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"The three analysts suspended because of the latest findings in the Houston crime-lab investigation have been targeted for discipline previously or cited for errors in their work, but escaped serious punishment, the Houston Chronicle found in reviewing personnel records. Houston Police Department supervisors suspended Mary Childs-Henry, Joseph Chu and Raynard Cockrell after an independent team of experts found they had failed to report evidence that could have helped defendants and that they made errors in DNA and serology tests. HPD had attempted to discipline the three longtime crime-lab employees for mistakes that ranged from bungling evidence in a capital murder case to failing to cooperate with internal investigations of the crime-lab debacle. Each time, the analysts received reduced punishment after appealing to a review panel. In fact, most other crime-lab employees who have appealed disciplinary action in the three years since HPD's forensic work first came under scrutiny also have succeeded — even Christy Kim, the analyst fired for her shoddy work in the wrongful rape conviction of Josiah Sutton. They largely have argued that the crime lab's deficiencies were systemic and individual analysts did not have the power to correct them. The difficulty in firing Kim, who won reinstatement and then retired, angered Mayor Bill White and Police Chief Harold Hurtt. Both expressed hope last week that any future discipline of crime-lab employees will not be overturned. \"In public safety, part of the standard for performance should be based on the credibility of the people involved,\" White said. \"And for certain functions, there should not be any doubts. I do not want a guilty person to escape the judgment of a jury because of some attack by a skillful criminal defense attorney on the records of any individual at the crime lab.\" The panel that heard analysts' appeals, the three-member city Civil Service Commission, is appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the City Council. White's predecessor, Mayor Lee Brown, appointed the members who have heard all of the crime-lab cases to date. White recently made a new appointment, however, and expects soon to make a second. He said that though he supports the civil service system, it should not stand in the way of HPD's effort to regain public confidence. \"It goes too far when it limits the ability of respected managers, such as Chief Hurtt, to manage a work force in a way designed to enhance the credibility of the department,\" he said. The ongoing investigations into the work of Childs-Henry, Chu and Cockrell, who were suspended last month in anticipation of the latest crime-lab investigators' report, may once again test whether HPD can uphold discipline against lab employees. Report cites 'major issues' The report, released last week, cited \"major issues\" in the performance of DNA and serology tests. Serology, the analysis of body fluids, was a precursor to DNA testing. After he was briefed on the investigators' findings, Hurtt moved to suspend the analysts with pay and opened an internal probe into whether they should be disciplined. Cockrell and Chu declined to comment to the Chronicle. Phone calls to Childs-Henry were not returned. According to the team of experts reviewing cases for independent investigator Michael Bromwich, Childs-Henry reported that DNA tests in the 1995 sexual assault case against Garland Davis were inconclusive when, in fact, they excluded him as a contributor to samples of evidence from the crime scene. Childs-Henry, who has worked in the lab for 13 years, performed a highly discriminating DNA analysis on two evidence samples collected with a rape kit and one from the victim's clothes, the investigators reported. She obtained strong results indicating the presence of a male — but not Davis — on all three samples, the experts said. Rather than report those findings, however, Childs-Henry said she obtained no results, the investigators said. In the same case, Chu used a less-discriminating DNA test and obtained results that may have included Davis as a suspect, investigators said. Those results were reported as definitively including him, according to the report, with no mention of the other, more discriminating and exculpatory findings. Davis pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 18 years in prison. Experts also said that Chu overstated the strength of his test results in a capital murder case and a sexual assault case. In addition, they reported that Cockrell, who joined the lab in 1995, never reported potentially exculpatory DNA test results from a murder that was cited in the penalty phase of Franklin Alix's capital murder trial. Results left out of report Cockrell's analyses did not detect Alix's DNA on samples from the crime, but those results were not included in the final report, which Cockrell did not write. Alix is awaiting execution. Though Bromwich's team named these three and other analysts in its report, he said last week that he did not recommend the suspensions. \"As our reports make clear, the problems in serology and DNA are more properly characterized as systemic breakdowns in training, supervision and oversight rather than isolated acts of individual misconduct,\" he said. \"Specifically, we have not found any intentional misconduct on the part of the three suspended employees.\" The instances highlighted in Bromwich's latest report are not the first time Childs-Henry, Chu or Cockrell have been cited. Childs-Henry played a key role in the 1996 case of Lynn Jones, who sat in the Harris County Jail for nine months while the crime lab failed to perform DNA tests on a sample that eventually cleared him, according to depositions in a lawsuit and an internal HPD memo. Jones, accused of raping a 14-year-old girl, was held while the crime lab was supposed to be processing evidence from his case. Childs-Henry had samples for more than three months before she analyzed them and was unable to obtain results when she did, according to a memo by a crime-lab supervisor. Jones was released after another analyst performed tests that eliminated him as a suspect, but his ordeal prompted then-Police Chief Sam Nuchia to order an audit. More recently, the Police Department attempted to suspend Childs-Henry for three days in 2004 because she improperly packaged evidence from a rape kit and \"possibly cross-contaminated evidence,\" according to the letter notifying her of the suspension. After she appealed, maintaining that she was following lab protocols, the Civil Service Commission reduced her suspension to a written reprimand. Chu, a 16-year crime-lab veteran, faced a 14-day suspension in 2003 for a variety of errors, such as botched statistical calculations, in four cases including two capital murders. After appealing, he received a written reprimand, according to civil service records. Cockrell fought a two-day suspension for not cooperating with internal affairs investigators' inquiry about the lab's problems and received no disciplinary action. Meeting with chief Central to each analyst's arguments against disciplinary action have been claims that they had no control over the lab's protocols because they were not supervisors. They also pointed out that they had alerted supervisors, all the way up to the chief of police, about concerns over the quality of the lab's work. In Chu's testimony, he told the Civil Service Commission about a 1999 meeting that six lab employees had with then-Police Chief C.O. Bradford to discuss problems in the DNA division. In a letter after the meeting, the analysts described the division as a \"total disaster.\" Bradford has said he never received the letter. Fred Keys, the attorney for Chu and his colleague, Kim, called the crime lab's woes systemic and that top Police Department officials, not lower-ranking analysts, should be held accountable. At the time of their hearings, he said, \"You can delegate authority but not responsibility.\" roma.khanna@chron.com"
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