The Texas Department of Public Safety recent­ly hired Vanessa Nelson despite her being under inves­ti­ga­tion at the Houston Police Department Crime Lab where she was the for­mer DNA super­vi­sor. Nelson resigned from the Houston Lab to avoid being fired for giv­ing her sub­or­di­nates the answers to a DNA skills pro­fi­cien­cy test. The Houston Lab has a his­to­ry of prob­lems with its DNA lab, includ­ing poor train­ing and inad­e­quate work, caus­ing the divi­sion to be shut down in 2002. Three men who were con­vict­ed with faulty evi­dence from the Lab from that time have been exon­er­at­ed. Nelson led the DNA divi­sion for two years after it reopened.

Nelson will run the DNA divi­sion in her new posi­tion at the Texas Department of Public Safety’s (DPS) crime lab, a facil­i­ty that also has a record of prob­lems. The Houston Chronicle found that DPS was aware of Nelson’s alleged cheat­ing, but still hired her. State Rep. Kevin Bailey was part of a com­mit­tee that inves­ti­gat­ed DPS labs in 2003, and he was trou­bled by their hir­ing of Nelson. ​“It is shock­ing, to say the least, that they would hire some­one who was giv­ing out test answers. The integri­ty of these DNA labs is so crit­i­cal. Their work has life-and-death con­se­quences,” he said. Harris County, where Houston is locat­ed, leads the nation in send­ing inmates to exe­cu­tion, and there have been more exe­cu­tions in Texas than in any oth­er state.

Nelson’s depar­ture from her pre­vi­ous job has forced the DNA divi­sion at the Houston Police Department Crime Lab to sus­pend DNA test­ing once again in order to bring the lab up to stan­dards.
(“State crime lab hired DNA chief as cheat­ing probe pro­ceed­ed here. DPS, her new employ­er, says it was aware of the HPD inves­ti­ga­tion,” by Roma Khanna, Houston Chronicle, January 29, 2008). See Arbitrariness.

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