FBI errors throw forensic convictions into question
11 replies, posted
[QUOTE]Holding your hands up and saying "we got things wrong" is a difficult thing to do. But that's exactly what the FBI and US Department of Justice have had to do this week, as the initial results were released of an ongoing review of thousands of criminal cases in which FBI scientists' testimony may have led to wrongful convictions – including for some people now on death row.
In the 1980s and 1990s, forensic scientists routinely compared hairs under the microscope, looking for physical similarities that might indicate a hair recovered from a crime scene came from a suspect. This still happens today, but it is usually backed up by mitochondrial DNA testing.
Two years ago, the FBI launched an inquiry into 2600 convictions, including 45 death-row cases, from the 1980s and 1990s, looking for instances where FBI analysts may have exceeded the limits of science when presenting their conclusions in court – saying a hair matched to the exclusion of all others, for example, rather than simply saying it looked similar.
This week it was reported that of the 10 per cent of cases reviewed so far, the "vast majority" contained errors. As a result, 136 defendants, including two on death row, will receive letters informing them of their right to DNA testing as a means of proving their innocence. This is in addition to 23 letters that went out last year, including to 14 people on death row.[/QUOTE]
[url]http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25994-fbi-errors-throw-forensic-convictions-into-question.html#.U-J4vPldV8E[/url]
[quote]Yet hair analysis is just one of many forensic disciplines that hinge on using a microscope to visually compare two samples and declare a match. Ballistics, fibre analysis, tyre and shoeprint comparison and tool and bite-mark analysis all take a similar approach. All came under heavy criticism in a landmark report on the state of forensic science published in 2009.
"This review is likely to have an effect on any discipline where they didn't have a statistical reference to estimate the chances of another person being a match," Neufeld says. He believes it could even filter across to disciplines with a more robust statistical basis such as fingerprinting, but which have been exposed as flawed in recent years.[/quote]
[url]http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16631-forensic-science-too-unreliable-says-report.html#.U-J5efmSzPo[/url]
[quote]With the exception of nuclear DNA analysis, no forensic method has been rigorously shown able to consistently, and with a high degree of certainty, demonstrate a connection between evidence and a specific individual or source," says the NAS report.[/quote]
So this said we need to wait on the discovery of some other more foolproof method, though that's going to take a while to find out.
Jesus christ, how did we fuck up this bad. I mean we didn't even check the margin if error on this hair testing? Fuck are they sloppy. I would've assumed they'd have expert statisticians on this from the start.
[QUOTE=DoctorSalt;45612260]Jesus christ, how did we fuck up this bad. I mean we didn't even check the margin if error on this hair testing? Fuck are they sloppy. I would've assumed they'd have expert statisticians on this from the start.[/QUOTE]
It's not that the margin of error is wrong, it's that the court testimonies were fuzzy.
[quote] ...looking for instances where FBI analysts may have exceeded the limits of science when presenting their conclusions in court – saying a hair matched to the exclusion of all others, for example, rather than simply saying it looked similar.[/quote]
Though, honestly, I thought this type of thing wasn't unheard of?
[I]CSI: Oops we dun goofed[/I]
Well at least they aren't trying to sweep it under the rug and act like they didn't fuck up
ruh roh
[QUOTE=No_0ne;45612393]Well at least they aren't trying to sweep it under the rug and act like they didn't fuck up[/QUOTE]
I don't know about that. It says people are being notified of their right to DNA testing. Call me crazy, but if your case was built on evidence or testimony that you now say was faulty and you have the means to do DNA testing to prove it one way or the other, I think you should free the prisoner immediately. Then the state pays for the DNA testing. If it turns out he was guilty, he goes back to prison. The burden of proof is on the state not the accused.
[QUOTE=DoctorSalt;45612260]Jesus christ, how did we fuck up this bad. I mean we didn't even check the margin if error on this hair testing? Fuck are they sloppy. I would've assumed they'd have expert statisticians on this from the start.[/QUOTE]
DNA testing is still a "new" thing to law enforcement. All this shit happened in the 80s and 90s so i'm not surprised in the problem.
The massive expansion of the prison population in the 80s and 90s was partly due to circumstantial evidence, lax regulations regarding witnesses and forensic screwups like this, as well as the increase in mandatory stences, its good thing we are finally getting the actual enforcement agencies to admit they got a bit carried away maybe with further reforms coming out of these discoveries we can move away from being the worlds largest police state
[QUOTE=No_0ne;45612393]Well at least they aren't trying to sweep it under the rug and act like they didn't fuck up[/QUOTE]
No.
These people spent 20-30 years in jail. Ruined lives, while the truth was ignored.
A lot of these people will probably be guilty anyway, because I can't imagine someone getting convicted based on the fact that a hair recovered from the crime site looked similar.
DNA tests should clear things up for a lot of sketchy cases.
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