FROM THE DEATH PENALTY CAPITOL OF THE WORLD

Excerpted from a Houston Chronicle editorial on the HPD's continuing crime lab scandal:

The grand jury whose term has ended released a report Friday that was not a criminal indictment but a moral one. While the ethical charges carry no fines or prison time, they convey plenty of shame for officials still capable of harboring that emotion.

The report regretted that knowledge of problems in the crime lab and failure to correct them do not constitute criminal negligence: "Ethics and moral violations, even if they severely violate the public trust, are beyond our jurisdiction."

The grand jury's scathing report concludes that incompetence and irresponsibility are not against the law. However, deliberately presenting false testimony and misrepresenting sloppily handled and erroneously analyzed evidence in court constitutes perjury. This grand jury did not collaborate with Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal. The public would have more confidence in the grand jury's decision to return no indictment had the panel enjoyed the expertise of an impartial special prosecutor.

Click here.

Ever wonder how Houston has always managed to get so many death penalty convictions? We cheat.

Houston represents the worst of an American judicial system that is far more concerned with convictions than it is with truth and justice. This crime lab scandal, which apparently includes the city's zealous prosecutors who seemingly turned a blind eye to the faultiness of the lab's findings, is inexcusable, but not atypical. DA Rosenthal's involvement in the investigation of the scandal is a big time conflict of interest--he has a personal stake in the outcome. But I guess that's just business as usual down here in Bush country...

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