August 5
TEXAS:
New Doubt Cast on Crime Testing in Houston Cases
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.
Police officers and prosecutors vowed to retest DNA evidence in every case
where it was used to obtain a conviction. The size of that job, far
smaller than the one called for by experts in the Rodriguez case, has
involved many thousands of hours.
"It's massive," said Marie Munier, the assistant district attorney
supervising the re-examinations. "If you had asked me when it happened
would it take us over 2 years to complete this, I would have said: 'You're
crazy. No way.'"
"Maybe if they'd gotten 50 or 100 people," she added, "they could have
gotten it done faster."
Ms. Munier said retesting has resulted in one exoneration, that of Josiah
Sutton, who was released last year after serving more than four years for
a rape he did not commit.
Though DNA is often thought of as a tool for exonerations, prosecutors in
Mr. Sutton's case had used it to convict him, submitting false scientific
evidence asserting that there was a solid match between Mr. Sutton's DNA
and that found at the crime scene. In fact, 1 of 8 black people, including
Mr. Sutton, shared the relevant DNA profile. More refined retesting
cleared him.
Ms. Munier said her office had overseen retesting in 360 DNA cases so far.
"In 18 cases, they were unable to confirm the original H.P.D. results,"
she said, referring to the Houston Police Department. "In 21 cases, I am
told by H.P.D. that additional testing is in progress because the first
tests did not confirm the original results. In six cases, the retests
confirmed the original inclusion or exclusion, but the H.P.D.'s
statistical analysis was off."
She said that defendants and their lawyers were being told of these
results, and that they were free to file motions contesting their
convictions.
That approach has critics.
"In Harris County," said William C. Thompson, a professor of criminology
at the University of California, Irvine who has followed the crime
laboratory scandals closely, "defendants were prosecuted with flawed
scientific evidence and defended by court-appointed lawyers who lacked the
knowledge and resources to challenge it and complain about the injustice.
Now that the scandal has come to light, the system is relying on the same
inept, timid lawyers to make it right."
There were signs of problems in Mr. Rodriguez's case from the start.
On February 24, 1987, 2 men abducted and raped a 14-year-old girl. One,
Manuel Beltran, confessed. Mr. Beltran and his brother Uvaldo said the 2nd
rapist was Isidro Yanez. Mr. Yanez's car was used in the abduction. The
victim selected Mr. Yanez and Mr. Rodriguez from photographs before
identifying Mr. Rodriguez as the 2nd rapist.
Mr. Rodriguez had an alibi: he was working at a factory that made bed
frames at the time of the rape, and his boss swore to that in court.
So it was Mr. Bolding who provided the crucial testimony against Mr.
Rodriguez. He said Mr. Yanez's blood type categorically excluded him as a
possible rapist.
"Is he a possible donor of the semen?" a prosecutor, Bill Hawkins, asked
at the trial, referring to Mr. Yanez.
"No, sir," Mr. Bolding responded, "he is not."
In his opening and closing statements, Mr. Hawkins hammered this point
home. "Scientific evidence really nails this man to the wall," he said of
Mr. Rodriguez. It "shows beyond a doubt that Isidro Yanez could not have
committed the offense."
Yet recent court-ordered DNA testing shows that Mr. Yanez's DNA profile
matches a pubic hair recovered at the crime scene.
Mr. Hawkins did not respond to a message seeking comment. Nor did Jack
Roady, the prosecutor who has been supervising the retesting in the
Rodriguez case, or Chuck Rosenthal, the Harris County district attorney.
Through a prison spokeswoman, Mr. Yanez, who is serving time for
kidnapping, declined a request for an interview.Mr. Bolding's misstatement
was fundamental and egregious, the experts' report said.
"There is absolutely no scientific basis for Bolding's testimony that
Isidro Yanez could not have been the donor of the semen samples," the
scientists wrote.
Dr. Johnson, the former DNA laboratory director, agreed. "That's
kindergarten stuff," she said.
Mr. Bolding, speaking generally, said his conclusion was scientifically
defensible. "You can have as many experts as you want," he said.
Mr. Rodriguez, now 43, said his 17 years behind bars have ruined his life
and torn his family apart. He has 4 daughters and a son, though he has not
seen anyone in his family for many years.
"My mom came to visit me a couple of times," he said in a telephone
interview. "I'd say about 4 or 5 times since I been locked up. Of course,
that was back in the early 90's."
Now, though, he said he was growing optimistic.
"It feels good to me to know what's going on and to prove my innocence,"
he said.
Mr. Bolding retired in 2003 after police department investigators
recommended that he be terminated for various professional and supervisory
failures, including submitting false information to auditors in 2000 and
2001.
Last month, a judge in Midland, Tex., dismissed perjury charges against
Mr. Bolding, saying the statute of limitations had expired. In that case,
Mr. Bolding was accused of overstating his academic credentials in a 2002
sexual assault trial. He said a court reporter had transcribed his
testimony incorrectly.
(source: New York Times)
