Features

OKLAHOMA CITY — A police chemist was fired Tuesday for allegedly performing shoddy work and giving false or misleading testimony in criminal cases, including some in which she helped send men to death row. 

Joyce Gilchrist was dismissed by Chief of Police M.T. Berry, who said the decision was based on the recommendations of an administrative panel who heard testimony about Gilchrist’s alleged misconduct. 

Reasons for firing Gilchrist “include laboratory mismanagement, criticism from court challenges and flawed casework analysis,” a statement from Berry’s office said. Berry said the termination was effective Tuesday. 

“I am very, very disappointed,” said Gilchrist, who disputed Berry’s findings. Gilchrist faces allegations in an undetermined number of criminal cases. Hundreds of her cases are being re-examined. 

Her attorney, Melvin Hall, said the termination letter was inaccurate and vague. He said the letter does not outline the specific misconduct that led to her dismissal. 

“Joyce Gilchrist doesn’t know what she did wrong,” Hall said. 

Gilchrist, whose work is being investigated by the FBI and the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, has been on paid administrative leave from the Police Department since February, earning a base salary of $59,528. 

“This is just the first step in Joyce Gilchrist’s long, long fall,” said Jack Dempsey Pointer, president of the Oklahoma Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, who has been critical of Gilchrist and the Police Department’s forensic laboratory. 

No criminal charges have been filed, but Pointer has said he wants Gilchrist to be investigated by a state grand jury impaneled by Attorney General Drew Edmondson. A spokesman for Edmondson, Gerald Adams, declined to comment on the grand jury’s investigative agenda. 

In May, Jeff Pierce, who was convicted of rape in 1986 after Gilchrist testified about hair evidence, was freed after 15 years behind bars when new testing indicated his DNA did not match that of the person who committed the crime. 

Last month, a federal appeals court overturned a convicted killer’s death sentence because of problems with Gilchrist’s testimony about DNA evidence. And a few years ago, a death row inmate who was put there in part by Gilchrist’s testimony was exonerated after a DNA semen analysis proved he didn’t attack the victim. 

Pointer said he believes other innocent people have been wrongly convicted based on Gilchrist’s testimony. 

“We don’t even have a clue how many,” Pointer said. 

Hall said Gilchrist has been evaluated by the department 17 times during the past two decades and each time was rated either competent or commendable. The termination letter is “the first negative piece of paper in 21 years to be placed in her personnel file,” Hall said. 

In April, the FBI recommended a review of all cases in which Gilchrist’s work was significant to securing a conviction. 

Gilchrist has been involved in 11 cases in which people were put to death, but the state attorney general’s office has said there is no indication that any innocent people have been executed. 

State investigators said this month that a forensic team had reviewed 583 case files and marked 99 for further review. There were 574 case files left to review. 

Police spokeswoman Sgt. Cris Cunningham said Gilchrist has the right to file a grievance to appeal her dismissal. Gilchrist has not decided whether to appeal, Hall said.