The Texas Department of Public Safety recently hired Vanessa Nelson despite her being under investigation at the Houston Police Department Crime Lab where she was the former DNA supervisor. Nelson resigned from the Houston Lab to avoid being fired for giving her subordinates the answers to a DNA skills proficiency test. The Houston Lab has a history of problems with its DNA lab, including poor training and inadequate work, causing the division to be shut down in 2002. Three men who were convicted with faulty evidence from the Lab from that time have been exonerated. Nelson led the DNA division for two years after it reopened.

Nelson will run the DNA division in her new position at the Texas Department of Public Safety’s (DPS) crime lab, a facility that also has a record of problems. The Houston Chronicle found that DPS was aware of Nelson’s alleged cheating, but still hired her. State Rep. Kevin Bailey was part of a committee that investigated DPS labs in 2003, and he was troubled by their hiring of Nelson. “It is shocking, to say the least, that they would hire someone who was giving out test answers. The integrity of these DNA labs is so critical. Their work has life-and-death consequences,” he said. Harris County, where Houston is located, leads the nation in sending inmates to execution, and there have been more executions in Texas than in any other state.

Nelson’s departure from her previous job has forced the DNA division at the Houston Police Department Crime Lab to suspend DNA testing once again in order to bring the lab up to standards.
(“State crime lab hired DNA chief as cheating probe proceeded here. DPS, her new employer, says it was aware of the HPD investigation,” by Roma Khanna, Houston Chronicle, January 29, 2008). See Arbitrariness.