CSI Houston: drama

The city’s Forensic Science Center should remain independent of law enforcement.

We’ve all watched those prime-time crime dramas showing clever forensic scientists in designer clothing solving mysteries and bringing murderers to justice. But, of course, what has happened in real crime labs is quite different, especially here in Houston.

On a rainy Wednesday afternoon in 2003, a young man named Josiah Sutton walked out of the Harris County Jail and was greeted by a throng of ecstatic relatives and a phalanx of cameras witnessing a pivotal moment in local criminal justice history.

Investigative reporters had exposed that shockingly shoddy interpretation of DNA tests conducted by the Houston Police Department’s crime laboratory had sent an innocent teenager to prison for a rape he didn’t commit. Disturbing stories about problems within HPD’s crime lab had circulated for years, but the image of Sutton going free after wrongly spending more than four years in prison put a face on a scandal that reverberates to this day.

A series of mayors and police chiefs have since grappled with internal scandals and ongoing problems involving how investigators handle evidence gathered at crime scenes. Ultimately, city officials decided the best way to restore faith and confidence in the lab was to sever it from the police department. So they created the Houston Forensic Science Center, a civilian-managed organization independent of HPD that has conducted crime-scene investigations for the last two years.

The new leadership, in a meeting with the editorial board, touted much improved scientific results. But it also said that all is not smooth with the transition. Uniformed HPD crime-scene specialists who once worked directly under the command of colleagues in the Homicide Division now find themselves working for civilians. And for a time, detectives who used to directly phone forensic investigators for help were funneled through a call center that once notoriously put a cop on hold for more than an hour.

A highly critical audit ordered by the new center’s leadership concluded some crime-scene technicians lack basic skills to do their jobs. At crime scenes, those investigators have been treated like “garbage collectors available for any menial task,” the report implied. The audit also concluded that access to police shooting scenes was granted to too many people, including attorneys for the police union, before forensic specialists could finish their jobs. (We can only guess what would happen if a lawyer for a man shot by a police officer tried to stroll past the crime scene tape.)

Now Houston’s interim police chief and the head of the city’s largest police union want control of the Crime Scene Unit taken away from the Houston Forensic Science Center and returned to the police department. The union’s leader has told reporters the old system worked just fine back when detectives simply used their cell phones to directly call individual crime scene investigators who worked out of the homicide division.

Maybe that’s the easiest way to do the job, but that’s contrary to the whole principle behind an independent crime lab. We agree with former HPD Chief Charles McClelland, who told the Chronicle’s Lise Olsen that putting the Crime Scene Unit back under the command of HPD is a bad idea.

“I don’t think it would build confidence in the public’s mind — absolutely not,” McClelland said. “To solve the issue is to have extremely well-trained evidence technicians that are independent of HPD.”

And in order to accomplish that goal, the Houston Forensic Science Center needs the resources to fulfill its role in our criminal justice system. Right now, Houston’s crime lab facilities are spread around 11 floors in four different buildings. Many of its personnel are still inside the HPD headquarters on Travis Street, which is not exactly the best place for a crime lab that’s supposed to be independent of the police department. A piece of new equipment that forensic scientists would like to use to test samples of Kush hasn’t even been purchased because there’s no room for it in the old building. Even if there was a place for it, they say they’re afraid of plugging it into a wall outlet for fear it would bring down the whole building’s electrical system.

Small wonder Mayor Sylvester Turner, grappling with severe budget constraints, has contemplated merging the city’s crime lab with Harris County’s facility. His predecessor rejected that idea because the county facility answers to commissioners court rather than an independent civilian body.

We’re all in favor of cooperation between city and county government, but we think this proposed merger is the wrong way to go. Financial considerations shouldn’t trump the necessity of processing crime scene evidence under an organizational structure that’s clearly independent of law enforcement.

Josiah Sutton ultimately received $118,750 in compensation for his wrongful imprisonment, but we still owe something to him and every other wrongly convicted citizen. We need to do everything we can to ensure the integrity of criminal investigations. And as a key part of that guarantee of integrity, we believe the Houston Forensic Science Center should remain independent.