By Edwin Colfax
Texas has seen more than its share of controversy surrounding forensic science in recent months.
Most recently, the Houston Chronicle reported that an audit of the Houston Crime Lab’s fingerprint division identified problems in more than half of the 548 cases selected for review. The problems discovered were serious enough to lead the authorities to require that more than 4000 violent crime cases from the past six years be reanalyzed—a process that no doubt will be very costly for the city of Houston. According to the Chronicle, the Latent Prints Comparison Unit suffers from “significant deficiencies with staffing, a lack of proper supervisory review, inadequate quality control, technical competence inconsistent with industry standards, insufficient training and inadequate standard operating procedures.” The Houston Police have confirmed that a criminal investigation into misconduct by at least one employee of the fingerprint unit has been opened. In addition to the shoddy work that was done, the unit faces a backlog of some 6000 cases.
These revelations come at a time when a much-needed review of forensic oversight in Texas has been postponed indefinitely.
The Texas Forensic Science Commission had been planning a series of “roundtable” events around the state at which criminal justice stakeholder groups would discuss a recent critical report by the National Academies of Science (NAS), Improving Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward, and the implications of the report for forensic science in Texas. That report identified a number of significant shortcomings in the nation’s forensic science system that threaten to undermine the accuracy and integrity of forensic evidence in our courts, including issues of training, bias, resources and a lack of independence and oversight. These same issues are at the heart of the evidence debacle in Houston.
This critical review of the Texas forensic system is on hold because of the Forensic Science Commission has found itself at the center of yet another forensic controversy surrounding its investigation into false arson evidence used against Cameron Willingham, who was executed in 1994. Governor Rick Perry, who turned down a clemency request that included a leading expert’s report that the trial evidence was scientifically invalid, abruptly replaced four commissioners just two days ahead of a meeting at which they were to hear from the state’s arson expert, whose findings confirm that the forensic evidence could not support a finding of arson. That meeting was cancelled by Perry’s new chairman, who is delaying any further action pending the adoption of new rules and policies for the commission he says are needed.
If there could be any doubt that there is an urgent need to act on the NAS report, it was erased by the latest revelations from the Houston Crime Lab. One of the questions that the Commission’s roundtables could be addressing is why Texas law explicitly exempts fingerprint analysis from forensic oversight. Most forensic evidence is only admissible in Texas courts if it is analyzed by an accredited lab, but that is not the case with fingerprints. The latent prints unit in Houston was not accredited, though other divisions in the lab were. While only the beginning of quality assurance, accreditation at least requires some baseline for good quality control policies and management practices (though it does not provide much in the way of ongoing oversight and monitoring of the actual work being done in the labs).
In fact, much fingerprint processing is not associated with a crime labs at all, which is part of the reason Texas law explicitly exempts it from the accreditation requirement. Latent prints forensic work also does not fall under the purview of the Texas Forensic Science Commission, the mission of which is very narrowly applied to investigating allegations of forensic negligence or misconduct in accredited forensic labs. This means that a huge portion of forensic evidence is largely unregulated in Texas.
Texas must recognize that there are serious gaps in its system of forensic oversight. These problems have resulted in innocent people being imprisoned for many years, and they have impeded our ability to convict criminals. The Willingham case raises troubling questions about how forensic methodologies should be validated, and how new scientific developments should be communicated within the criminal justice system. The fingerprint problems encompass many flaws, and show the need for independent laboratories, more robust ongoing oversight, and higher standards for analyst training and certification, among other reforms.
Texas must also recognize that relying on private accreditation programs is an incomplete solution, and that the mission of the Forensic Science Commission is defined in an overly narrow and reactive way. The changes needed are complex and structural—independent laboratories, a commission empowered to set and enforce meaningful quality standards for starters—but we will not be able to meet the challenges until we start the sort of comprehensive review that the Forensic Science Commission had planned. In the meantime, it remains to be seen how many criminal investigations were damaged by the failures in Houston, how many crimes went unsolved, and how many victims might have been denied justice because of a lack of forensic oversight and accountability.
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