Also asks Ashcroft for help in sorting out HPD crime lab DNA problems
By ROMA KHANNA and DALE LEZON, Houston Chronicle

Houston Mayor Lee Brown is asking Gov. Rick Perry to place a moratorium on
some Harris County death penalty cases in which DNA evidence was processed
by the Police Department's troubled crime lab.

Brown also asked U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft for Justice
Department help in reviewing cases from the crime lab that were prosecuted
by the county's district attorney's office.

An independent audit of the police lab exposed numerous problems and
prompted the effort to review cases, which is being performed by the
district attorney's office. Auditors found the lab lacked proper
contamination controls, had unqualified personnel and shoddy techniques.

Retesting has been completed only in the case of Josiah Sutton, who was
arrested for an October 1998 rape when he was 16 and sentenced to 25 years
in prison. He was released on bond Wednesday after new DNA tests found he
could not have been an attacker in the crime.

Corey Ray, the mayor's spokesman, said the Sutton case played a part in
the mayor's decision. "After the Sutton case ... the mayor just wants to
make sure we answer all those questions about the HPD lab, particularly
dealing with DNA."

In a statement released Friday, Brown said: "There are a number of cases
that will be retested. Certainly as a former police chief and the Mayor of
this City, the thought of a wrongful conviction for any crime is
disturbing. However, we should not assume that any or all of the cases are
`wrongful convictions.'

"We should wait for retesting to be completed. Then I'll expect the
judicial process to correct or corroborate the convictions under
scrutiny."

Brown mailed letters to Perry requesting a moratorium on the cases until
they are reviewed.

"To restore the public confidence in our criminal justice system, it is
essential that the affected cases are reviewed," Brown wrote to Perry.
"Until all questions are answered concerning the DNA analyses, a
moratorium should be placed on those death penalty cases in which evidence
from the DNA section of the HPD crime lab was used during prosecution.
This is the right thing to do."

Kathy Walt, Perry's spokeswoman, said the governor does not believe a
moratorium is necessary. "The cases can be reviewed independently when the
cases come before him," she said.

In his letter to Ashcroft, Brown said the cases should be reviewed "not
only by local and state authorities, but also by the U.S. Department of
Justice."


Brown's letters were mailed on the day the Harris County district
attorney's office added 21 new cases -- including those of nine death row
inmates -- in which DNA evidence will be retested because it was processed
at the crime lab.

The district attorney's office has now identified 42 cases in which DNA
evidence was central to a conviction and must be retested, while police
have agreed to retesting in about 10 others. The 52 cases include those of
16 inmates on death row.

"We are slowly making our way back through the cases and have gotten back
to at least 1998," said Marie Munier, the assistant district attorney
overseeing the unprecedented effort to review hundreds of convictions
possibly obtained with faulty evidence.

Munier said she expects the number of cases needing retesting to drop in
each year as they work toward the early 1990s, when the HPD crime lab
began to process evidence consistently.

State Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, on Friday filed a resolution mirroring
one introduced by several lawmakers that asks that the Justice Department
and the FBI become active in the review of cases involving DNA evidence
processed by the HPD lab.

State lawmakers have said the district attorney's office is not impartial
enough to study their own convictions.

District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal said he welcomes a federal investigation
of the lab but would not support an outside agency reviewing cases
prosecuted by his office.

As officials spar over what entity should review cases, defense attorneys
worry that the discredited lab may not have preserved enough evidence -- a
deficiency noted in the audit.

Bob Wicoff, lawyer for Sutton, said his client's case demonstrates the
danger of HPD's practice. In linking Sutton to the rape, the lab consumed
all four vaginal swabs from its rape kit, leaving only one vaginal smear
for retesting when problems were found.

Enough evidence was preserved for analysts to identify DNA from two other
unidentified men, but that may not happen in other cases.

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Source : Houston Chronicle