Houston Chronicle, May 31, 2007 HUNTSVILLE - Richard Traylor walked out of prison years ago. But he still wears his past like a shadow. The 51-year-old Huntsville man is reminded of his ex-convict status every month when he reports to his parole officer. Every time he asks permission to leave the state on consulting jobs for refineries and chemical plants. Every time he pees in a cup, with his parole officer watching, to prove he's not on drugs. In April, Traylor got a different kind of reminder. It made me question whether our state routinely denies parolees their right to due process. Traylor served two years in prison after accepting a plea bargain on an attempted murder charge stemming from a fistfight in the early 1990s. After his parole in 2002, he got a history degree and is now working on his master's at Sam Houston State University. He says he leads a clean life, hasn't even had a drink in a decade. So he was stunned when his parole officer informed him in April that a urinalysis he'd undergone eight days earlier tested positive for cocaine. Traylor's attorney advised him to get tested at a private lab immediately. A urinalysis that day came up negative. TDCJ uses quick screening tests. These are sensitive to false positives, said Anthony Okorodudu, clinical chemistry director at the University of Texas Medical Branch.