From the Texas Tribune: Lawyers, Scientists Try to Unravel Thorny New DNA Standard

We chewed on this story on 2306 today. Criminal justice reform has been topical in Texas for most of the year.

- Click here for the article.

Texas prosecutors left a meeting Friday without the precise roadmap they were looking for when it comes to navigating the more conservative DNA standards used by crime labs in Texas and nationwide.

But they didn't leave the Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences empty-handed, they said. “It would have been nice to see more answers," Inger Chandler, chief of the conviction integrity unit in the Harris County district attorney's office. "As lawyers, we tend to see things in black and white, and we're learning there's a lot of gray."

Chandler was one of many prosecutors who attended a Texas Forensic Science Commission meeting on how past and future cases could be affected by a new standard in analyzing data involving "mixed DNA." That type of DNA refers to when more than one person's DNA is found on evidence.

While there's no proof that the new standard — adopted by the Texas Department of Public Safety crime labs and other labs used by DA's offices — would exclude a defendant, the new protocol could reduce the likelihood that an individual's DNA is the only source of genetic material left at a crime scene.

. . . "One of the problems was DNA was called the gold standard," Bruce Budowle, director of the University of Texas Health Science Center's Institute of Applied Genetics, said. "Big mistake."

DNA analysis provides answers, but there has to be rigorous interpretation of DNA results, the experts said.

Crime labs have recently adopted the new “mixed DNA” standard. The DPS switched to it on Aug. 10. The move has prompted prosecutors like Chandler to resend evidence in pending cases to the lab to have the data analyzed using the new standard. In Houston's Harris County, that's about 500 pending cases where DNA evidence will be introduced at trial.

The mention of a conviction integrity unit stood out to me. I've never heard of such a thing.

Here is a white paper on the subject:

- Conviction Integrity Units:Vanguard of Criminal Justice Reform.