Judge blasts Wisconsin State Crime Lab for potential release of defendant in Milwaukee double homicide

Reluctantly, a judge has drastically reduced bail for the defendant in a Milwaukee double homicide and blasted the State Crime Lab for the delay he says forced the move.

"If there's any form of triage in the crime lab, it was done backward or not at all in this case," Milwaukee County Circuit Judge David Borowski said. 

A Department of Justice spokesperson defended the lab's handling of DNA evidence in the case and said there appears to be misinformation about the process.

Antonio Darnell Mays, 45, was charged in March with killing Malyk T. Smith, 20, and Romale R. Richardson, 34, during a shootout at a dice game. He had been held on $400,000 bail since his arrest.

He demanded a speedy trial, which had been set for Tuesday, but prosecutors didn't turn over critical DNA evidence reports to the defense until mid-August. Because the defense hadn't had the time to have its own expert review them before trial, the state would have had to proceed without it.

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Rather than do that, the state said it wasn't ready to proceed by the speedy trial deadline, and Borowski declined to hold the trial under those circumstances, prompting Mays' request for release. The state objected, and Borowski took a couple of days to consider the situation before ruling Thursday.

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He said he found it perplexing that someone facing a misdemeanor must be tried in 60 days, but for a defendant in a double homicide or another complex felony, the deadline is only 30 days longer.

"Does that make sense? No. Is that something that should be addressed by the Legislature? Absolutely. But that is the state of the law," Borowski said.

"For it to take more than three months, almost four months to have a DNA result on a homicide case, is completely unacceptable," he said.

"This court cannot conceive of what would be higher in the protocol of the crime lab than testing for DNA on an active case on a serious felony where there's a speedy trial demand."

The judge said he didn't like being in the position of having to possibly release Mays and urged prosecutors to "do a lot more rattling of the cages of the Attorney General's office and the crime lab."

He said in future cases, he would "start ordering the crime lab to get these results done in 30 to 45 days. They can violate my orders at their own peril."

Alec Hannah, a spokesman for the Department of Justice, which operates the crime lab, said, "There appears to be much misinformation as to the amount of work that goes into DNA analysis and the timeline of the testing of evidence in this case."

Hannah said the initial DNA report matching evidence to Mays was made March 20, just four days after submission of evidence, and the fuller report on July 28. He said further reports were emailed as soon as the prosecutor requested them Aug. 14, ahead of a pretrial hearing two days later.

He said an even more extensive report, called the discovery packet, was available Aug. 15, two days after Assistant District Attorney Kevin Shomin requested it, but could have been provided sooner if it was requested earlier.

Borowski set a new trial date for Mays in about two months. He set new bail of $2,500 for Mays, who must remain at his residence, on electronic monitoring, at all times.

"Again, I'm very displeased that I'm being put in this position," he said.

Borowski may have been worried for naught.

Even with bail now set at less than 1% of the prior amount, Mays was still in jail Friday, and his attorney said even if Mays was able to come up with the $2,500, it sometimes takes weeks for GPS monitoring equipment to become available through Justice Point, which provides pretrial services for Milwaukee County.