HFSC marks 10 years of blind quality-control testing; discloses internal and outsourced documentation errors

Jacqueline Morel, HFSC’s quality director, told the board that the center’s blind quality-control program reached its 10th anniversary and has submitted more than 4,000 blind samples to the laboratory’s technical processes to test procedures and analyst performance.

“This year, our blind quality control program turned 10,” Morel said, describing the program’s goal to insert test samples that emulate real evidence and be treated like casework. Over the program’s decade she said the quality division spent more than 5,000 hours creating blind samples and has implemented blinds across six of seven forensic disciplines.

Morel said the blind program has detected manufacturing defects in commercially available reagents, underscoring the program’s value beyond internal checks. She also reviewed recent accreditation activity: HFSC completed a virtual assessment of quality management elements with no nonconformances and finished an internal audit of client services case management with no nonconformances but six recommendations for continuous improvement. A facility safety and security audit is scheduled for the week of Oct. 20.

Morel described two disclosures the center made to stakeholders. First, a crime‑scene investigator (CSI) failed to document notes contemporaneously, later made additions, and initially denied the additions when questioned; supervisors located an earlier photocopy of the CSI’s notes that showed the later additions. The incident was classified as an integrity issue; the CSI is no longer employed by HFSC. The Texas Forensic Science Commission reviewed HFSC’s corrective action report at its July 25 meeting and “voted to take no further action needed,” Morel said.

Second, HFSC was notified by an outsourced laboratory that an intake technician at that lab had a higher-than-normal rate of documentation errors — labeling mismatches, typos and sealing discrepancies — which the lab corrected and disclosed. Morel said the outsource lab offered to re‑verify evidence inventory on request so HFSC stakeholders could confirm labeling and documentation.

Morel emphasized the difference between proficiency tests and blind controls: proficiency tests are known to analysts; blind controls evaluate how casework is treated when analysts do not know they are being tested. She thanked HFSC staff for embracing the program and said the quality team will continue to refine blind creation and detection methods.

The board did not take formal action on the disclosures beyond noting they were reported to the Texas Forensic Science Commission and stakeholders.