Texas Governor Rick Perry has issued a par­don on the basis of inno­cence to Josiah Sutton, a juve­nile offend­er who had served four years of a 25-year prison term before new DNA tests proved his inno­cence. The faulty DNA results used to con­vict Sutton in 1998 were processed by the now thor­ough­ly dis­cred­it­ed Houston Police Department crime lab, the same facil­i­ty that processed DNA and oth­er foren­sic evi­dence used in cas­es that have result­ed in death sen­tences. The lab was shut down in 2003 after ques­tions about the qual­i­ty and accu­ra­cy of its analy­sis sur­faced. Sutton’s case is one of almost 400 cas­es being revis­it­ed by pri­vate labs to check the Houston crime labs’ work. ​“Based on the DNA test­ing, court deter­mi­na­tion and unan­i­mous deci­sion of the (Texas Pardons and Paroles) board, it was the appro­pri­ate – and only – deci­sion,” said Perry spokes­woman Kathy Walt. (Houston Chronicle, May 14, 2004) See Innocence.

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