Lee Brown's World-Class Crime Lab
Lee Brown is supposedly working on his autobiography.
I wonder how much of it will describe the crime lab that became "world class" (at least world-class scandalous) on his watch.
Probably not much, since it's a story that continues to be written.
Here's Steve McVicker today:
Shortly after Lawrence Napper was sentenced to life in prison for the kidnapping and sexual assault of a 6-year-old Houston boy, the child's mother suggested an alternative punishment.
"He needs to rot in hell," she said, expressing a sentiment held by numerous people familiar with the case.
But the DNA evidence that was crucial to Napper's conviction was not nearly as overwhelming as it was described at his November 2001 trial, according to samples recently retested as part of the ongoing probe of the shuttered Houston police DNA lab. After two inconclusive results, the most recent analysis revealed possible links between Napper's DNA and that found on the abused child in only two of a possible 13 genetic markers.
"In two of 13 genetic regions there was a very weak indication of an additional DNA component," said DNA expert Elizabeth Johnson, who helped expose the problems at the HPD lab a year and a half ago. "However, there is plenty of (genetic) stuff that Napper has that doesn't show up in that extract. And a lot of other people in the world could be the source of those genetic markers."
Both Napper's attorney and the Harris County prosecutor coordinating the review agree that the findings represent only a weak possible link.
"You can't even do a statistical analysis (on the probability that the DNA was Napper's)," said Assistant District Attorney Marie Munier. "I don't know what it would be, but it wouldn't be very much."
Defense attorney Bob Wicoff said Tuesday that he plans to ask for a new trial based on the results.
One would think so.
The crime lab scandal is only deepening. The story will apparently be front page material for tomorrow's New York Times:
The police crime laboratory in Houston, already reeling from a scandal that has led to retesting of evidence in 360 cases, now faces a much larger crisis that could involve many thousands of cases over 25 years.
Six independent forensic scientists, in a report to be filed in a Houston state court on Thursday, said that a crime laboratory official - because he either lacked basic knowledge of blood typing or gave false testimony - helped convict an innocent man of rape in 1987.
The panel concluded that crime laboratory officials might have offered "similarly false and scientifically unsound" reports and testimony in other cases, and it called for a comprehensive audit spanning decades to re-examine the results of a broad array of rudimentary tests on blood, sperm and other bodily fluids.
Elizabeth A. Johnson, a former director of the DNA laboratory at the Harris County medical examiner's office in Houston, said the task would be daunting.
"A conservative number would probably be 5,000 to 10,000 cases," Dr. Johnson said. "If you add in hair, it's off the board."
The official whose testimony was challenged, James Bolding, said in a telephone interview that he did not recall the particular case. But Mr. Bolding said that both his scientific work and his testimony were always careful and professional. When he testified in 1987, he was the supervisor of the laboratory's serology unit. He later became the head of its DNA unit.
His testimony helped convict George Rodriguez, who has served 17 years for raping a 14-year-old girl in 1987. DNA results have now cleared him, according to court-ordered testing, and the papers to be filed Thursday will seek his release. As in many of the 146 DNA exonerations across the country, the new information also calls into question the scientific evidence used to convict Mr. Rodriguez in the first place.
A re-examination of the work by the Houston crime laboratory is already under way, but only of the DNA evidence used to convict people. That effort involves hundreds of cases and has produced a staggering workload, prosecutors in Houston say. One man has been exonerated, and significant problems have arisen in at least 40 cases.
The discovery of flawed work in the laboratory that led to the Rodriguez conviction would seem to require similar reviews of its work, legal experts said, but prosecutors would not immediately say what they will do or whether they will oppose Mr. Rodriguez's release.
Barry Scheck, one of Mr. Rodriguez's lawyers, said that Harris County was the worst place in America for a crime laboratory scandal.
"We know already that they couldn't do DNA testing properly," Mr. Scheck said. "Now we have a scandal that calls into question many thousands more cases. And this jurisdiction has produced more executions than any other county in America."
Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, Texas has executed 323 people, 73 for crimes in Harris County.
A state audit of the crime laboratory, completed in December 2002, has found that DNA technicians there misinterpreted data, were poorly trained and kept shoddy records. In many cases, the technicians used up all available evidence, making it impossible for defense experts to refute or verify their results. Even the laboratory's building was a mess, with a leaky roof contaminating evidence.
The DNA unit was shut down soon afterward, and it remains closed.
It is worth noting that earlier this year, the city's Civil Service Commission, then entirely composed of members appointed by former Mayor Brown, forced the police department to reinstate a fired DNA analyst who had botched cases.
This illustrates the depth of the problem, not to mention the legacy of Lee Brown.
Maybe the extra scrutiny from national news media not to mention a mayor who at least talks a good game (the jury is still out on what Mayor White actually delivers) will finally produce some movement on this matter. Maybe a few heads will even roll. Permanently. We'll see.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 08/04/04 22:29 | Houston | Technorati
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