Report: DOJ, FBI Admit Years of Flawed Testimony From Forensic Unit

[Purveyor]

Source: NBC News

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department and FBI have formally acknowledged that nearly every examiner in the FBI Laboratory's microscopic hair comparison 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 Washington Post reported.

Twenty-six of the 28 examiners overstated forensic matches in ways that favored prosecutors in more than 95 percent of the 268 trials reviewed so far, the Post reported Saturday, citing information from the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Innocence Project.

The organizations are assisting the government with the post-conviction review of questioned forensic evidence and provided the statistics under an agreement with the government to release results after the review of the first 200 convictions, the Post reported.

The cases include those of 32 defendants sentenced to death; of those, 14 have been executed or died in prison, the Post reported in a story posted on its website.

Read more: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/report-doj-fbi-admit-years-flawed-testimony-forensic-unit-n344401

[GliderGuider]

1. This is why I am utterly opposed to the death penalty under any circumstances. nt

[sorefeet]

3. I am opposed to the death penalty

also. I don't know how ANY Governor could sleep at night knowing how flawed the system is. After all they are the last person to decide, thumbs up or thumbs down.

[bananas]

7. One of many reasons. nt

[sorefeet]

2. Just one more reason why

the "land of the free" have the largest prison population on the planet.

[bemildred]

4. And we are supposed to trust these fuckers. nt

[blkmusclmachine]

5. LIES LIES AND MORE LIES

Under testimony, too.

[bananas]

6. But it's Science! Scientists never lie!

[sendero]

10. freaking...

... bingo. junk science is EVERYWHERE.

[wildbilln864]

8. k & freaking r! n/t

[ChairmanAgnostic]

9. First it was their bogus lead ID for bullet identification. Now it is hair.

About 10 years ago, it was false testimony about prints and blood. (always in favor of the prosecution). The top pathologist resigned in disgrace.

The vaunted national FBI lab is really a nest of lying, cheating worms, it turns out.

[MosheFeingold]

11. I'm just disgusted

I guarantee that many jury decisions hung on this. Juries like scientific evidence --- WAY better than "I saw this guy in an alley."

There is zero doubt people are in prison because of this stuff.

[Octafish]

12. Wonder what else FBI lied about over the years?

Starting with Dallas. One good FBI agent who stepped forward was Special Agent Don Adams interviewed racist Joseph Adams Milteer, a guy an FBI informant had taped detailing a pre-Dallas plot in Miami. He wrote a book on the experience abd how J Edgar Hoover shut him down.

http://adamsjfk.com/?page_id=30

[uponit7771]

13. 32 of the cases were Death Row cases... this is horrible

[Trajano]

14. FBI said Oswald's pubic hair was in Ruth Paine's blanket

They concluded it was a white person's hair.