In the wake of a scan­dal that has called into ques­tion the reli­a­bil­i­ty of the police crime lab’s test­ing and han­dling of evi­dence in Harris County, Texas, Police Chief Harold Hurtt has said that exe­cu­tions of inmates from the coun­ty should not be sched­uled until all rel­e­vant evi­dence has been reex­am­ined to assure accu­ra­cy. He went on to note that the exe­cu­tions of nine indi­vid­u­als con­vict­ed in Harris County that are sched­uled to take place before March 2005 should not be allowed to go for­ward. ​“I think it would be very pru­dent for us as a crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem to delay fur­ther exe­cu­tions until we have had time to review the evi­dence,” Hurtt said. Harris County inves­ti­ga­tors are about a quar­ter of the way through their review of hun­dreds of box­es of evi­dence that had been for­got­ten in a stor­age room and may impact thou­sands of crim­nal cas­es. (Houston Chronicle, September 30, 2004). See Innocence.

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