AP - Disgraced Oklahoma City police chemist Joyce Gilchrist doctored trial evidence and may have destroyed hair samples that could have exonerated a man now on death row, according to a confidential police memo obtained by The Associated Press. [Yahoo! News - Top Stories]

All those damn rules about "innocent until proven guilty" and "fair trial" really do interfere with imprisoning the ones we just "know" did it, don't they? Here's a really spooky part, involving the case of Curtis McCarty, who has been on Death Row for about 18 years for a crime he may not have committed:

The results, the memo said, showed that Gilchrist "wrote over" her original notes from 1983 that concluded McCarty's hair was "not consistent" with strands found at the crime scene — meaning he was excluded as a suspect.

Three years later, McCarty was tried for murder. During that trial, the memo said, she testified from her altered notes, saying McCarty's hairs were consistent with strands found on the body of 18-year-old Pamela Willis, the daughter of a police officer.

The Tulsa police analysis indicates "Gilchrist wrote over the word 'not' to reflect the word 'show,'" the memo states. In another instance, Gilchrist added the word "completely" underneath the word "not," the memo says.

"The impact of this alteration was that McCarty was left in as a potential suspect rather than excluded," the memo says. "The Board has tremendous concerns and suspicions concerning Gilchrist's analysis of this case."

Remember, when conservatives hear someone has been on Death Row for 18 years, their first reaction is to eliminate appeals so people like McCarty would have been executed about a decade ago...