I am so glad that someone will be reviewing Houston's crime lab cases. Just the thought that there could be people in prison for crimes they did not commit makes me sick to my stomach. It is bad enough when we have unsolved crimes. To put an innocent person, in prison is something that we as a society should not tolerate.
Harris County criminal judges plan to appoint a three-attorney panel to review 180 cases that may have been mishandled by the Houston police crime lab.
The cases were identified in June by a former Justice Department inspector hired by Houston.
Authorities earlier this week released a man who was wrongfully convicted of rape in the 1990s after the lab failed to identify semen on the victim’s bedsheet.
Testing by an outside lab this summer found DNA evidence from another man.
Ronald Taylor was the third Texas prison inmate to be freed because of problems with the Houston crime lab.
The review calls for three defense attorneys to determine the importance of crime lab evidence to the 180 convictions—and act accordingly.
They likely will report to retired Judge Mary Bacon.
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