HOUSTON CRIME LAB; POLICE SAY NO WRONGFUL FINGERPRINT ID'S; CHRONICLE EXPOSES 1996 CASE LEADING TO INCARCERATION; ARE THERE OTHERS?

"The Houston Police Department says it hasn’t found any suspects wrongly identified by its troubled fingerprint analysis unit in a review of fingerprint evidence from 2004 to 2009.

But a misidentification from 1996 uncovered by the Houston Chronicle raises questions about whether there were other misidentifications at the fingerprint lab and whether the costly review should be expanded to cover more years.

A person was wrongly incarcerated in a capital murder investigation after their fingerprint was identified as that of a suspect, according to disciplinary records recently obtained through a public records request"....................................

"But the discovery caused immediate alarm among City Council members and defense attorneys who were also previously unaware.

Forensic evidence expert and Houston defense attorney Bob Wicoff said it was “alarming — it’s a pretty scary scenario.”

“Of course it’s of concern,” said Wicoff, a member of the HPD crime lab review panel. “I think it might be a good idea for HPD to undertake a review of all the convictions touched by these fingerprint people to see if these convictions were compromised.”

City Councilwoman Jolanda Jones agreed.

“I believe we should go back and retest, but I don’t think they (HPD) should be in charge over who retests,” Jones said. “It’s like letting the fox guard the henhouse.”"

REPORTERS MOISES MENDOZA AND JAMES PINKERTON: THE HOUSTON CHRONICLE: Wikipedia informs us that, "The Houston Chronicle is the largest daily newspaper in Texas, USA, headquartered in the Houston Chronicle Building in Downtown Houston. As of March 2008, it is the ninth-largest newspaper by circulation in the United States."

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"The Houston Police Department says it hasn’t found any suspects wrongly identified by its troubled fingerprint analysis unit in a review of fingerprint evidence from 2004 to 2009," the Chronicle story by reporters Moise Mendoza and James Pinkerton, published on June 15, 2010, under the heading, "Botched fingerprint analysis raises questions," begins.

"But a misidentification from 1996 uncovered by the Houston Chronicle raises questions about whether there were other misidentifications at the fingerprint lab and whether the costly review should be expanded to cover more years," the story continues.

"A person was wrongly incarcerated in a capital murder investigation after their fingerprint was identified as that of a suspect, according to disciplinary records recently obtained through a public records request.

Because the document — a written reprimand — had little information, the identity of the person and facts of the case weren’t immediately clear. It’s also unclear whether the wrongly identified suspect was convicted or how much time he or she spent in jail.

Police said they were attempting to locate the file and didn’t have any information about it. A spokeswoman for District Attorney Pat Lykos said she was unavailable to comment.

The fingerprint examiner who made the wrong identification, Rafael Saldivar, was issued the written reprimand in April 1997 for the mistake. Saldivar, however, kept analyzing fingerprints until he was put on leave last year during an internal investigation into problems at the lab. He retired this spring after receiving another written reprimand for destroying “original handwritten notes instead of keeping them as required during the examination or re-examination of fingerprint evidence.”

Two other members of the unit were investigated but not reprimanded. Their lawyer has said they feel like scapegoats.

In an interview Tuesday, Tim Oettmeier, the executive assistant chief in charge of the fingerprint unit, said he had been unaware of the misidentification and wants to learn more about the case before deciding whether to extend the review of fingerprint cases to the 1990s.
Concern on council

“I don’t want to speculate on that until I read the case, and I see what the facts are,” he said.

He said he couldn’t explain why he didn’t know about the misidentification.

But the discovery caused immediate alarm among City Council members and defense attorneys who were also previously unaware.

Forensic evidence expert and Houston defense attorney Bob Wicoff said it was “alarming — it’s a pretty scary scenario.”

“Of course it’s of concern,” said Wicoff, a member of the HPD crime lab review panel. “I think it might be a good idea for HPD to undertake a review of all the convictions touched by these fingerprint people to see if these convictions were compromised.”

City Councilwoman Jolanda Jones agreed.

“I believe we should go back and retest, but I don’t think they (HPD) should be in charge over who retests,” Jones said. “It’s like letting the fox guard the henhouse.”

An aide for Mayor Annise Parker said she hadn’t been briefed on the situation and couldn’t comment.

Through his attorney Earl Musick, Saldivar declined to comment.

“He’s not interested in explaining any of that stuff,” Musick said. “He’s retired from the city and just wants to get on with his life.”
Consultant expenses

As for the allegations of note destruction, Musick said Saldivar was given inadequate training and didn’t know he needed to keep his old notes.

City Council today is slated to discuss giving the police department $2.3 million to allow consultants to continue operating the department’s fingerprint unit through the next fiscal year, which begins July 1. That would bring the total paid to Ron Smith & Associates, based in Mississippi, to $5.2 million.

The consultants largely took over analyzing fingerprints after an audit last year revealed police fingerprint analysts were failing to find viable fingerprints on evidence. Consultants have been working through a backlog of cases and performed the review of more than 4,300 violent crime cases from 2004 to 2009.

Though they found no wrongful identifications by fingerprint analysts in those cases — including in Saldivar’s — they did find technical errors 62 percent of the time, police said.

Consultants are also supposed to help to retrain fingerprint analysts and help fix the unit. But five of the six police personnel being trained to analyze prints have either quit or were deemed incompetent, police said."

The story can be found at:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7055397.html

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be accessed at:

http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith

Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; hlevy15@gmail.com;