Police Chief Harold Hurtt today stopped just short of calling for a moratorium on executions from Harris County.
The chief, who came to Houston from Phoenix in Februrary and found his new department embroiled in a series of DNA lab scandals, said no Harris County executions should be scheduled until all relevant evidence has been thoroughly re-examined.
Police are about a quarter of the way through their review of hundreds of boxes of evidence from thousands of criminal cases that had been forgotten in a storage room.
Hurtt also said the nine executions already scheduled through March should not be allowed to go forward until all evidence has been thoroughly reviewed.
``I think it would be very prudent for us as a criminal justice system to delay further executions until we have had time to review the evidence,'' he said.