FBI overstated forensic hair matches in nearly all trials before 2000

[Surya Gayatri]

FBI headquarters in Washington. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

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 cases include those of 32 defendants sentenced to death. Of those, 14 have been executed or died in prison, the groups said under an agreement with the government to release results after the review of the first 200 convictions.

The admissions mark a watershed in one of the country’s largest forensic scandals, highlighting the failure of the nation’s courts for decades to keep bogus scientific information from juries, legal analysts said. The question now, they said, is how state authorities and the courts will respond to findings that confirm long-suspected problems with subjective, pattern-based forensic techniques — like hair and bite-mark comparisons — that have contributed to wrongful convictions in more than one-quarter of 329 DNA-exoneration cases since 1989.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/fbi-overstated-forensic-hair-matches-in-nearly-all-criminal-trials-for-decades/2015/04/18/39c8d8c6-e515-11e4-b510-962fcfabc310_story.html

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And, what say those who stubbornly continue to support the death penalty?

[Tommy2Tone]

1. I have never trusted law enforcement witnesses

Yet juries give them more credibility than they deserve. This should surprise no one.

[Electric Monk]

2. 20 recs and counting

here http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026530077

[Surya Gayatri]

3. Well, that was posted 18 hours ago, so some people may have missed it.

Needs a lot of exposure, IMHO.