The Justice Department and FBI have formally acknowledged that nearly every examiner in an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony in almost all trials in which they offered evidence against criminal defendants over more than a two-decade period before 2000.The American justice system is broken. Completely and totally broken.
Of 28 examiners with the FBI Laboratory’s microscopic hair comparison unit, 26 overstated forensic matches in ways that favored prosecutors in more than 95 percent of the 268 trials reviewed so far, according to the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) and the Innocence Project, which are assisting the government with the country’s largest post-conviction review of questioned forensic evidence.
The cases include those of 32 defendants sentenced to death. Of those, 14 have been executed or died in prison.
“These findings are appalling and chilling in their indictment of our criminal justice system, not only for potentially innocent defendants who have been wrongly imprisoned and even executed, but for prosecutors who have relied on fabricated and false evidence despite their intentions to faithfully enforce the law,” Blumenthal said.
– From the Washington Post article: FBI Overstated Forensic Hair Matches in Nearly All Trials efore 2000
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Most people get their 'knowledge' (sic) of Forensic Science from TV/Movies. And as usual few things could be further from reality. Most people would be amazed at how rife with error and incompetence the field truly is. Many of the alleged 'specialties' are totally baseless....they have no scientific support whatsoever in regards to the claims made. Chief among these are 'hair analysis' 'forensic odontology' and 'graphology'.
ReplyDeleteALL of these are based SOLELY on the opinion of the person making the claim. There are absolutely zero studies using true double blind scientific methods that support the accuracy of these so called specialties
Even ballistic matching and fingerprint analysis in the end are matters of opinion where a person looks at two objects or images and decides if they have enough commonalities to be considered a 'match'. And because such examiners are looking for matches they frequently overlook differences.
"Forensic science" is a dangerous tool that often lends itself to injustice.
There are absolutely zero studies using true double blind scientific methods that support the accuracy of these so called specialties
DeleteThat's ridiculous.