Supreme Court Reinstates Murder Conviction Failure To Note Failed Lie Detector Test Not Enough Reason To Dismiss Verdict

Failure to disclose that the prosecution’s star witness flunked a lie-detector test is not enough reason to dismiss the murder conviction of a Tacoma man, the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.

The 5-4 decision reinstated the conviction of Dwayne Bartholomew in the killing of a laundromat attendant in a 1981 robbery.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which had overturned the conviction, was acting “on little more than speculation with slight support,” the unsigned ruling said.

If prosecutors had deliberately lied about the existence of a lie-detector test, the court said, “We would not hesitate to condemn that misrepresentation in the strongest terms.”

Past Supreme Court rulings require prosecutors to give defense lawyers all “material evidence” in criminal cases.

But the decision Tuesday cited other rulings in stating that information is only “material” if there’s a reasonable probability its disclosure would change the case’s outcome.

The 9th Circuit court had ordered Washington authorities to give Bartholomew a new trial or reduce his life-without-parole prison sentence to life with chance of parole.

Tuesday’s decision reinstates the life-without-parole sentence.

Laundromat employee Paul Turner was killed during an Aug. 5, 1981, robbery that netted $237. Prosecutors said Bartholomew forced Turner to lie on the floor and then shot him twice in the head.

Bartholomew’s brother, Rodney, testified that he saw Dwayne outside the laundromat, and that Dwayne told him he was going to rob it and leave no witnesses.

Prosecutors did not tell Bartholomew or his lawyer that Rodney previously had taken a polygraph test and had been asked whether he was in the laundromat with Dwayne, and whether he had helped in the robbery.

Rodney answered both questions in the negative, but the person who administered the test said Rodney’s reactions to the questions indicated deception.

Rodney’s girlfriend, Tracy Dormady, testified Dwayne told her he had robbed the laundromat and “put two bullets in the kid’s head.”

She also had been given a pretrial lie-detector test and passed it.

Under Washington state law, the results of lie-detector tests are not admissible as trial evidence. State appellate courts cited that law in ruling that the prosecution’s failure to tell Bartholomew about the results of his brother’s polygraph test did not require overturning his conviction.

Bartholomew turned to the federal courts for help. A trial judge rejected his appeal, but the 9th Circuit court threw out the conviction.

The appeals court said the key question was whether the killing was premeditated. Dwayne Bartholomew admitted robbing the laundromat but said the gun twice went off unintentionally.

Under state law, the punishment for premeditated murder is death or life imprisonment without parole, but the punishment for unplanned murder is life with a chance of parole.

The Supreme Court majority said the appeals court was wrong in “second-guessing a convict’s own trial counsel.”

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Clarence Thomas joined in the unsigned opinion.

Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer dissented from deciding the case without first hearing arguments.