CLEVELAND, Tenn. — The former Cleveland police detective accused of ruining the chance to convict a suspect in the 1999 Valentine’s Day triple slaying here says he’s being used as a “scapegoat.”
“As a proud police officer, a father, a husband and a citizen of Bradley County I cannot sit still while I am used as a scapegoat by the District Attorney’s Office to cover their own misdeeds,” Duff Brumley said in a news release distributed by his attorney, Jerry Tidwell.
PDF: Termination appeal letterPDF: Younger order
In a motion filed Tuesday in Bradley County Criminal Court, District Attorney General Steve Bebb said the actions of Brumley, a prosecution witness, and Judge Amy Reedy have made it impossible to get a fair trial for Michael Younger, one of the defendants accused of killing three people in a Cleveland apartment.
Bebb’s motion, which asks that the case against Younger be dropped, noted that Brumley’s employment at the Cleveland Police Department has been terminated and he is the subject of an investigation.
“In the course of the current investigation of Mr. Brumley, three prior instances have been found which call into serious question Mr. Brumley’s credibility as a witness,” the motion states.
On Thursday, Brumley said Bebb is running scared after a recent decision by the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals in the murder case.
On Oct. 11, the Knoxville-based appeals court agreed to hear an appeal from Younger’s first trial in May, which ended when Reedy declared a mistrial. The decision to hear the case means the appeals court likely will drop the case anyway, Brumley said.
Younger’s defense attorney made the appeal, saying prosecutors failed to follow state rules.
“In other words, they failed to turn over … evidence which they are required by law to give to Younger’s defense attorney,” Brumley said. “Specifically, they failed to reveal to the defense that one of their key witnesses … faces multiple charges of check fraud.”
Under the law, defense attorneys must be given such information by the prosecution.
Bebb said Thursday he had no immediate response “at this time” to Brumley’s statement.
In his motion, Bebb mentions witness Anita Wilson as part of a reason for discontinuing the case, but he blames Brumley for that.
In 2006, Wilson told police that Younger did not confess to playing a part in the 1999 slayings. But in 2008, when Brumley arrested her on charges of a being a fugitive from justice, she changed her story and said Younger did confess, giving the prosecution a major piece of evidence.
But her arrest was illegal, Bebb said in his motion, so her statement was unusable.
As for being under investigation by the police department, Brumley said he’s being punished for trying to investigate another former Cleveland police officer in a separate case.
He blames his dismissal from the department on Bebb, saying the district attorney told officials that he would not use Brumley as a witness in future cases.
In an Aug. 30 letter upholding Brumley’s firing, City Manager Janice Casteel wrote that Bebb had said that “the District Attorney General’s Office will not accept any case files for prosecution from you [Brumley].”
“There is no question to my credibility as a witness except in the mind of General Bebb,” Brumley said Thursday.
Bebb’s state’s motion also lists 171 telephone calls between Brumley and Reedy during the investigation period. Such contact between the judge and prosecuting witness was inappropriate, according to the state’s motion.
Brumley said he made the phone calls on instructions from officials in the district attorney’s office.
They “instructed me to contact the judge to inquire about information such as what motions were going to be heard on certain days, when proceedings were going to start, etc.,” Brumley said.