"After many years of bad press, people nationwide had heard of the
disastrous condition of the Houston Police Department Crime Laboratory,
and similar stories emerged about labs around the country. The need
for improvement became clear. However, comprehending the causes of
dysfunctional labs, and more importantly, the path toward improving
forensic labs remains elusive. So, Grits has asked me to announce the publication of my book,
Cops in Lab Coats: Curbing Wrongful Convictions through Independent Forensic Laboratories,
published this year by Carolina Academic Press. The book addresses the
national problems plaguing forensic science, holding up the Houston
Police Department Crime Laboratory as a prime example. It details how
shoddy forensic science contributed to the wrongful conviction of
George Rodriguez who served 17 years in prison before being exonerated.
The book then delves into the most critical areas of national concern
in forensic science including cognitive bias in lab testing,
underfunding of labs, proficiency testing, accreditation, forensic
fraud, and the basic reliability of various forensic disciplines, among
other issues. A press release about the book is found
here. ........ The book does not just trash the HPD lab, however. It also tells the
tale of a lab transformed. It details the city’s project to remove the
lab from the organizational control of HPD and make it an independent
lab. Making police labs independent of law enforcement was recommended
by the National Academy of Sciences in their comprehensive report of
forensic science (
here).
In April of 2014, the HPD Crime Lab ceased to exist, and the Houston
Forensic Science Center took its place. In the process of making the
lab independent, city leaders also invested in the lab, hiring leaders
with national, and even international, reputations and providing support
for improvements across the entire lab, leading to
internationally-recognized accreditation for the lab which was announced
in September of 2014. The elimination of its massive sexual assault
kit backlog in 2013 is yet another way the lab has made huge strides of
late, as reported by Grits
here.
" Prof. Sandra Guerra Thompson
was on the original Timothy Cole Panel on
Wrongful Convictions, has published the new book described in this post on forensic error, and is the director of the
Criminal Justice Institute at the University of Houston Law School. http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.ca/2015/11/houstons-forensic-lab-from-national.html
