HOUSTON CRIME LAB NEEDS SPECIAL MASTER

Two years ago the “crime lab” for the Houston Police Department
was a national scandal. Its shoddy analysis and unprofessional investigation
protocol had apparently resulted in the conviction of scores of innocent
criminal defendants. Mayor Bob White vowed to clean up the disgraceful
mess and restore law enforcement integrity to the crime laboratory. Michael
Bromwich, a former U.S. Justice Department inspector, was assigned the
task of investigating the crime lab, its procedures, and issue
recommendations. Bromwich fulfilled his commission on June 13, 2007
when he issued a 400-page report whose recommendations were not readily
embraced by the very city officials who pushed for Bromwich’s
investigation in 2005.

The most controversial recommendation in the Bromwich report was

that a “special master” be appointed to review hundreds of criminal
convictions now in legal jeopardy because of the crime lab’s professional
incompetence or criminal negligence.

Mayor White, Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt, and Harris County
District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal collectively, and quite emphatically,
rejected the call for the appointment of a “special master.”

"I guess you probably can't get much more official than the mayor, the
police chief, the chairman of the Public Safety Committee, and the district
attorney responding to a particular report," White said concerning the
rejection of the special master recommendation.

Rosenthal was not so delicate.

"We have special masters," the district attorney said. "They're called
judges in our building."

Faced with the prospect of seeing dozens, perhaps hundreds, of

criminal convictions obtained by his office reversed and probably unable to
retry, Rosenthal was notably concerned about the Bromwich report. He
charged that the former Justice Department official had gone beyond his
original mandate and produced a report “too broad” to be taken seriously.
 "This investigation was (supposed to be) an investigation into the
operation of the laboratory," the controversial DA was quoted by AP as
saying. "It was not an investigation into the criminal justice system as a
whole."

Chief Hurtt was more succinct on the special master recommendation,

saying: "We don't think (a special master) is necessary."

Bromwich disagreed with these city officials, pointing out that he and
his colleagues who assisted in preparing the report were "extremely mindful
of the limits of our responsibility."

Bromwich also enjoyed prominent support for the report’s special

master recommendation.

Patrick McCann, president of the Harris County Criminal Lawyers

Association, said: "(The city's) head is in the sand. It not only does not
surprise me, it just saddens me."

Barry Scheck, co-director of the New York-based Innocence Project

and the most prominent crusader for the wrongfully convicted, agreed: "The
most efficient and direct way (to review the cases) is to appoint a special
master."

In addition to the special master recommendation, the report

underscored hundreds of “serious and pervasive” mistakes made by the
crime lab’s DNA and serology departments in forensic cases. Bromwich’s
investigation examined more than 3500 cases processed by the crime lab
over the past quarter century.

"The crime lab's substandard, unreliable serology and DNA work is

all the more alarming in light of the fact that it is typically performed in the
most serious cases, such as homicides and sexual assaults," the report found.

The Bromwich investigative team specifically examined 135 DNA

cases handled by the crime lab between 1992 and 2002. The investigators
discovered “major issues” in 43 of those cases. More disturbingly, the
investigators also found “major issues” in four of the 18 death penalty cases
it reviewed.
 The crime lab’s DNA/serology departments were shut down in 2002
after an audit raised serious questions about the reliability of their work. The
findings of the Bromwich report were essentially the same: problems with
blood-evidence analysis create a “major issue with the reliability of the
crime lab’s work or the accuracy of its reported results.”

Since the 2002 audit, the crime lab’s budget has doubled and just last
year the American Society of Crime Lab Directors accredited the lab.
Bromwich acknowledged these positive efforts by city officials, saying: "It's
very important to note . . . that the crime lab has made enormous positive
strides over the last three and a half years. It bears little resemblance to the
substantially dysfunctional institution of the past."

While he was strenuously opposed to the report’s “special master”

recommendation, DA Rosenthal said his office had already begun
responding to some of the report’s other recommendations:
"We're in the process of pulling files on all the people that they say
had bad serology evidence, and what we intend to do is to notify those
people that their serology evidence has been called into question and let
them deal with a judge as to whether they want somebody to represent them
or not."

But David Dow, director of the Texas Innocence Network was not
impressed: "I don't want to have to rely on the district attorney's office to
assess the importance of (untested) physical evidence in these cases."

Then there is the crucial issue of the costs associated with responding
to the report’s recommendations. Mayor White addressed this financial issue
of evidence retesting in as many as 850 cases:
"It (would) come from (the) public safety (budget). But if it is done
under court supervision, and it's something that the district attorney's office
and HPD believe is important to serve the ends of justice, then that kind of
thing can be supported."

These costs will be in addition to the $5.3 million already spent on the
Bromwich investigation as well as the substantial crime lab budget increased
over the last four years.

Prosecutors, police, and crime lab technicians have learned over the
past decade that the costs of convicting the wrong person – either by a
knowing suppression of favorable evidence by the prosecution, or by a
fabrication of evidence by the police, or by the criminal negligence of crime
lab technicians – are staggering.

State Rep. Kevin Bailey, Chairman of the House Committee on Urban

Affairs, was not impressed with the way Houston officials responded to the
Bromwich report.

"It looks like to me that they're trying to sweep some of their final
problems under the rug," he said.

Bailey said the “special master” recommendation should be adopted

to restore the integrity of the criminal justice system in Harris County.

"That's why so many people don't have a lot of confidence in the

judicial system in Harris County," Bailey said. "Not just because of the
problems of the past, but (criminal justice officials) continue to not get it,
and they continue to appear to ignore the facts and the proper way to resolve
these cases."

At least two innocent persons were wrongfully convicted because of

the criminal negligence of the Houston Crime Lab – one of whom served 17
years. The crime lab has improved its work and procedures, but that is not
the real issue. The issue is that the only “review” will be conducted by the
Houston Police Department and the Harris County District Attorney’s office.
These are the two agencies that arrested and convicted the defendants
involved in the 850 cases under “review.”

Can the self-serving interests of these law enforcement agencies give

way to the interests of justice and fairness?

No.

It was these self-serving law enforcement interests that created the

crime lab scandal to begin with.

The integrity of the Harris County criminal justice system demands

that a “special master” be appointed to conduct any review of the crime lab
“mistake” cases. An independent and fair eye is necessary to truly allow
some justice in the Houston criminal justice system.
 Otherwise, the $5.3 million Bromwich report will become just another
byproduct of “government waste.”