FBI's Forensic Test Full of Holes

Hundreds Of Convictions Are In Question Now That FBI Forensic Evidence Has Been Discredited

(Washingtonpost.com) 
A Challenge From Within

The FBI's about-face was prompted by a challenge from within its ranks.
William Tobin, an FBI lab metallurgist for a quarter-century, won accolades working on cases such as the crash of TWA Flight 800, in which he helped prove that the plane was downed by an accidental fuel-tank explosion, not terrorism. Shortly before he retired, Tobin was approached by a woman who believed that the bullet-lead science used against her brother, a New Jersey murder defendant, was flawed. Still employed by the bureau, Tobin was not permitted to help.

But when he retired in 1998, he decided to look further. Bullet matching had always been done by the lab's chemists, and as a metallurgist, Tobin wondered about their assumptions. Soon he joined with Erik Randich, a metallurgist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

By 2001, the two had finished a study that challenged the key assumptions that the FBI had been making about bullet lead. They found that bullets made from the same batch did not always match, because subtle chemical changes occurred throughout the manufacturing process. Tobin bought bullets at several stores in Alaska and found that a large number of bullets with the same composition and manufacturing date were often sold in the same community, suggesting that it was wrong to assume that a bullet match could be narrowed to one suspect.

"It hadn't been based at all on science but, rather, had been based on subjective belief," Tobin said in an interview. "Courts, and even practitioners, had been seduced by the sophistication of the analytical instrumentation for over three decades."

Soon, Tobin began appearing as a witness for defendants challenging FBI bullet-lead matches. Courts began to take notice, too, and the FBI suddenly faced a barrage of questions about a science that had gone unchallenged for three decades.

Adams asked the National Academy of Sciences in 2002 to examine the FBI's
work, temporarily halting new bullet-lead matches. Two years later, the academy's findings stunned the bureau.

The panel concluded that although the FBI had been taking accurate bullet-lead measurements in its lab, the statistical methods and its expert testimonies were flawed.

The science "does not...have the unique specificity of techniques such as DNA," and "available data does not support any statement that a crime bullet came from a particular box of ammunition," the panel concluded. All the FBI could say going forward was that bullets made from the same batch "are more likely" to match in chemical makeup than those made from different batches. Adams soon declared that such testimony was so general that it had no value to jurors, and he ended the technique.

The FBI Response

The FBI went on the offensive to portray its decision in the best light.
In a news release dated Sept. 1, 2005, the bureau declared that it "still firmly supports the scientific foundation of bullet lead analysis" but that it was ending the technique because of the questions about its "relative probative value," the "costs of maintaining the equipment" and the "resources necessary to do the examinations."

The bureau also sent form letters to the more than 300 police agencies it had assisted with the science and to the umbrella groups representing local prosecutors and local criminal defense lawyers so they could "take whatever steps they deem appropriate."

The letters cited the academy's report but did not call attention to the magnitude of the FBI's internal concerns.

For instance, the letters stated that the impact of the academy's findings "on previously issued examination reports remains unaddressed." In fact, the FBI had conducted its own review to determine how often bad statistics led to mistaken matches.

In March 2005, the chief of the FBI chemistry unit that oversaw the analysis wrote in an e-mail that he applied one of the new statistical methods recommended by the National Academy of Sciences to 436 cases dating to 1996 and found that at least seven would "have a different result today." Marc A. LeBeau estimated that at least 1.4 percent of prior matches would change.

If the FBI employed other statistical methods the number of non-matches would be "a lot more," LeBeau wrote. In fact, when the bureau tested one method recommended by the academy on a sample of 100 bullets, the results changed in the "large majority of the cases," he wrote.

Despite the concerns, the FBI provided affidavits in at least two cases seeking to help prosecutors sustain convictions that were based on bullet-lead matches.

In one such affidavit introduced in Maryland, the FBI cited the academy's report but did not mention it faulted the bureau's statistical methods.
That omission concerns the chairman of the academy panel.

The affidavit "does not discuss the statistical bullet-matching technique, which is key and probably the most significant scientific flaw found by the committee," said Kenneth MacFadden, a private chemistry expert.

MacFadden and Spiegelman said they also believed the affidavit was misleading, because it estimates that the maximum number of .22-caliber bullets in a batch of lead was 1.3 million. The academy said the number could be as high as 35 million.

In a May 12, 2005, e-mail, the deputy lab director told LeBeau, "I don't believe that we can testify about how many bullets may have come from the same melt and our estimate may be totally misleading."

FBI officials said Friday they will stop using the affidavit.

"They said the FBI agents who went after Al Capone were the untouchables, and I say the FBI experts who gave this bullet-lead testimony were the unbelievables," Spiegelman said.

"60 Minutes" correspondent Steve Kroft and producers Ira Rosen and Sumi Aggarwal, Washington Post research editor Alice Crites and staff researcher Madonna Lebling, and freelance researcher Jilly Badanes contributed to this report.

[cmaples82]

This is the daugther of the victims that Lee Wayne Hunt MURDERED . I don''t care what any of you say he is GUILTY and it really sucks that he is gettting all this national attention when the family of the victims can''t even get a return call from the people on 60 minutes . and ythe comment from the people saying should the journalist really be call ing someone a drug dealing if he is speaking about Lee Wayne Hunt he needs to go back and watch the show because he addimited to being a drug dealer and even though he is in prison he probally is still dealing drugs .

[mcvet]

And for those of you that think there is even one FBI analyst at the FBI Lab that purposely tries to put innocent people in jail, you should follow dukakislives to Canada. Come on people - a mistake was made and not on purpose. Next time you want to throw a stone at the FBI Lab just think about whether you would want them to help you if your loved one was missing or killed.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted by BeAnAmerican at 07:57 PM : Nov 18, 2007
+ report abuse

It seem''s you fascist ALWAYS come up with some excuse. PLEASE explain why, when confronted with the story from a DEFENSE Attorney for another man who admitted to the killings, the NAZI judge in N.C. refused to even concider releasing the man but instead turned the Attorney in to the Bar Association.. His CLIENT WAS DEAD!!! You sure know how to bury your head in the sand that''s for sure. I know one thing, if something like this happens based on ONE piece of evidence, someone wasn''t looking for justice... NOPE! That judge ant that jury were looking for a REASON to lock someone up... PERIOD! Sieg Heil Y''all.

[likeablunchs]

'' ...

if a network or camera or art supply or calculator company can send a signal to a tv,

or send a signal to a paid computet operating system company to spruce up the signal before posting to the tv,

why would the network, camera, art supply, or calculator company choose to waste uncountable vaulable time and effort and other resources trying to develop equipment that is compatible with an operating system that does not even spruce up a signal before passing it to a television?

... ''

[anonbene]

Did you know prisons are private companies now? Did you know you can buy stock in prisons? Did you know police lawyers and judges buy stock in prisons? Did you know it is profitable to have as many prisonors in prison as possible and building more prisons is a for profit venture? Did you know that prisons are in the top three fastest growing industries? Did you know most public defenders are worth exactly what you pay them? Zilch. Did you know it is estimated that up to 25% of all inmates are innocent of any crime? It is in the best financial interest of everyone in the courtroom that you be convicted of something? Wake up folks. Always follow the money.

[cdddraftsman]

"9/11 was as much of an inside job as the attack on Pearl Harbor"

Wow ! That man should have his brain exhumed and donated to the bureau of wildlife ! :-( ......tl

[beanamerican]

First of all, dukakislives should move to Canada. Go see what you are missing but don''t come back.
And for those of you that think there is even one FBI analyst at the FBI Lab that purposely tries to put innocent people in jail, you should follow dukakislives to Canada. Come on people - a mistake was made and not on purpose. Next time you want to throw a stone at the FBI Lab just think about whether you would want them to help you if your loved one was missing or killed.

[beanamerican]

First of all, dukakislives should move to Canada. Go see what you are missing but don''t come back.
And for those of you that think there is even one FBI analyst at the FBI Lab that purposely tries to put innocent people in jail, you should follow dukakislives to Canada. Come on people - a mistake was made and not on purpose. Next time you want to throw a stone at the FBI Lab just think about whether you would want them to help you if your loved one was missing or killed.

[beanamerican]

First of all, dukakislives should move to Canada. Go see what you are missing but don''t come back.
And for those of you that think there is even one FBI analyst at the FBI Lab that purposely tries to put innocent people in jail, you should follow dukakislives to Canada. Come on people - a mistake was made and not on purpose. Next time you want to throw a stone at the FBI Lab just think about whether you would want them to help you if your loved one was missing or killed.

[denn034]

Shame on the FBI.

[king77shaw]

9/11 was indeed an inside job!

[Renegade.Rivers]

It''s a sad side note to the American justice system that our justice system has been so tainted over the years. Justice is hard to come by, and good legal representation is even harder to obtain. We gloat and stick our chest out as we brag about how great and fair our justice system is, but the truth be told, its really not that great or fair. In the system that we have, moneys buys justice, justice is no free for the offering. There are those that would have you believe otherwise, but with the number of faulty lab analysis, and all the other anomalies that have been proven to exist in the legal system they tout so highly, how can they continue to take that stand.

We have taken and made criminal elements out of various groups in society that weren''t considered so a hundred years ago. We have seen the creation of laws, and the justification for their existence on so called "moral grounds" that I am sure could never been envisioned by our forefathers.

History has not been kind to justice in America, because justice has not been well served in America. America has found it convenient to throw out justice, when justice got in the way of the undertakings of rich and powerful, whose sole ambitions were to satisfy their lust for the possessions of others at what ever cost necessary, even at the expense of justice.

[glaswolf]

dukakislives at 12:28 PM: Before guns, people used knives and clubs and things were more violent and more dangerous. Guns make noise and usually after one person is shot, the ambiance is alerted, and someone intervenes. If I recall correctly, Richard Speck stabbed 8 nurses one at a time. He tied them up, then walked them one at a time into another room where he stabbed them with one knife. No guns will mean a radical increase in brutal butchery. Ask Speck ... only one nurse survived the knifings.

[prinzowhales]

Only a people accustomed to crawling on its collective power before power would continue to allow a murderous and criminal regime rule over it...

SEE:http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2035108967536002048&hl=en

LOOSE CHANGE shows how elements of the Washington Regime murdered 3,000 Americans...Infowars.com has an archive of the crimes of this Regime against the American people...Why would anyone be surpirsed that the leadership of the Federal Bureau of Incompetence continues its abysmal work...it was only yesterday that the whistle was blown on the FBI''s crime lab hijinks...the FBI leadership sabotaged the investigations of its fine street agents who wanted to go after the terrorist suspects at the flight school...The White House itself threatened agents with arrest if they continued their bin Laden investigations PRIOR TO 9-11.

If America continues to accept the kind of Demopublican criminal leadership that covers up for criminals--as evidenced by the arse-licking corrupt swine on the 9-11 Commission--then you will have a police state that is fully in the service of the criminals.

[creeper00]

Just the latest scandal du jour traceable to the crooks in the "administration".

I can''t whip up any indignation over this one...nor any of the other daily tales of malfeasance. My outrage meter pegged years ago.

[b0ludo]

Our DAs will do anything to get a conviction and that is the way we like it. So what if a small percentage of convictions were won via giving co-defendants a deal that could save them, even if they lied? That is the only way to keep this human junk off the streets!! Better yet, shoot them when you catch them. It will help the prison overcrowding. Catch a thug raping a child? Give him some double-barreled justice ipso facto... You''ll see how our crime rates start to decline when we start hanging perps in public places.

[mygramma]

A law enforcement agency like the FBI that prides itself on world class excellence should also abide by world class honesty and integrity. It hasn''t.

[myidoncbs]

"2,500 cases over three decades" with tainted evidence. How many of the defendants have been put to death? Fortunately, since they usually sit on death row for 10 to 15 years, only about 1/2 of those sentenced to death have been killed so far. BUT THAT''S NO EXCUSE! The whole "criminal justice" system is UNJUST, rotten to the core, corrupt, and evil.

And the really crazy thing is: look at the comments on that story about a texas ****** who decided he "had to" act as judge, jury, and executioner as he left his house with a shotgun, went next door, and murdered two petty thieves who were taking junk from his neighbor. Lots of a-holes are saying he was justified! How stu/pid can they be? If every paranoid lunatic with a gun can just decide, on their own, who is guilty and who deserves to die (death for petty theft?) and immediately sentence the "guilty" to death and carry out the sentence on the spot, guess what? We''ll have total chaos, anarchy, and life will not be worth shiiiiit for anybody!

What the h3ll has this country become under the "leadership" of the freat "Decider"?

[mutantdog]

"The cases include a North Carolina drug dealer who has developed significant new evidence to bolster his claim of innocence and a Maryland man who was recently granted a new murder trial."

Should the journalist here really be calling someone a "drug dealer" when they very well might be innocent? Shouldn''t this say something like, "...a North Carolina man accused of drug dealing..."?

[crater7]

CAN YOU IMAGINE JOHNNY SUTTON, NOTIFING THE DEFENDENTS ATTORNEYS OF THE POSSIBILITY THAT THEIR CLIENTS COULD BE INNOCENT?

ARROGANT AND POWER HUNGRY PROSECUTERS WILL NEVER ADMIT MISTAKES. CHANCES ARE THAT 99% OF THE CONVICTED ARE GUILTY, BUT, THERE COULD BE THAT 1%, THAT ARE INNOCENT.

OH WELL! TO BAD.............

[farmerbb]

..."notification to prosecutors" ....????? Ahh, gee, maybe the defendants and their lawyers should be the prime targets for any such notifications. We have all seen far too many cases where evidence surfaces AFTER a trial, proving the defendant innocent, yet the prosecutor still insists he/she is guilty. I dunno about the rest of you, but I have zero faith that each and every prosecutor notified of this will ensure that those convicted & their lawyers are also told.