"Report: FBI investigators overstated evidence against criminal defendants" PBS NewsHour 4/19/2015
Excerpt
SUMMARY: The Justice Department and FBI formally acknowledged that FBI forensic investigators routinely gave flawed testimony overstating evidence against criminal defendants during the 1980s and 1990s. In more than a dozen cases, defendants were later executed or died in prison. Spencer Hsu of The Washington Post joins Hari Sreenivasan from Washington to discuss.
HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour): News from Washington tonight that, for nearly two decades, during the 1980s and ’90s, top FBI forensic investigators routinely gave flawed testimony, overstating the evidence they had against criminal defendants.
In more than a dozen cases, the defendants were later executed or died in prison.
Spencer Hsu broke the story in today’s Washington Post. He joins us now.
So, you said that this is a watershed moment in one of the country’s largest forensic scandals. Break this down for us.
SPENCER HSU, The Washington Post: What has been found has been, as you say, that, for more than two decades, nearly every examiner and nearly every criminal trial in which FBI experts gave testimony against criminal defendants, they overstated the strength or the significance of a match.
HARI SREENIVASAN: So, you said that about a quarter of all the wrongful convictions, the people who have been exonerated later on, the testimony of hair examiners or bite mark comparisons have actually helped sway juries or judges.
SPENCER HSU: That’s right.
Out of about 329 DNA exonerations, a quarter, more than a quarter have involved invalid forensic science. One of the issues here is that, unlike DNA, which has a — was developed, you know, by scientists for scientists, a lot of the earlier pattern-based techniques, comparing hair, fiber, bite marks, even tracing bullets to — being fired from specific weapons, were developed in the lab by law enforcement.
No comments:
Post a Comment