11/12/2002

By Anna Werner / 11 News Defenders

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HOUSTON (KHOU) - - Crime lab scientists are the new heroes of law enforcement. Their detective work can catch a criminal or clear the innocent.

But after a three month investigation, the 11 News Defenders have discovered problems at the Houston Police Department crime lab that may be allowing some of the guilty to get away, while the innocent go to prison.

Meet a man from Fort Bend county we'll call Dan whose 13-year old stepdaughter accused him of a horrible crime.

Anna: "She claimed that you had sex with her?"

Dan: "Pretty much. Yes Ma'am."

So Dan did the unexpected, he called the police.

Dan: "I felt like I didn't have anything to fear. If somebody investigated then I would be exonerated."

Instead, he ended up handcuffed and arrested. But he said he still had hope.

Dan: "I thought the DNA evidence would clear me."

It was evidence that was to be tested by the Houston Police Department crime lab.

Dan: "I gave them my own DNA in some of my blood."

But then Dan said he got the worst surprise of his life.

Dan: "They came back and told us then that I was guilty, that it was my DNA they had found. There had to be a flaw somewhere."

And it turns out, there was.

Fingerprints, skin cells, DNA. They are the clues that police crime labs use to help tell us who may have committed a crime. But the Defenders have discovered the Houston Police Department crime lab is making what experts say are mistakes - - serious, even dangerous mistakes that could let the guilty get away and put the innocent in prison.

Take the case of Dan. His attorney was Jolanda Jones.

Jones: "The state's saying your guy did it. We have semen. And the test comes back and it's 100 percent your guy."

And what the HPD lab had tested was a piece of toilet tissue found in a bathroom wastebasket.

Jones: "Based on the story the girl told after he did what he did, she wiped it off, hence it's on the toilet paper."

And the labs' report did indeed claim "the DNA pattern detected on the tissue" 'matched' Dan.

Dan: "I honestly thought about committing suicide. It was that bad."

But then Jones hired a specialist, Elizabeth Johnson. She's a forensic scientist at a private laboratory in California and the former head of Harris County's own DNA lab.

Anna: "How would you rate the Houston Police Department's crime lab?"

Johnson: "They're the worst I've ever seen and consistently so."

Anna: "The worst you've ever seen?"

Johnson: "The worst I've ever seen."

So what about Dan's case?

Anna: "What they were saying was, yeah we found this guy's DNA."

Johnson: "That's right."

Anna: "But was that the point?"

Johnson: "No, that's not the point at all. The point is, is it mixed with DNA from the stepdaughter?"

That's something the labs' report never even brought up.

Anna: "So what did their analysis prove?"

Johnson: "Zero."

Anna: "Is it evidence of guilt on his part?"

Johnson: "Absolutely not."

Johnson pointed that out in a letter she sent to the Judge on the case. In the letter she called HPD's lab report "extraordinarily incomplete" and "scientifically irresponsible."

So the Judge ordered the lab to produce its actual tests and data in the case. But months went by.

Anna: "You never see it?"

Jones: "No."

And so,finally, the court dismissed the case stating that the police lab "will not cooperate with the District Attorney's office" and that they also "refused to follow this court's orders."

Matt Hennessy is a Houston defense lawyer who said he has learned by experience.

Hennessy: "There's good reason to doubt the results that come out of that lab."

Anna: "You don't trust them?"

Hennessy: "I don't trust them at all."

One of Hennessy's clients was accused of raping a young woman behind a Houston nightclub.

Anna: "This is where she claimed it happened?"

Hennessy: "Right. She says right here on this pavement is where she was on her hands and knees being raped."

She claimed it had been anal rape, so samples were taken and sent to the HPD crime lab where they were tested. The lab's supposed results confirmed the woman's story.

Anna: "They're claiming that fluid from a man was present in the anal cavities of this woman?"

Hennessy: "That's right."

As a result Hennessy's client was arrested and indicted. But a funny thing happened on the way to trial.

Hennessy: "We asked the crime lab to produce the actual test strips so we could look a them."

Anna: "What was the response?"

Hennessy: "I was told at the time it was their common practice not to save these test strips."

But then Hennessy sent a subpoena not to the lab, but to the HPD property room.

Hennessy: "When that happened, low and behold, we found the test strips."

And they also found something shocking.

Hennessy: "We noticed the strip that read 'anal' was negative!"

Anna: "And this was a test that you had been told was positive?"

Hennessy: "That's right."

The jury found his client not guilty. But Hennessy says there's still a problem.

Hennessy: "The problem is that someone's lying or someone's incompetent and that incompetence or that lie resulted in someone being charged with rape."

And then there's George Rios, a resident of death row.

Rios: "I feel terrified what these people are doing with me. I told them I'm innocent."

Innocent,he claims, of the murder of a woman in her 70's who lived across the street from Rios. He became a suspect when a neighbor with a grudge suggested the police investigate him.

Rios: "I told them I didn't know anything about that crime."

They questioned and held him for three days, then released him. But months later they picked him up again.

Rios: "They told me I had been indicted for capital murder."

And Rios said police then threatened a false confession out of him.

Rios: "They told me, sit down, we're gonna tell you how it happened."

So what prompted Rio's arrest? HPD lab test results on two hairs found at the crime scene said "DNA type detected on hair matches the DNA type from George Rios."

But DNA expert Elizabeth Johnson says that's an exaggeration.

Johnson: "This is a match at one genetic region which is virtually meaningless."

What makes it meaningless? When a lab finds DNA at a crime scene, it can compare it to a suspect's DNA at, at least seven different DNA regions. The more regions that test the same, the more likely the crime scene DNA is from the suspect.

But if even one region is not the same, then the crime scene DNA cannot be from the suspect.

So in the Rios case, the HPD lab did test and find a "match," but only in one DNA region, without ever finding out about the other six. Knowing about those other six might have helped clear George Rios.

Dr. William Thompson, from the University of California at Irvine, is a nationally known expert on scientific evidence in the courts

Thompson: "If this is incompetence, it's gross incompetence, a repeated gross incompetence. After awhile, you have to wonder if they could really be that stupid."

We gave Dr. Thompson the lab results and court documents from seven HPD crime lab cases to study. His conclusion:

Thompson: "There are too many misstatements of fact, all of the same or similar type, all of which seemed to be designed to help convict somebody of a crime for me to think this could all be innocent."

The Houston Police Department promised to respond to claims made about its crime lab in an interview with 11 News Defenders. But when we supplied them with these cases and the ones our experts reviewed, they changed their minds and declined any comment.

And a footnote about one of the experts: Elizabeth Johnson. While working at the Harris County DNA lab, she got into a conflict with the District Attorney's office over a murder case, when her DNA work supported the innocence of a suspect. Johnson was eventually fired, but filed a whistleblower's lawsuit and won. The murder suspect was, eventually found innocent by a jury.

Tuesday night, in part two of our 11 News Defenders investigation, a case that angered our DNA experts the most. A young man is in prison that may be innocent and our experts say questionable HPD lab work may have helped put him there.

If you've got a tip, call the Defenders hotline at:1-877-367-5468 or send an e-mail to Anna Werner at: awerner@khou.com.