According to a 2003 inter­nal audit of the Texas Department of Public Safety’s (DPS) crime labs, pro­ce­dur­al flaws, secu­ri­ty laps­es and shod­dy doc­u­men­ta­tion prob­lems con­tin­ue to under­mine the qual­i­ty of DNA lab­o­ra­to­ry test­ing results through­out the state. These same prob­lems pre­vi­ous­ly shut down crim­i­nal lab­o­ra­to­ries in Houston and McAllen, and the new find­ings could throw thou­sands of crim­i­nal cas­es into doubt. According to pub­lic records obtained by the Houston Chronicle, an audit of labs in Houston, Austin, El Paso, Garland, Lubbock, Corpus Christi, McAllen and Waco revealed the following:

  • DNA ana­lysts who do not under­stand how to inter­pret test results.
  • The fail­ure of ana­lysts to run blank sam­ples to make sure instru­ments are not con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed with DNA residue from previous tests.
  • DNA reports that do not include impor­tant statistical probabilities. 
  • Possible cross-con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of blood samples.
  • A lack of lab security.
  • Failure to doc­u­ment crit­i­cal ana­lyt­i­cal pro­ce­dures at the state lab that inputs DNA pro­files into the FBI nation­al DNA database.
Last year, state leg­is­la­tors passed reform mea­sures to improve Texas DNA labs. It entrust­ed DPS with over­see­ing the accred­i­ta­tion of all pub­lic DNA labs in the state by September 2005. Since then, inter­nal prob­lems uncov­ered at DPS labs have caused con­cern about the qual­i­ty of the infor­ma­tion and the rec­om­men­da­tions that the depart­ment has pro­vid­ed to law­mak­ers. ​“I have lost con­fi­dence in DPS and their abil­i­ty to over­see these labs. Clearly we’re going to have to hold hear­ings and ask them to come for­ward and give us their analy­sis of what’s going on,” said state Representative Kevin Bailey, who chairs the Texas House Committee on General Investigating. (Houston Chronicle, March 28, 2004) Texas is by far the lead­ing exe­cu­tion state in the coun­try. See Innocence.
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