Texas police lab gets $645K in funding for DNA testing

By Mihir Zaveri
Houston Chronicle

HOUSTON — Expanded testing for property crimes has helped create a backlog of more than 4,600 DNA cases in the Harris County crime lab, straining its ability to complete the processing of such evidence for sexual assaults and even homicide cases in a timely manner.

Officials with the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences say a relentless uptick in property crime, robbery and assault cases has stretched the lab's resources. The spikes can be traced in part to the lab's own push in recent years to expand its forensic operations and offer law enforcement agencies more DNA testing for property crimes.

The lab serves more than 60 law enforcement agencies, which rely on it to process DNA evidence as part of criminal investigations. Officials are particularly concerned about how the backlog has affected sexual assault cases, which they've pledged to make a priority as the cases have recently taken longer to finish.

Sexual assault cases took on average of 172 days to complete in 2015, far from the county's 60-day goal and the roughly 60 to 90 days that they took from 2009 to 2013 The average for homicides and death investigations is now 238 days, though it is more difficult to set a benchmark in such cases because evidence often comes in piecemeal over time.

The backlog - defined by county lab officials as containing any case that has not been completed - has set off a debate over how to prioritize DNA testing in the short term and handle lesser offenses such as property crimes in the long term.

A DNA testing backlog has "serious implications for public confidence in the justice system," said Clete Snell, a criminal justice professor at the University of Houston-Downtown. He said delays in testing can postpone trials and can torpedo prosecutions because of lack of evidence. He said that in some cases, wrongfully convicted people wait longer in jail for DNA tests to prove their innocence.

"There is great potential for a miscarriage of justice," Snell said.

The district attorney's office declined to comment on the backlog issue. The DA's office has not indicated that the backlog has affected any prosecutions, said Roger Kahn, director of the Harris County crime lab.

Still, officials acknowledged they are essentially conducting triage as they decide what services they can cut to bring down the turnaround time on processing DNA for sexual assault and homicide cases.

"I think once you get behind, you really have to prioritize things to catch up," Kahn said. "Once you catch up, then you can reassess and distribute resources more uniformly."

Kahn said the lab already has essentially halted analyses of DNA in some property crimes. Last July, the institute said it would suspend "touch DNA" analysis - such as testing for microscopic skin cells containing DNA that naturally rub off on objects - for almost all property crimes.

The moves have contributed to a drop in the number of sexual assault cases that take more than 60 days to complete: after reaching 252 in January, that number was 148 last month, Kahn said.

He stressed that the high numbers are also in part because of new protocols to reanalyze some cases that have samples containing multiple people's DNA. These, he said, can often be the most complex cases.

All this being said, Kahn acknowledged that the turnaround times are too high.

He said lab officials are looking at halting some analyses of assault and robbery cases. The lab is also planning to work with sexual assault nurse examiners to better identify samples to analyze in such cases, and is weighing other possible workflow improvements.

For their part, county commissioners on Tuesday approved the crime lab's move to apply for a National Institute of Justice grant of more than $645,000 that would help its DNA division - the Forensic Genetic Laboratory - reduce the backlog. It has applied for and received the same grant since 2005.

Commissioners also approved a roughly $100,000 contract to outsource some property-crime testing to a private company, Bode Cellmark Forensics, an uncommon move but one that the county has made in the past.

For some, the revelations about the lab's current predicament - and a backlog that has more than tripled over the past three years - came as a surprise.

The crime lab has been held up by many in the county as a sterling counterpart to Houston's operation over the years. In 2002, testing was temporarily suspended at the Houston Police Department's crime lab after an audit cited unqualified personnel, lax protocols and shoddy facilities, including a roof that leaked rainwater onto evidence.

At the time, the Houston police lab carried a decades-old backlog of thousands of untested rape kits. In 2013, the City Council outsourced the testing - for more than 6,660 DNA cases - to two private firms at a cost of $4.4 million.

After the turmoil, city leaders in 2012 created a local government corporation, called the Houston Forensic Science Center to take over the lab operations from HPD.

Some local officials have cited the HPD lab's past problems in arguing for a merger of the city and county facilities, each of which is among the largest publicly funded crime labs in the country. The Houston lab handles 5,000 to 6,000 DNA cases each year. Last year the county DNA lab received about 4,300 new cases.

County officials were questioned about the backlog and its impact at a Wednesday meeting of the county's criminal justice coordinating council.

"I've heard about all the good, great work y'all do," Precinct 3 Commissioner Steve Radack told crime lab officials. "I hear about all the awards you win. But I don't hear that you're behind. Now, the word is you're behind. The public didn't know you're behind, and I think some government officials didn't know you're behind, and y'all need to come up with some real, good plans to figure this out."

It's unclear what will happen to property crime cases, and possibly robbery and assault cases, that the county crime lab may set aside to focus on sexual assaults and homicides. Kahn said the lab works closely with law enforcement and the district attorney's office to prioritize cases, even those involving property crimes.

At Wednesday's meeting, District Attorney Devon Anderson questioned whether the lab should be making decisions of what types of cases to prioritize.

Sheriff Ron Hickman said telling the public that the county lab had the technology to solve crimes, but couldn't use it because of lack of resources, would not "play well."

"How do you get to say, 'No?'" Hickman said.

Kahn said the current focus is on sexual assault cases. Then lab officials, with other public officials, will determine how best to use the lab's resources.

The sheriff's office could not answer questions about the potential impact on cases Thursday.

Meanwhile, the city's crime lab is working to eliminate its own backlog of untested rape kits and reduce turnaround times to 30 days. Chief Operating Officer Peter Stout said the city lab was on track to meet that goal by July 1.

After initially erasing its rape kit backlog last year, the number began to creep up again this year.

Ramit Plushnick-Masti, a spokeswoman for Houston's crime lab, said that as of Wednesday it still had to process 61 untested rape kits. The lab also has a DNA testing backlog - defined as cases that have not been completed within 30 days of a request by a law enforcement agency - of 1,038.

The Houston crime lab also does not test for "touch DNA" in property crimes, one of the main factors county officials say was behind their backlog.

Stout said the city lab was attacking its backlog with "any number of tools" including overtime, workflow changes, and more hiring and equipment.

Said Stout: "Everybody in the country struggles with this."

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