Texas Justice! Harris County (Houston, Texas) sends more people to death row than any other county in the country. However, the HPD Crime Lab has been proven over and over to be a debacle without any peers as to mistakes and down right fabrication of evidence. Only this past week, a person convicted of rape and having served 12 years in prison was freed after DNA test showed the victim had been raped by another man with a lengthy record of such crimes. The HPD crime lab had testified no DNA evidence had been found at the crime scene, only to have the bed sheets tested 12 years later and was found to have the semen of the actual rapist. For 12 years this African-American individual had professed his innocence, and finally he is free! It was announced yesterday that a formal review will finally be made on 180 similar cases that has the potential of HPD crime lab errors. 180 cases!
Why is Harris County the center of such justice? One only has to look at a case that was heard by a jury last week. The case involved a 20 year old female involved in an automobile accident that resulted in her boyfriend being killed. At the time of the accident the defendant had a blood alcohol level that was THREE times the legal limit and she ran into the back of a truck.
During the testimony at the trial:
1) The doctor that attended to the defendant during her “brief” hospital examination testified that with her parents listening, she confessed that she was at fault for causing the accident.
2) The mother on the witness stand testified that her daughter hadn’t caused the wreck and this was supported by a witness testifying that alcohol had no part in the accident. The mother proceeded to testify that the police had abused her daughter by taking her to jail to have her processed for running into the back of another vehicle and just so happened to have killed another human being. Darn those police officers for hauling a drunk off to jail!
3) Then the father was called to the witness stand……..and did he have a few issues to present! A) He accused the police of unfair treatment because they didn’t arrest the driver of the truck because HE had left the scene of the accident. The truth was that the accident happened on one of the busiest streets in downtown Houston, so he had merely exited the elevated street and made a U-Turn and immediately returned to the scene of the accident. But the father wanted him arrested for leaving the scene of the accident because if they arrested his daughter they should have arrested the truck driver for his crime. B) For good measure, the father then accused the truck driver for driving without valid insurance when in reality he was driving a company vehicle, thus not having a clue as to whether the company had insurance. Not being a legal expert, what difference would it make since it was his daughter that was being tried for driving drunk and causing the death of her passenger. C) And for good measure, and to castigate the truck driver for daring to being in front of his drunken daughter the father testified that he had once written a hot check…but again no evidence of such was entered into the record…only the father’s words. D) And did the father stop with his unfounded charges? Nope! He then proceeded to accuse the person that was a witness to the accident and had stopped to rend aid to HIS daughter as being an illegal resident. Was there any supporting evidence to this charge that the witness and Good Samaritan was an illegal resident? No! The only evidence of such was that the man’s name was Vasquez and he had testified that the defendant had passed him at a high rate of speed and ran into the back of the truck.
And why do I make such a point about the parent’s testimony and how their daughter was being mistreated? Simply because when the police arrested this darling daughter she informed them they were making a big mistake because of who her father was and what he did for a living.
Her father is State Circuit Judge Pat Shelton. And I guess the police didn’t make a mistake in arresting her, as the jury found her GUILTY. |
