Who is surprised to learn that Harris County DA Chuck Rosenthal doesn't think Houston PD crime labs need a special master?I mean, what's a little drylabbing among friends?
This man has made public excuses for shoddy HPD crime lab practices for so long, to me he has little credibility making such declarations now. Anyway, the police department runs the crime lab, not his office. What's he doing sticking his nose in the police chief's business if he's just going to be obstructionist? (UPDATE: Chief Harold Hurtt and the Mayor oppose the special master, too.)
I'm reminded of when a grand jury convened several years ago to investigate the crime lab fiasco and asked Rosenthal to recuse himself. Grand jury proceedings are secret, but speculation was that his strident stance against re-opening more cases gave him a conflict of interest. Rosenthal refused recusal, and the grand jury ultimately determined that no crime had been committed, but identified grave mismanagement presaging today's report:
"Sadly, we have learned that the knowledge of problems and a lack of action to correct them do not constitute criminal negligence," the panel wrote in a statement released Friday. "Ethics and moral violations, even if they severely violate the public trust, are beyond our jurisdiction."Whether HPD's crime labs get a special master is no more in Mr. Rosenthal's jurisdiction than ethics and morals violations fall in the purview of the grand jury. You'd think since he's up for re-election next year, Mr. Rosenthal might hesitate to put himself out there as the crime labs' excuse-maker-in-chief. He must be feeling cocky about the race.
See the press release and the final report on Houston crime labs from the independent investigator recommending a special master.
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7 comments:
The rednecks of Harris County elected him, what do you expect?
Of course Rosenthall, Hurtt and White don't want an independent person in charge! Then they can't coverup all the cases where people were railroaded into convictions using bogus crime lab evidence. Pitiful, sad and predictable.
He's not all bad. He love's prosecuting cops on chickensh*t little cases that would be against citizens, unless is possession of a handgun (which isn't against the law)
Since Rosenthal is up for re-election this coming year, the people of Harris County had better wake up and get rid of this crook. He has done more to damage Harris County than any one person in the whole county.
He is a crook and that is well known and now is our chance to rid ourselves of this sicko! So take advantage of this and start cleaning up this county so we won't be hated so badly by the rest of the State, make that the laughing stock of the USA.
The lack of proper Crime Lab is one of the "MAJOR" reasons the Texas Prison System is so full of innocent people.The majority of the innocent people or from Houston or Dallas.The Houstonians need to wake up and vote this man out of office and out of Houston. Thank You
read the article... Chuck says as "master" isn't the right choice but believes a Judge should be leading the way. Don't trust Grits to spoonfeed you...read the actual articles before jumping on the bandwagon.
Uh, yeah, but all the judges are his former assistant prosecutors. Thanks, but no thanks.
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