Evidence from a capital murder case and seven other cases tested for DNA by the Houston Police Department’s crime lab have been destroyed. The District Attorney’s office said that it may have to ask for pardons in these cases if the defendants were convicted largely on the weight of DNA evidence. “We’re going to have to alert the judges and the defense attorneys and evaluate each case to see what we have got to support the conviction without the DNA. If DNA played a large role, I may be writing the governor about more pardons,” said District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal. The eight cases in question are among 21 feared missing by prosecutors and police who are attempting to retest nearly 400 cases originally analyzed by the HPD crime lab’s DNA division. The department’s poor laboratory conditions and careless practices have been the focus of widespread criticism and led the Houston Police Department to shut down its DNA division in December 2002. (Houston Chronicle, November 5, 2003) See Innocence.