FBI Scandal: Agency Admits to Flawed Forensic Testimony

When our country’s highest regarded forensic technicians testify that they’ve found incriminating forensic DNA matches, that testimony is usually considered courtroom gold. However, a new investigation into a history of potentially flawed testimony given by the FBI has revealed incredibly damning evidence that could cripple the agency’s reputation for years to come.

The Justice Department and the FBI have officially acknowledged that an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony in almost all trials where it offered evidence against a criminal defendant. The evidence dates back to before 2000, and is being called one of the country’s largest forensic scandals to date.

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) and the Innocence Project teamed up to assist the government with the country’s largest post-conviction review of questioned forensic evidence. Their findings were startling. According to the Washington Post, the FBI has admitted that 26 out of 28 examiners with the FBI Laboratory’s microscopic hair comparison unit overstated forensic matches in ways that favored prosecutors in more than 95 percent of the 268 trials reviewed so far.

Overall, the FBI identified for review approximately 2,500 cases in which the FBI Lab reported a hair match. Current findings found flawed testimony was given in 257 of 268 trials. Of those, 342 defendants’ cases have been completed, and include 32 defendants sentenced to death. Fourteen defendants have been executed or died in prison. There are now about 1,200 cases awaiting review.

According to the Washington Post, defendants and federal and state prosecutors in 46 states and the District are being notified to determine whether this new information offers opportunities for appeal. But the defendants shouldn’t necessarily expect to be exonerated. The FBI’s erroneous testimony may not have been the only evidentiary factor contributing to their guilty verdicts.

Peter Neufeld, co-founder of the Innocence Project, commented on the investigation into the FBI to the Post saying,

The FBI’s three-decade use of microscopic hair analysis to incriminate defendants was a complete disaster…We need an exhaustive investigation that looks at how the FBI, state governments that relied on examiners trained by the FBI and the courts allowed this to happen and why it wasn’t stopped much sooner.

Part of the problem plaguing the FBI’s forensic unit is the ability for a hair sample to appear to be a “near certain” match, when in actuality its authenticity cannot be confirmed. The Washington Post writes,

The review confirmed that FBI experts systematically testified to the near-certainty of ‘matches’ of crime-scene hairs to defendants, backing their claims by citing incomplete or misleading statistics drawn from their case work.

In reality, there is no accepted research on how often hair from different people may appear the same. Since 2000, the lab has used visual hair comparison to rule out someone as a possible source of hair or in combination with more accurate DNA testing

This sheer percentage of these cases linked to flawed testimony is frightening and calls into question the actual level of “justice” our justice system has provided for these defendants. The government taking responsibility for over three decades of mistakes was a good first step, but we’re still waiting to see how the state authorities and the courts respond to these findings.

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.