But DNA is not infallible. The genetic material in government databanks has to be retrieved, transferred, transported, identified, labeled, analyzed, and stored by human hands, and there is opportunity for error at every stage.27 In 2003, the Houston police department’s crime lab was shut down and hundreds of convictions were called into question when an independent audit uncovered widespread problems in the way DNA evidence was handled, including “poor calibration and maintenance of equipment, improper record keeping and a lack of safeguards against contamination of samples.”
