. . . is a threat to justice everywhere. I used to be a public defender in Texas. Now, I'm a public defender in Washington. Despite what you may have heard about Texas justice, there's just as much injustice here as there was there. And so I fight. And I rant. About justice, injustice, and life in general. (*Despite the photographic evidence below, I am not Veronica Mars. She is, in fact, smarter than me.)
Thursday, January 05, 2006
This Just In: Houston PD Crime Lab Sucks
The hits just keep on coming for the Houston Police Department crime lab. In the latest report filed by an independent investigator, the lab was found to have made major mistakes in over 1/3 of the DNA cases that were randomly sampled, including three in cases that led to the defendant being sentenced to death. In one of those cases, despite a clear DNA result showing no DNA tied to the defendant in any of the evidence tested by the lab, they reported to the prosecution that the tests were "inconclusive." Oops. While some have tried to make the continuing story of the crime lab solely one of incompetence, it hasn't escaped my attention that most of the "major mistakes" made by the lab have been mistakes that favored the state's case. I'm sure it's just a coincidence.
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