FBI Doesn't Tell Courts About Bogus Evidence

dprovine writes "According to a joint investigation by The Washington Post and 60 Minutes, a forensic test used by the FBI for decades is known to be invalid. The National Academy of Science issued a report in 2004 that FBI investigators had given "problematic" testimony to juries. The FBI later stopped using "bullet lead analysis", but sent a letter to law enforcement officials saying that they still fully supported the science behind it. Hundreds of criminal defendants — some already convicted in part on the testimony of FBI experts — were not informed about the problems with the evidence used against them in court."

does the article state

[zappepcs (820751)]

why the evidence presented was not questioned as to its scientific veracity? From what I read and hear, there is valid reason for questioning every technology that is used against you, whether that is a radar gun, camera, eye witness, anything. Your lawyer should never accept anything as fact, and should attempt to prove in court that it is not valid. For instance, the breathalyzer tests have been shown to read higher than actual in more than 25% of tests. Can't remember the story lead or I'd link it.

It's things like this that ensure that the party with the most money will win...

Re:does the article state

[Derekloffin (741455)]

As good as some lawyers are, most are not experts in every scientific technique, and those that aren't frequently don't have the funds to hunt down and procure the testimony of someone who is both familiar with the technique and willing to talk about it's short comings in their client's favor.

Re:does the article state

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF (813746)]

Your lawyer should never accept anything as fact, and should attempt to prove in court that it is not valid.

A lawyer I know once described public defenders as always falling into one of two categories:

• Young, altruistic, energetic, and so inexperienced and incompetent they don't know how to file a motion, let alone properly get evidence examined.
• Older guys, there for a paycheck, who do as little as possible, even choosing unnecessary plea bargains just so they have less paperwork to do.

I'd like to think he's being cynical, but I haven't seen much evidence that contradicts his claim. I saw a true crime special the other day about a woman who spent four years in jail after being convicted of murder. The supposed method was LSD poisoning, even though there has never been a human fatality attributed directly to LSD. The test they used to convict her was a preliminary test that was only supposed to show if there was reason to do the more expensive test. The test was run on tissue from a exhumed cadaver, when the test was only useful applied to fresh urine from a living person. The state did perform the follow up test, but it showed up as negative, so they pretended they had not performed it. Somehow, her defendant did not question any of this evidence, at all despite it being scientifically unsound to pretty much any pathologist you could consult. That lawyer is still a practicing public defender.

Re:

[$RANDOMLUSER (804576)]

• Young, altruistic, energetic, and so inexperienced and incompetent they don't know how to file a motion, let alone properly get evidence examined.
• Older guys, there for a paycheck, who do as little as possible, even choosing unnecessary plea bargains just so they have less paperwork to do.

Sounds like a lot of programmers (and project managers) I know, too.

Re:

[lucifuge31337 (529072)]

The state did perform the follow up test, but it showed up as negative, so they pretended they had not performed it.

Not disputing anything at all that you said, but if that is the case, it's highly illegal and grounds for disbarment of the prosecutor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exculpatory_evidence [wikipedia.org]

Re:

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF (813746)]

That was the grounds for the retrial, but according to the report, the original prosecutor had been dead several years and the original defender refused interviews.

Re:

[PitaBred (632671)]

Yeah, they'd be better off. But that would take ambition and competence. There are a LOT of people who are perfectly comfortable (if not happy) to just work only within what they know, and keep things from changing as much as possible. Change is bad. The old guys would stay there as long as they knew they'd get their regular pay increases, and know exactly what's expected of them, and don't have to do much work.

Re:does the article state

[Znork (31774)]

"the breathalyzer tests have been shown to read higher than actual in more than 25% of tests"

Heck, DNA labs have had 10% error rates. There have been cases where they run first the DNA sample from the suspect, then run the comparison with the crimescene sample in the same batch, insufficiently cleaning equipment between so the suspects sample is actually transferred into the crimescene sample during the testing procedure. And labs that refuse to change such flawed procedures due to cost.

There was a case in the UK where a man with advanced Parkinsons who couldnt drive and who could barely dress himself became a suspect in a burglary 200 miles away, after a DNA database search popped his name out as a match. He put in jail for several months, until his lawyer demanded a test on more loci and they noticed that, ooops, DNA isnt really that accurate, and seeing as human beings do not vary in size and form between flatworm through elephant, they can have quite a lot of matching loci without actually being the same person.

Forensic science isnt questioned anywhere near as much as it should be. Which gives us idiotic ideas like fingerprint and dna databases that will be so diluted by irrelevant false positives they can only either waste resources and slow down police work or provide a whole host of scapegoats to throw in jail even when there's not the slightest chance they could actually be guilty.

Re:

[nasor (690345)]

Sure, if you can afford to pay thousands of dollars to bring in your own qualified expert witness to testify that the police's forensic analysis was flawed. People with advanced degrees in forensics and/or analytical chemistry usually don't donate their time for free. If you're poor, good luck trying to concince someone to help you out of the goodness of their heart.

Re:

[TheVelvetFlamebait (986083)]

For instance, the breathalyzer tests have been shown to read higher than actual in more than 25% of tests.

How did they test that, out of curiosity?

They were all guilty anyway!

[A beautiful mind (821714)]

They were all guilty! We know they were all guilty! How? We just know!

Besides, would you let a killer/terrorist/robber free?

Re:They were all guilty anyway!

[magarity (164372)]

If you can't trust 12 people who were not smart enough to get out of jury duty to evaluate that evidence
 
Such a finely developed sense of civic duty you have there. Jury duty may well be a pain in the arse but it's a hard won right for accused that people in trouble with the law in most other parts of the world would find an amazing gift.

Adversarial system

[TheMeuge (645043)]

That's what happens when the judicial system is an adversarial system - the prosecutor feels that the defendant is his enemy, because his record is dependent on the percent of cases he closes with a conviction. At the same time there is little to no penalty for convictions that are later overturned, unless they happen to be VERY high profile cases. I am not saying that another system is better, but this problem is certainly inherent in the system.

Other than dramatically increasing the responsibility for false convictions and penalties for malicious persecution, I am not sure that I can come up with any changes that would remedy the problem. People are intrinsically prone to corruption when they are going to benefit from it... and the "blue wall of silence" is just one example of what happens in fraternal orders endowed with power over people's lives.

Re:

[sm62704 (957197)]

That's why former Illinois Governor George Ryan commuted all the death sentences in Illinois to life after DNA evidence proved that half the men on death row were innocent.

Ryan himself is now in a Federal slammer.

-mcgrew

Re:

[samkass (174571)]

That's why former Illinois Governor George Ryan commuted all the death sentences in Illinois to life after DNA evidence proved that half the men on death row were innocent.

That's a nice gesture, but it's a lot harder for someone sentenced to life in prison to get people to review their case to overturn it. If I was innocent of a crime, I'm not sure if I'd rather be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, or death. The latter would get me a lot more people digging for my innocence.

Re:

[Unlikely_Hero (900172)]

Convict someone of a crime based on evidence you know to be faulty, you serve the sentence instead.

You argued for the death penalty?...ohhh....bad move...

Re:

[doggod (1081287)]

I don't think the problem lies so much with the adversarial system as with another dynamic you mention -- the link between the political success of the District Attorney's office and its record of successful prosecutions. "Success" is thus not defined in parallel with "justice" but rather with court victories.

I see a further linkage here that has to do with general function of the whole "public safety" establishment. Most people, I would guess the overwhelming majority, believe that the function of the

Re:

[Repossessed (1117929)]

For one, enforce the law. If you know that the test you used is flawed, or even that a more reliable test counteracts what you are presenting, (as another poster mentioned) and you continue to present that as fact, it should be considered purgery and a felony.

I constantly here stories like this about cops/prosecutors/whatever present what amounts to faked evidence in court, and none of them even get a slap on the wrist, even though the law calls for all of them to be in jail.

Re:

[CodeBuster (516420)]

Perhaps, but they certainly had an incentive *not* to check too closely into the science either. First, science is not their area of expertise which brings up the second point. Why question potentially valuable scientific evidence that helps your (the prosecution's) case if the scientists say that it is good or at least do not say that it has any problems? As other posters have said, the penalty for getting your conviction overturned someday is small and unlikely while a failure to secure a conviction could

A true whistleblower

[InvisblePinkUnicorn (1126837)]

If this turns out to be true, which it seems to be, then William Tobin is a hero for revealing all of this. If I were in his position, working for so many years under the assumption that the FBI had actually done some tests to back up their original theory, I too would be pissed off that my spurious work had put so many people behind bars for decades (the article mentions someone behind bars for 22 years based solely on this evidence, who has maintained absolute innocence from day one).

Re:A true whistleblower

[morgan_greywolf (835522)]

Indeed. This isn't the first time William Tobin has blown the whistle by any stretch of the imagination. Tobin, who was formerly the chief metallurgist at the FBI, also called into question the investigative practices of individuals involved in the FBI's investigation of TWA Flight 800 [senate.gov] and has testified as to various fraudulent activities that took place within various FBI investigations [truthinjustice.org]. Apparently this test was the same test used to convict Lee Harvey Oswald, and guess who called it into question? Yup. William A. Tobin [washingtonpost.com].

Curiouser and curiouser, no?

Law Science

[Doc Ruby (173196)]

One big problem with our justice system is that it's modeled on science, with evidence, hypothesis (of guilt), theory(of how the law was broken), and logical analysis of physical tests (and the weaker, but still analytical, cross examination of witnesses), all relying on the principle of falsifiability (if the hypothesis can be disproven, or alternatives can't be disproven, the hypothesis is rejected). But science really relies on reproducibility. Experiments are repeated several times and competitively criticized by others with experience repeating and reading the results. While criminal justice does a single "experiment", the alleged criminal act, and then analyzes it once. And then sometimes executes people.

Re:

[Doc Ruby (173196)]

Science rarely examines onetime events, out of all the phenomena it studies. And when it does, it explicitly states its certainty in very low confidence levels. And, like with the Big Bang, composes a theory of how the event itself isn't just gone, but is part of massive evidence everywhere - or scientists won't argue with much certainty of all.

Science also works on shades of doubt and uncertainty. Science, in fact, took many of the terms and practices of law, as they coevolved - usually in the same countri

Fingerprints?

[whoever57 (658626)]

I seem to recall reading that there is no scientific study validating the uniqueness of fingerprints. The primary defence for the use of fngerprints on Wikipedia appears to be that "they have been used for a long time", repeated in several forms.

Re:

[sm62704 (957197)]

I seem to recall reading that there is no scientific study validating the uniqueness of fingerprints.

Science doesn't prove, it disproves. You test your theory, and if it's not found to be invalid it's assumed to be valid, until further or different tests disprove it. If on the unlikley event the second law of thermodynamics is shown to be false, or false under some circumstances, it will be dropped or modified.

When it is shown that two people can, indeed, have identical fingerprints then fingerprints can no

Re:

[Dan Ost (415913)]

There is no physical law that dictates that fingerprints are unique, but there is an enormous amount of statistical evidence to that effect. Of course, this is dependent on the fact that you've got a good print for comparison. Smudged prints, partial prints, etc, all significantly weaken the statistical case for fingerprint evidence.

Re:

[Badge 17 (613974)]

There is a lot of research in both forensics and statistics about fingerprint uniqueness. A classic reference for calculating these numbers is Stoney and Thornton - Stoney, David A., and John I. Thornton. 1986. A critical analysis of quantitative fingerprint individuality models. Journal of Forensic Sciences 31 (4): 1187-1216.

Fingerprint identification is done by comparing the location and orientation of "minutiae," small defects in a fingerprint pattern. Typically, it takes around 12 minutiae to be consi

Update from the first link

[bi_boy (630968)]

On Friday, the FBI agreed. It acknowledged that it had made mistakes in handling bullet lead testimony and should have done more to alert defendants and the courts. As a result of the 60 Minutes-Washington Post investigation, the bureau said it will identify, review and release all of the pertinent cases, and notify prosecutors about cases in which faulty testimony was given.

The FBI also says it will begin monitoring the testimony of all lab experts to make sure it is based on sound scientific principles. FBI Assistant Director John Miller said, "We are going to the entire distance to see that justice is now served."

Evidence Of Injustice: FBI's Bullet Lead Analysis Used Flawed Science To Convict Hundreds Of Defendants [cbsnews.com]

Stonewalling by the FBI

[Henry Pate (523798)]

The article says the National Academy of Sciences started the study in 2002, and it took 18 months, to give them the benefit of the doubt let's say that they finished the study in 2004 and found that the method was severely flawed. Then they waited an entire year to stop using the technique and the report they issued downplayed the severity of the issue saying that they still stood behind the science, even when they knew it could have been wrong. Nobody in the FBI or the Justice Department tried to identify the hundreds of cases that used their analysis, nor did they notify the defendants, prosecutors or judges involved in these cases.

What kind of twisted lies do you have to tell yourself to justify keeping possibly innocent people behind bars? They weren't just trying to ignore the science, they didn't notify defendants or their lawyers when they knew their time for appeal was almost up. Oh sorry, you appealed too late, no doubt the evidence against you is utter horseshit, but sorry, it's been a few years and everyone else has moved on, get used to jail.

It took 60 Minutes to actually get some progress on this, I hope all the people involved in keeping evidence that could exonerate someone get a fair punishment.

Re:Stonewalling by the FBI

[belmolis (702863)]

Some prosecutors consider finality of judgment so important that they oppose freeing or even granting a new trial to people who have been shown by overwhelming evidence to be actually innocent. I've read interviews in which they say this.

How can I ever avoid reasonable doubt now?

[nasor (690345)]

As a jurror, how the hell am I supposed to not have "reasonable doubt" about anything that's introduced as evidence in a trial? It's already very well-established that eye-witness identification has horrible reliability. Now apparently I shouldn't even take the reliability of forensic evidence forgranted. What's left? If the prosecution presents damning forensic evidence and the defense lawyer simply says "Yeah, but since it's been proven that even established forensic tests aren't necessarily reliable, why should anyone believe you?" how am I supposed to not have reasonable doubt about the forensic evidence now?

Re:How can I ever avoid reasonable doubt now?

[twifosp (532320)]

I was going to mod you up but will reply instead:

Yeah, but since it's been proven that even established forensic tests aren't necessarily reliable, why should anyone believe you?" how am I supposed to not have reasonable doubt about the forensic evidence now?

You have nothing to worry about. That type of thinking (logicical) will exclude you from ever being selected as a juror. Unless you fiegn complete ignorance in the selection process, that is.

That is what I see as the single biggest flaw with the American legal system. We are supposed to be judged by our peers, but I wouldn't consider any modern jury to be made up of my peers. They are selected based on their ignorance of the topic involved. Prosecutors want blank slates to trick with fancy sounding testimony. Defenders want considerate and empathetic people. In any case involving race, both sides will seek to fill a quota of a certain demographic.

Judged by your peers? Not very likely.

Re:How can I ever avoid reasonable doubt now?

[RWarrior(fobw) (448405)]

It's obvious you've never been on a jury. You're too smart. [findarticles.com]

Re:How can I ever avoid reasonable doubt now?

[twifosp (532320)]

Maybe universal CCTV is the answer. If your entire life is recorded, then criminal charges will be easier to determine.

Given the context of your post (which I did not quote) I realize this statement was probably tongue in cheek, but I felt the need to respond anyway.

CCTV systems are used to investigate crimes. But they rarely actually catch the criminal act themselves. Instead it's used to connect people, places, and times. Would you like to be linked to criminal activity just because you happened to be in two wrong places at the wrong times? If a linked crime happens in 2 areas, the probability goes up that all the people recorded in that area are suspects. This also increases your probability to be charged with a crime you did not convict. Even if you are acquitted in the end, the mere charge of a crime in today's societies comes with negative consequences. Even if you are proven innocent, you suffer reputation damages, probably wife and kids, and most assuredly your job.

DNA

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF (813746)]

On a related note, if you ever go to trial and DNA matching is used, question the methodology and get the source to the software used. A friend of mine works at a company that makes DNA comparison devices and says they make some really, really, really questionable choices in their matching algorithms. Like if the DNA strand shows a sequence that is rare in the common populace (rarer than an arbitrarily chosen value) the algorithm assumes it is an error an substitutes the most common sequence for purposes of matching. He says it sometimes keeps him up at night worrying about who is going to jail.

Re:

[BlowHole666 (1152399)]

Sounds like he never took an ETHICS class. That should have whistle blowing all over it.

Big surprise!

[Master of Transhuman (597628)]

Anybody remember the big deal over the manipulated crime lab results a few years back?

The FBI's function has always been since Day One to put people in jail without regard to guilt or innocence.

Does anybody really believe that J. Edgar Hoover ever gave a damn about "evidence"?

There's a reason that the rule for talking to the FBI is: You say "On advice of attorney I have nothing to say to the FBI." That's it. You never say anything else, because they WILL use it to build a case against you even if you have done nothing.

Ask that guy Jewel from the Atlanta bombing case. Ask the guy suspected in the anthrax case. Ask thousands of people in Federal prison.

The FBI is the equivalent of the Gestapo except they have slicker methods and better PR thanks to the TV shows.

Re:

[Attila Dimedici (1036002)]

Actually, if I recall correctly, Richard Jewel only had problems because the news media figured out that he was being investigated by the FBI. The news media assumed that since he was a suspect he must be guilty. The FBI was doing its job, the media made his life hell. The FBI did overstep itself after the media jumped all over the case because they were afraid of evidence being destroyed. However, what went wrong in the Richard Jewel case was the media.
And if you think the FBI is the equivalent of the Ge

Re:

[rjh (40933)]

This is not actually good advice. When interviewed by federal agents, the proper response is I'd love to help, but I need to talk to my attorney first. I'll have him get in touch with you.

If you express an unwillingness to talk to the agents, that can be used to support warrants against you, on the grounds that it's indicative of some sort of suspicious behavior. If you express a willingness to talk but you assert your right to counsel before any conversation, they can't use that to support a warrant.

The

Re:Polygraph - inaccurate

[eleuthero (812560)]

Lie detectors can be used in investigations but not in trials. There's a real, significant difference there.

Re:Polygraph - inaccurate

[king-manic (409855)]

Lie detectors can be used in investigations but not in trials. There's a real, significant difference there.

Actually, they aren't considered scientifically sound enough to be entered into most courts. certain US jurisdictions will allow it or a polygraph expert to testify or test to be conducted in front of juries. defense councils occasionally use them in jury cases. So no they aren't strictly forbidden and thats is one of the problems. As well their prominence in Media give them drastically undue weight to a jury of my peers.

Re:

[pilgrim23 (716938)]

Lead test; inconclusive article describes why; ballistics test; in spite of crime TV for 25 years: inconclusive; and in smaller calibers: unusable. Oh and to work at all the bullet cannot be at all deformed which happens if the bullet contacts a bone, wall or anything hard. Paraffin test for shooting a gun: inconclusive; you cannot tell the difference between shooting a gun, lighting a firework, shoveling manure, or shaking hand with a politician and since washing hands after any of these is a natur

Re:

[truthsearch (249536)]

60 Minutes interviewed one person who was convicted with bullet lead analysis as the only physical evidence. All other evidence was circumstantial. No one knows yet how many cases used this as evidence, so there's no way to know how many cases relied heavily on it.

Re:WHAT?!?!

[trolltalk.com (1108067)]

Those BASTARDS!

How could they?

Simple - follow the money. There are two things that corrupt - power and money. You do bogus "bullet lead analysis", and you get more funding, a bigger staff, more power ... rinse, lather, and repeat.

Welcome to faith-based criminology - where nobody bothers to test basic assumptions because in Soviet Amerika, the FBI trolls YOU! And no, its not just a problem for the US.

What's particularly galling is that nobody in government feels a need to review all the cases where the FBI basically LIED. Again, power and money. Is it a coincidence that the first case this was used on was the Kennedy Assassination, and that it supposedly tied the "magic bullet" to a box of bullets Oswald had? Or was this the FBI "inventing junk science" for a political agenda, and then it got out of hand?

Re:

[Vengance Daemon (946173)]

He must be guilty or he wouldn't be here.

Does the death penalty have Undo?

[EmbeddedJanitor (597831)]

This is the kind of reason why most of the real Free World does not have the death penalty.

As with all science, forensics also move on with time and methods used a few years back can be shown to be invalid a short while later.

Re:

[Foobar of Borg (690622)]

Yeah. Because if someone's been rotting in jail (at taxpayer expense) for 25 years, and they are found found innocent due to new forensics, we can give them their 25 years back.

It beats being dead.

And the money we spend to keep them in jail, and to feed them, etc, all magically re-appears.

It costs more in taxpayer money to execute someone (with all the legal costs, appeals, etc.) than it costs to keep them in prison for the rest of their lives.

Re:Preemptive trolling: somewhere, somehow...

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF (813746)]

... a troll will tie this issue to the "Bush administration", or even to "BushCo".

If you RTFA you'd know the problem is not that the test is wrong, it is that current FBI and DoJ officials who are the only people in a position to provide a list of all the cases where this evidence may have sent innocent people to jail, have not bothered to do so. They did stop performing the test, but in the letter informing police agencies of this, downplayed the issue and stated that they think the scientific basis is still valid. As a result, there are almost certainly innocent people who will not get an appeal despite all it would take is the FBI admitting the problem and handing over the list. Note the FBI director was one of the first people Bush appointed to office and he also appointed the head of the DoJ, so I think some blame rightly belongs with the Bush administration and their habit of politically expedient coverups, instead of justice.

ACLU indeed.

[NeutronCowboy (896098)]

Dammit - and here I have mod points, but already replied to something else.

This is exactly the purpose of the ACLU. While it doesn't deal with expert testimony, it does represent the union of all people who are accused (note that accused != guilty) and are being railroaded by the system. I never understand why people rail against the ACLU when the ACLU defends people like the KKK and child molesters because of a lack of due process in the trial. The only thing that stands between an honest man/woman and a w

Re:

[Greg_D (138979)]

Perish the thought that protecting the very processes which are there to protect your fundamental freedoms would ever triumph over the ease of emotion laden controversy.