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Thursday, Mar 16, 2006

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MARI DARR-WELCH/AP

RETURN TO CEMETERY: Pallbearers carry Martin Lee Anderson's coffin back to his gravesite in Panama City, Fla.

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• Read the use-of-force report
• Read the autopsy report
• Video | Boot camp beating (edited version)
• Video | Boot camp beating (full unedited version)
• Read the letter from the sheriff shutting down the camp
• On the Web | Don't have Real Player? Download it for free
• Autopsy finding on boy 'surprises' state doctor

Posted on Thu, Mar. 16, 2006

BOOT CAMP DEATH

Prosecutor can overcome different autopsy results

Despite dueling autopsy reports, the special prosecutor investigating Martin Lee Anderson's death still could make a successful case if he decides to charge anyone, experts said.

By CAROL MARBIN MILLER

cmarbin@MiamiHerald.com

Two different autopsies, two different conclusions -- one that seemingly relieves eight guards from a Panama City boot camp of any culpability in the death of Martin Lee Anderson, and another that would clear the way for their being held accountable.

What is a prosecutor to do?

A day after his office announced that a second autopsy concluded the 14-year-old boy did not die of natural causes Jan. 6 after a beating by guards at a juvenile boot camp, special prosecutor Mark Ober of Tampa must find a way to complete a death investigation where the most basic questions are already in dispute.

The first autopsy, by the Bay County medical examiner, concluded death was from natural causes, related to sickle-cell trait.

Confronted with the two conflicting autopsies, Ober still has options, experts say.

The ideal solution for Ober, they said, would be for the original medical examiner, Dr. Charles Siebert, to issue a revised autopsy report. Some pressure already is being brought to bear on Siebert to reverse his conclusion that Martin died of complications of sickle-cell trait, a blood disorder that affects one in 12 Americans of African descent.

`THE TRUTH'

''We want Dr. Siebert to base his findings on the truth, and if he made a mistake, he needs to revise his report,'' said Benjamin Crump, the Tallahassee attorney for Martin's parents, Gina Jones and Robert Anderson. ''We just want to say that [Siebert] may not have had all the information'' that was available to both Dr. Vernard Adams, Hillsborough County's chief medical examiner, and Dr. Michael Baden, a former New York City forensic pathologist hired by the family, for the second autopsy.

Siebert has declined to discuss the case since Monday's autopsy. ''At this time, he is deferring comment until the [autopsy] results have been completed,'' Kelsey Welch, the office's forensic investigator, said Wednesday.

Martin entered the Bay County Sheriff's Office Boot Camp on Jan. 5 after being convicted of joyriding in his grandmother's Jeep. A videotape of Martin's last hour there, obtained after The Miami Herald and CNN sued for its release, shows the youth being punched, kneed and choked by guards intent upon making the teen run laps.

On Monday, Adams and Baden performed a 12-hour autopsy that was attended by Ober, members of the top Tampa prosecutor's staff, five members of Adams' staff, Crump and Siebert.

Ober's spokeswoman, Assistant State Attorney Pam Bondi, who also attended the autopsy, confirmed Tuesday that the autopsy showed the teen did not die of natural causes or sickle-cell trait. She declined to discuss the autopsy or the case Wednesday.

Baden said the autopsy turned up evidence of bruising that Siebert either did not observe or take into account. Baden declined to discuss the bruises in detail.

Though a new report from Siebert might improve Ober's chances at trial if any of the eight guards are prosecuted, competing autopsies would not necessarily doom a case against the guards, said state Rep. Dan Gelber, a Miami Beach Democrat and former federal prosecutor who sits on a committee overseeing the state's juvenile justice department.

''Very few cases go to trial where you do not have competing experts,'' said Gelber, who prosecuted several civil rights and prison death cases. ``It is a common occurrence in courtrooms to have experts competing on scientific, technological and medical issues. It happens every day in hundreds of courtrooms in Florida and the nation.''

`NOT ... COMMON'

The competing testimony seldom is so stark, however, when it comes to autopsies.

''I don't recall, in my 40 years, any two autopsies [in the same case] that were so diametrically opposed,'' said Dr. Joseph Davis, retired chief medical examiner of Miami-Dade County. ``This was not a common occurrence.''

Pathologists can reduce the likelihood of being second-guessed, Davis said, by being as thorough as possible.

''If your database is expended to the maximum you can expand it, then you've negated the occurrence of another autopsy that arrives at a totally different conclusion,'' Davis said.

Dr. Michael Norenberg, a professor of pathology at the University of Miami with 35 years of experience, said it was ''certainly not unheard of'' for two pathologists to arrive at completely different conclusions after reviewing the same case. But, he added, ``I don't think it happens an awful lot.''

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