What’s Under Review at the Crime Labs

The short answer: Eleven Texas crime labs disclosed problems in one quarter. Here is the July 2026 Forensic Science Commission docket and what it means for a case built on lab work.

Issue No. 1 | July 31, 2026 Meeting | Q3 Docket

Four times a year the Texas Forensic Science Commission publishes a docket of the crime laboratory problems Texas labs are legally required to report about themselves, along with every complaint anyone has filed. This series reads that docket. If you want the background first, our TFSC Intro explains what the Commission is, which disciplines it reaches and which it cannot touch, and what it can actually do about a problem.

This issue covers the July 31, 2026 agenda. A note on timing before anything else: these are matters that reached the agenda. Formal votes appear in the minutes adopted at the next quarterly meeting on October 23, and final reports publish only after adoption. Treat what follows as what the Commission took up, with outcomes to follow in Issue No. 2.

The Docket, by the Numbers

Eleven new self-disclosures, plus one carried over from April. Ten complaints. Three final investigative reports up for adoption. Twelve further complaints recommended for dismissal.

Of the eleven new disclosures: four in forensic biology and DNA, three in firearms and toolmarks, two in seized drugs, one in toxicology, one in materials and trace. With the carried-over item, five DNA disclosures sat on a single agenda.

That is one ordinary quarter. Not a scandal quarter.

Every Self-Disclosure on the July Docket

The agenda gives a case number, a laboratory and a discipline. It does not describe what happened in any of them. A line reading forensic biology and DNA could be a paperwork lapse or something that unravels cases, and the only way to know is to request the file. All of these are searchable in the Commission’s self-disclosure database.

What Stands Out

Two of these laboratories are not government labs

Bode Technology and the Serological Research Institute are private companies that perform forensic work under contract for public agencies. If your case involves DNA, the analyst may not work for the county whose name appears on the report. That is worth confirming before you assume which laboratory’s records you need.

Three Department of Public Safety labs filed on evidence handling

Weslaco, Austin and Lubbock each appear with an evidence designation alongside a discipline. Evidence handling problems do not require an analytical error to matter. Chain of custody and sample integrity are prior questions to any result.

A second DNA disclosure from Dallas County

Case 26.19 is a forensic biology and DNA self-disclosure from the Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences. The agenda does not describe it. What gives it weight is the backdrop. At the Commission’s January 30, 2026 meeting, the same laboratory disclosed, in case 25.66, an incident in which a forensic biology and DNA analyst concealed a DNA contamination event that occurred during the processing of known reference samples. The Commission voted to accept that disclosure for staff investigation. Two DNA disclosures from one laboratory in one year is a pattern worth asking about.

A firearms complaint against the Tarrant County Medical Examiner

Complaint 26.49 concerns the firearms and toolmarks unit of the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office. Firearms identification is among the least validated forensic disciplines, a point both the National Academy of Sciences and the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology have made. A pending complaint against the unit that handled your case is exactly the kind of fact worth having in hand.

A blood alcohol complaint

Complaint 26.22 is against the Houston Forensic Science Center’s toxicology unit, specifically blood alcohol. Worth noting for DWI practice: blood alcohol is an accredited discipline subject to the full disclosure and complaint machinery. Breath testing is not, and never appears on this docket.

Three final reports up for adoption

Complaint 25.77, brought by the Federal Public Defender’s Office against the Houston Police Department and Houston Forensic Science Center firearms unit. Self-disclosure 26.07, a Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences seized drugs matter. And self-disclosure 26.18, a Department of Public Safety Waco DNA matter. Once adopted, these publish as public investigative reports and become citable documents on the reliability of those units.

Who Filed the Complaints

Ten complaints were on the agenda. The Innocence Project filed one concerning bitemark evidence and autopsy findings. The Office of Capital and Forensic Writs filed one about digital and multimedia evidence at a police department. Several came from individual defense attorneys, named on the public agenda.

Which points at something most lawyers do not know: anyone can file a complaint with the Commission. No standing requirement, no fee, no oath, online or by mail. If you have a laboratory problem nobody is looking at, you are not limited to litigating it inside your own case.

Not on the Docket: A Garland Lab Names an Isomer It Cannot Measure

The quarterly docket is not the only place these problems surface. In early July 2026, a quality incident at the Department of Public Safety’s Garland Crime Laboratory put the reliability question in sharp relief. This one is a laboratory disclosure rather than a Commission docket item, so it does not appear on the July 31 agenda.

A forensic scientist there received an unsatisfactory proficiency test result after reporting a finding the data could not support. The reported result included an optical isomer designation for a compound identified as dextromethorphan. The laboratory does not have the instrumentation capable of determining a compound’s optical isomer at all. Per the laboratory’s own incident report, the result should have been reported as no controlled substance, or as methorphan with a note explaining that limitation. The reference is DPS Garland Lab Quality Incident Report QI-GAR-2026-0703-SD.

Why does one word matter that much? Because methorphan comes in two optical isomers that are chemically almost identical and legally worlds apart. Dextromethorphan is the over-the-counter cough suppressant, and Texas excludes it by name: Health and Safety Code Section 481.002(30) removes the dextrorotatory isomer of 3-methoxy-n-methylmorphinan and its salts from the definition of an opiate, which is the definition Penalty Group 1 runs on. Levomethorphan is Penalty Group 1 under Section 481.102(4), and Schedule II federally, and the racemic mixture of the two is treated the same way in both. A lab that cannot tell the isomers apart cannot tell a cough-medicine ingredient from a Penalty Group 1 controlled substance. Designating either one, when the instrument cannot see the difference, is a result unsupported by the data, which is why the proficiency test was marked unsatisfactory.

The isomer designated was dextromethorphan, the lawful one, so the mistake pointed toward no controlled substance rather than toward a charge, and the laboratory’s own quality system caught it and wrote it down. That does not make the problem smaller. An instrument that cannot resolve an optical isomer cannot resolve it in either direction, and the next report out of the same workflow is under no obligation to err in the defendant’s favor. The flaw is not which isomer was named. It is that an isomer was named at all.

It is also worth noticing how this one surfaced. It was a proficiency test, which has a known answer. Somebody could compare the report against the truth and mark it wrong. A real defendant’s case file has no answer key. This is the same problem we cover for stimulants in our post on l-methamphetamine versus d-methamphetamine. When the State’s laboratory reports a specific optical isomer, the first question is whether the instrument in that laboratory could actually determine it.

Three Rule Changes on the Same Agenda

Discipline for skipping the records portal

The Commission took up a proposed new Subchapter G that would authorize it to sanction a laboratory that fails to participate in CLR Connect, the statewide crime laboratory records portal created by Senate Bill 991 in 2023 and codified at Government Code Sections 411.161 through 411.164. The authority comes from Section 411.163(b), which makes a non-participating laboratory subject to discipline as if it had violated accreditation standards.

A portal only helps the defense if laboratories actually use it, so discipline for skipping it is what gives the mandate teeth. Worth knowing: the Department of Public Safety has targeted an August 2026 launch, but as of this writing DPS still describes the portal as in development and has not announced a go-live date. That the Commission was still proposing a non-participation penalty on July 31 is consistent with a portal that is not yet operating.

Less experience required for firearms examiners

The Commission considered amending Section 651.207 to reduce the work experience required of firearms and toolmarks examiners from five years to three, in order to qualify for a waiver of certain coursework or education requirements. In a discipline already criticized for weak scientific foundations, loosening the experience requirement is a development the defense bar should track.

A duty to communicate honestly, including with the Commission

On the other side of the ledger, the Commission moved to amend Section 651.219 to clarify that a license holder must communicate honestly and fully with all parties, including the Forensic Science Commission itself. That reads like a direct response to the concealment problem that surfaced in Dallas.

What to Do With This

The short version, with the mechanics in our Intro:

• If your case involves DNA from Dallas County or Bexar County, firearms work from Tarrant County or Harris County, or seized drugs from Bexar or Austin, ask whether a disclosure touches your analyst, method or time period.
• Confirm which laboratory actually did the work. Two of the disclosures on this docket came from private contract labs.
• Do not settle for the one-page report. The Michael Morton Act reaches bench notes, validation records, corrective action files, and the disclosure itself.
• Treat accreditation as a floor. And check Article 38.35 carefully: subsection (d) makes unaccredited analysis inadmissible, but subsection (e) lets it in if the laboratory was accreditation-eligible at the time and obtained accreditation before testimony.

Next in the Dispatch

The Commission’s next quarterly meeting is October 23, 2026. Issue No. 2 will cover that docket and close the loop on the items above: whether the CLR Connect enforcement rule was adopted, what the Houston firearms report found, and whether the Dallas, Bexar and Tarrant County matters went to investigation.

Deandra Grant holds a Master of Science in Pharmaceutical Science, a Graduate Certificate in Forensic Toxicology, and the ACS-CHAL Forensic Lawyer-Scientist designation. Deandra Grant Law handles DWI and criminal defense across North and Central Texas.

Sources

• Texas Forensic Science Commission, July 31, 2026 meeting agenda.
• Texas Forensic Science Commission, January 30, 2026 meeting minutes, on self-disclosure 25.66.
• Self-disclosure database.
• Complaint database and submission portal.
• Final investigative reports.
• Meeting agendas and minutes.
• Senate Bill 991, 88th Legislature (2023), creating the crime laboratory portal.
• Texas Department of Public Safety, Texas CLR Connect.
• Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Articles 38.01 and 38.35.

This series is educational and is not legal advice. The July 31 agenda items are described as filed. The Commission’s formal actions will appear in the minutes adopted at its October 23, 2026 meeting. Verify all citations before relying on them in any filing.

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