Inmates Want Houston's Crime Lab Evidence Reviewed

More than 150 inmates whose convictions may be based on faulty Houston crime lab evidence have asked that their cases be reviewed, a judge said Thursday.

Since Oct. 22, Judge Mary Bacon, a retired state district judge overseeing the review of 180 convictions with flawed blood-typing evidence, has conducted hearings with all inmates currently incarcerated in those cases. Of 160 inmates contacted at various Texas prisons via video conferences, all but four agreed to have their cases reviewed.

The hearings are the first step in a plan that Harris County's 22 criminal state district judges developed last month to review cases with problematic blood-typing evidence from the Houston Police Department's crime lab.