[PAA-Discuss] [amnestyhouston] Texas criminal justice organizations have begun reviewi...
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Juli3 at aol.com
Sun Jan 31 15:44:17 EST 2016
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Texas-lea
ding-massive-review-of-criminal-cases-6796205.php?cmpid=gsa-chron-result
Texas leading massive review of criminal cases based on change in DNA
calculations
By _Gabrielle Banks_
(http://www.houstonchronicle.com/author/gabrielle-banks/)
January 30, 2016 Updated: January 31, 2016 10:03am
Photo: Steve Gonzales, Houston Chronicle
Galveston County District Attorney Jack Roady, right, and Matthew Shawhan,
an assistant district attorney for the county, show an image of a
screwdriver believed to have been used by German Perez-Vasquez in a homicide. DNA
analysis on the screwdriver initially showed there was a 1 in 290 million
chance that a different person of a similar ethnic back ground to the
defendant had touched it. The new protocol, released back in January 2010 but
implemented unevenly across the country, found a 1 in 38 chance.
Galveston County District Attorney Jack Roady, right, and Matthew Shawhan,
an assistant district attorney for the county, show an image of a
screwdriver believed to have been used by German Perez-Vasquez in a ... more
Images taken last week from trial exhibits show a screwdriver believed to
be one of several weapons used in a Galveston homicide. DNA analysis on the
screwdriver initially showed there was a 1 in 290 million chance that a
person of a similar ethnic background to the defendant had touched it. The
new protocol found a 1 in 38 chance. The differing estimates had no bearing
on the case, since the defendant claimed he killed the victim in self
defense. But the results had a startling effect among criminal justice
stakeholders, helping them understand the new protocol could have significantly
different results. ( Steve Gonzales / Houston Chronicle )
Texas criminal justice organizations have begun reviewing thousands of
cases that relied on an outdated method for calculating the odds that a
particular person left DNA evidence at a crime scene.
At issue are samples that include more than one person's DNA, such as
evidence swabbed from a countertop after a convenience store heist or taken
from bodi ly fluids in a rape kit. Experts revised national guidelines for
calculating odds in these scenarios six years ago, but no one sounded an alarm
or asked prosecutors to re-examine cases that used the previous
methodology.
Now, Texas labs and lawyers are reviewing pending prosecutions and
thousands of adjudicated cases, including those of death row defendants who had
this type of evidence presented at trial.
The science behind DNA testing hasn't changed, but for mixed samples,
analysts now focus on fewer factors in their results before determining the
odds of someone being at the scene. The findings are more conservative.
< span
style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#222222;">Inaccurate calculations still might be happening around the country, said
Barry Scheck, director of the Innocence Project, a legal nonprofit that has
reviewed post-conviction DNA evidence since 1992. Scheck took an informal
poll last week among forensic scientists at a national conference on the
outdated "multiple contributor" DNA protocol, and all agreed: "Texas is the
only place that's systematically trying to correct it."
_Where to write if you have a problematic mixture DNA case_
(http://www.houstonchronicle.com/about/article/Where-to-%20write-if-you-have-a-problematic-
mixture-6795991.php)
_Panel considers wrongful conviction reforms_
(http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/politics/texas/article/Panel-considers-wrongful-conviction-reforms-
6599368.php)
_Appeals court rejects death row inmate's latest bid for DNA_
(http://www.houstonchronicle.com/neighborhood/woodlands/news/article/Appeals-court-reject
s-death-row-inmate-s-latest-6596973.ph%20p)
The review was initiated by crime labs and coordinated by the state's
Forensic Science Commission. Prosecutors, defense lawyers and judges have
joined the effort to comb through old cases, contact affected parties and, in
some instances, halt the judicial process to ensure the science is up to
date.
Signs posted in Texas prison libraries in December tell inmates in English
and Spanish about the issue and provide a Harris County post office box to
which inmates may write if they believe their cases included this kind of
DNA evidence.
Bob Wicoff, head of the appellate division for the Harris County Public
Defender's Office, said about five to seven letters arrive each day, but he
anticipates the box eventually could receive hundreds.
Backed by a $400,000 grant from the Texas Indigent Defense Commission,
Wicoff will spend the next several years steering the statewide effort for the
defense bar, aided by volunteer lawyers and law students. He will train
lawyers to understand the science and vet cases to see whether they meet the
criteria.
Methods under scrutiny
The new results may have little or no bearing on a defendant's guilt.But
in a rare show of solidarity in the adversarial legal system, leaders of the
state's science, law enforcement and criminal-defense communities have
banded together to deal with the problem.
"Texas is really the only state that's taking it seriously," said Sandra
Guerra Thompson, a University of Houston criminal-law professor who has
studied wrongful convictions and serves on the board of the Houston Forensic
Science Center. "Instead of looking at this as a big mess, I think we need to
be applauding our state's leaders for having the ap paratus in the first
place to deal with this issue and for using it."
Forensic science methods, including arson analysis, ballistic test
interpretation and bite-mark comparisons, have come under scrutiny nationally for
being inconsistent. Texas is far ahead of other states, Thompson said,
because it has broader requirements for prosecutors to notify defense attorneys
if a problem arises with scientific evidence.
_The new protocol became official in January 2010 _
(https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/lab/biometric-analysis/codis/swgdam.pdf/view) when a national
advisory group updated its recommendation abou t the method scientists used to
calculate the probability that a particular person's DNA profile - swabbed,
say, from a doorknob or pistol - could appear in nature. The new calculation
required that more thresholds be met before the data could be conclusive.
For the most part, though, labs around the country maintained their own
procedures, which may not have been consistent with the national
recommendation.
But labs everywhere took note in April 2015 _when the Washington, D.C.,
crime lab lost its accreditation _
(https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/national-accreditation-board-suspends-all-dna-testing-at-district-lab/2015/
04/26/2da43d9a-ec24-11e4-a55f-38924fca94f9_story.html) and was forced to
suspend operations due to substandard scientific practices in hundreds of
criminal cases. Among the problems experts highlighted were the inappropriate
probability calculations used to analyze mixed DNA.
A glaring example of _the lab's faulty analysis came from a swab of a
stolen car's gearshift, the Washington Post reported_
(https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/dc-
prosecutors-criticize-city-crime-labs-handling-of-some-dna-cases/2015/03/05/b5244f88-bea4-11e4-b274-e5209a3bc9a9_story.html) .
The lab said the chances a random person had the DNA features found on the
shifter were 1 in 3,290. The auditors said the likelihood was 1 in 9.
New calculations
When the D.C. crime lab came under fire, Lynn Garcia, general counsel for
the Texas Forensic Science Commission, contacted Dr. Bruce Budowle,
co-director of the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification.
Budowle was one of two experts who had audited the D.C. lab.
Garcia said Budowle told her the problematic calculations _were occurring
"everywhere, all across the county."_
(http://dfs.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dfs/page_content/attachments/USAO%20Report%20Fi%20nal.pdf)
An unrelated FBI announcement in May 2015 set the Texas effort in motion.
The bureau notified crime labs it had _data-entry_
(https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/lab/biometric-analysis/codis/amended-fbi-str-final-6-16-15.pdf)
_errors _
(http://www.ascld-lab.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/FBI-STR-amended-publication-and-data-tables-6-3-2015.pdf) in its population database, which
scientists use to calculate probabilitiesTexas labs told the district
attorneys they would recalculate the data upon request.
Jack Roady, district attorney for Galveston County, asked the Texas
Department of Public Safety to recalculate DNA probabilities in his cases and put
pending cases on hold until new results came back.
In August, the results came back for _a screwdriver believed to have been
used in a homicide_
(http://www.chron.com/neighborhood/bayarea/article/Jealous-lover-sentenced-to-68-years-for-killing-6506839.php) . The initial
results estimated the chance of somebody other than the Hispanic defendant
leaving a particular DNA profile on the screwdriver was 1 in 290 million among
Hispanics. The revised report found the probability was 1 in 38.
The original results said the defendant's and victim's DNA could have been
on the screwdriver but ruled out the presence of DNA from a female
defendant in the slaying. The new results said the woman could have left DNA on
the screwdriver as well.
As the justice community began sharing Roady's startling change in
statistics, prosecutors around the state hustled to retest DNA mixture results on
pending cases. Next came the cases that had led to convictions, including
defendants on death row.
Lynn Hardaway, at the Harris County District Atto rney's Office, sent
notifications to 31 death-row inmates who might have been affected. The Texas
attorney general notified another 50 condemned inmates, according to
spokeswoman Cynthia Meyer.
The Forensic Science Commission asked labs across Texas to begin
identifying DNA tests they'd done using the outdated method. Prosecutors in Harris,
Dallas, Tarrant, Bexar and other counties began going through lists from
their crime labs. At the commission's suggestion, the Texas District and
County Attorney Associationadvised prosecutors to inform affected defendants
and tell them how to proceed if they wanted their results recalculated.
"We have a duty to look," said Inger Chandler , chief of the Conviction
Integrity Unit for the Harris County DA. "We're not going to turn a blind eye
to the fact that there might be a problem out there on cases."
'Could take a long, long time'
Dawn Boswell, who headed the review for the DA in Tarrant County, said
prosecutors work with five crime labs. One lab identified 3,400 DNA samples
that used mixture analysis. Of those, about 300 of the samples belonged to
cases that went before a judge, and 200 resulted in convictions. After
reviewing those 200 convictions, she said, the DA sent out 13 notices to
defendants whose case s involved the outdated protocol.
The Harris County DA has flagged 24,000 DNA cases to review. The effort
involves a lab-by-lab review of cases, and each lab keeps its records
differently. Once defendants have been notified, they're instructed to contact
Wicoff, who is heading the defense effort.
Stakeholders agree this will be the biggest post-adjudication review
project they or possibly any jurisdiction has undertaken.
Wicoff plans to set up trainings in the Panhandle, Dallas or Fort Worth,
Austin, Houston and the Rio Grande Valley at wh ich lawyers can get
scientific background on mixture DNA protocol and learn the legal remedies if they
think they have a case.
"It's impossible to say how many cases we'll have to review," Wicoff said,
"but it could take a long, long time."
__._,_.___
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