Report: More problems in HPD crime lab

Things keep looking worse for the embattled Houston Police Department crime lab. A new report Wednesday from an independent investigator said analysts in two divisions of the lay didn't report evidence that might have helped criminal suspects and made errors in nearly one-third of cases reviewed in a test sample. According to the report, the problems led to a "near-total breakdown" in the lab's DNA and serology divisions between 1987 and 2002.

Among the findings in investigator Michael Bromwich's report: "Major issues" existed in 40 percent of 67 sample DNA cases, including three death row cases. In serology (testing body fluids for blood type), there were "major issues" in more than 22 percent of 80 sample cases. Bromwich called the failure to report evidence beneficial to suspects a "disturbing and pervasive pattern."

Among the DNA cases cited as problematic by the Bromwich team are those of three inmates now on death row: Franklin Dewayne Alix, Juan Carlos Alvarez and Gilmar Alex Guevara. The investigators said HPD analysts failed to report exculpatory findings and, instead, said tests that did not implicate Alix were inconclusive.

DNA tests from the murder of Gregorio Ramirez were introduced in the punishment phase after Alix was convicted of the 1998 murder of Eric Bridgeford. HPD analyst Christy Kim testified only about less-discriminating DNA tests that included Alix as a contributor to evidence from the crime. She never disclosed other, more discriminating tests, that excluded Alix, investigators said.

Alix's attorney, Robert Rosenberg, said the omission may have secured a death sentence.

Another case Bromwich cited is that of Dwight Harold Riser, who is serving a 75-year prison sentence for aggravated assault. Bromwich said former DNA lab head James Bolding "appears to have altered the results of blood-typing work on the basis of a scientifically unjustifiable explanation," which put Riser in a group of possible semen donors "constituting 2.5 percent of the male population." But, according to the report, "100 percent of men who produce semen were within the population of potential donors." It seems Bolding also falsely testified that he holds a doctorate in biochemistry during Riser's trial.

In the controlled substances lab, Bromwich found two former analysts may have faked results in four drug cases between 1998 and 2000.

Stan Schneider, the attorney for Charles Hodge — who was convicted of aggravated sexual assault in 1987, possibly because an HPD analyst didn't report serology results that excluded him as a suspect — has asked U.S. Rep. Ted Poe to call for a federal investigation, and Poe said he's asked U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to help. And it looks like there's going to be a lot to investigate.