability in that case, or held anyone accountable. Nor has anyone been disciplined for the wrongful conviction of Shawn Drumgold, who served 15 years for the murder of Tiffany Moore, after police officers allegedly intimidated witnesses and lied about deals made for testimony. The city is fighting just as hard against Drumgold’s civil suit, which is scheduled for trial in January. Ditto Ulysses Rodriguez-Charles, whose civil suit is also pending for the 19 years he spent in prison for a rape he did not commit.
