By D. Cupples | A prosecutor once told me that the TV show CSI inspired some jurors to severely question forensic evidence. Good! People shouldn't be convicted of crimes unless evidence shows guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Apparently, that's just a theory. The Washington Post recently reported:
"Hundreds of defendants sitting in prisons nationwide have been convicted with the help of an FBI forensic tool that was discarded more than two years ago. But the FBI lab has yet to take steps to alert the affected defendants or courts,..."
"even as the window for appealing convictions is closing, a joint investigation by The Washington Post and '60 Minutes' has found.
"The science, known as comparative bullet-lead analysis, was first used after President John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963. The technique used chemistry to link crime-scene bullets to ones possessed by suspects on the theory that each batch of lead had a unique elemental makeup.
"In 2004, however, the nation's most prestigious scientific body concluded that variations in the manufacturing process rendered the FBI's testimony about the science "unreliable and potentially misleading." Specifically, the National Academy of Sciences said that decades of FBI statements to jurors linking a particular bullet to those found in a suspect's gun or cartridge box were so overstated that such testimony should be considered 'misleading under federal rules of evidence.'
A year later, the bureau abandoned the analysis.
While it was mighty prudent of the FBI to abandon that testing method, why did it take a full year? As part of the Justice Department, surely the FBI understood that its employees had been delivering flawed evidence to prosecutors (a big no-no in our justice system). The Washington Post article continued:
"But the FBI lab has never gone back to determine how many times its scientists misled jurors. Internal memos show that the bureau's managers were aware by 2004 that testimony had been overstated in a large number of trials. In a smaller number of cases, the experts had made false matches based on a faulty statistical analysis of the elements contained in different lead samples, documents show....
"The bureau told defense lawyers in a general letter dated Sept. 1, 2005, that although it was ending the technique, it "still firmly supports the scientific foundation of bullet lead analysis." And in at least two cases, the bureau has tried to help state prosecutors defend past convictions by using court filings that experts say are still misleading. The government has fought releasing the list of the estimated 2,500 cases over three decades in which it performed the analysis."
Why on Earth would the FBI "firmly support" a flawed testing method that it had chosen to abandon? Every first-year law student (who actually goes to class) knows that justice is served not only when guilty people are convicted, but also when innocent people aren't.
That FBI staff was so determined to help convict people -- even based on unreliable evidence -- shows a blatant disregard for justice. That FBI staff wasn't equally determined to correct errors after convictions were secured based on potentially flawed evidence only compounds the travesty.
The upshot: our Justice Department's problems go far beyond the massive politicization that seemed to occur under Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
Note that the bullet-lead analysis is not the only questionable forensics test. In the 1990s, according to the Washington Post, 13 lab employees were accused of doing shoddy work and giving misleading testimony regarding explosives and hair/fiber analysis.
The non-profit group The Innocence Project has helped free more than 200 people who were wrongly convicted -- some because of misleading "expert" testimony based on inadequate "science." How many more innocent people are waiting to be rescued from prison?
[UPDATE] Another Washington Post article discusses the case of former Baltimore police officer James Kulbicki, who was convicted of killing his girlfriend in 1995 -- based on flawed testimony from an FBI "expert." That so-called expert "committed suicide, leaving a trail of false
credentials, inaccurate testimony and lab notes that conflicted with
what he had told jurors." A judge is now considering overturning Kulbicki's conviction.
Comments