Senate Judiciary Committee Demands DOJ Cases Using Discredited Bullet-Matching Test [View All]

Source: Washington Post

By John Solomon
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 21, 2007

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee demanded that the Justice Department turn over to Congress all cases involving the FBI lab's use of a now-discredited bullet-matching forensic test and criticized the department for failing to alert defendants whose convictions were affected by the flawed science.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) told Attorney General Michael Mukasey he should be prepared to face questions at an oversight hearing in January about problems with the science known as comparative bullet-lead analysis that were documented in a joint investigation by The Washington Post and 60 Minutes.

"The new revelations about bullet-lead analysis are just the latest examples of the Department's inadequate efforts to ensure that sound forensic testing is utilized to the maximum extent to find the guilty rather than merely obtain a conviction. Punishing the innocent is wrong and allows the guilty party to remain free," Leahy wrote.

The science, dating from the mid-1960s, used chemical analysis of lead to match crime scene bullets to those in a gun or ammunition box owned by suspects. The FBI in 2005 dropped the technique because of concerns about its reliability.

The Post and 60 Minutes reported Sunday that after ending the tests the FBI never alerted defendants who were convicted with the help of the science -- even though the bureau knew that its experts in many cases had given inaccurate testimony or made statistically flawed matches. Instead, the bureau sent letters across the country stating the FBI remained confident in the test's scientific underpinnings....

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/21/AR2007112101768.html?hpid=topnews