Lab analyst’s failed test leads to review
A Houston forensic lab analyst failed a test meant to measure her attention to detail, leading to her firing and a mass notification about potentially tainted DNA tests in hundreds of Harris County criminal cases.
As of Friday, court officials and the Houston Forensic Science Center said they hadn’t identified any actual cases in which the now-former analyst, Rochelle Austen, had made mistakes.
But the failure of a lab proficiency test means that the lab had to notify the Harris County District Attorney’s Office and defense attorneys about Austen’s failure and potential weakness as an expert witness if she testifies in a trial in a case she worked on.
The list of cases worked on by Austen included “overwhelmingly very serious felonies” and includes Patrick Clark, the man accused of killing the rapper Takeoff, according to the district attorney’s office.
Other cases among the 392 being reviewed involve aggravated assaults, intoxication manslaughter and sexual assault of a child, according the district attorney’s office.
The district attorney’s office this week began notifying district courts and defense attorneys about the lab problems through documents known as Brady notices, which alert parties to potentially exculpatory evidence information about a case ahead of a trial.
According to the notice, Austen had at least twice been recorded making lab errors, including switching samples she was working on and processing incorrect samples. The mistakes noted in the Brady notice happened in April 2023 and March 2024.
Austen, who had worked at the city’s forensic lab since 2019, was fired March 25.
In a statement, the forensic science center said the test Austen failed didn’t involved “actual cases or evidence.” Rather, she made errors on proficiency tests that are meant to measure “a forensic expert’s skills and understanding of HFSC’s processes.”
When Austen failed the proficiency test, the lab was required to notify the DA’s office about potential issues, according to the statement.
“The 392 cases do not represent cases where HFSC has identified errors, instead, it represents all the cases this analyst has worked and where the analyst could be called to testify,” the statement said.
The lab said its review of DNA from actual cases hadn’t yet revealed any issues.
The district attorney’s office said it was also working to notify parties in about 170 other cases in which there had already been a disposition.
DA’s office spokesman Joe Stinebaker said reviews of Austen’s work are being done on a caseby-case basis and that prosecutors in individual cases will decide whether DNA tests need to be redone.