FBI Laboratory: Difference between revisions
KolbertBot (talk | contribs) m Bot: HTTP→HTTPS |
Rescuing 1 sources and tagging 0 as dead. #IABot (v1.5.4) |
||
| Line 32: | Line 32: | ||
In a subsequent investigation in 2012, the DOJ found that evidence related to hair analysis had been falsified, altered, or suppressed, or that FBI agents had overstated the scientific basis of their testimony, to the detriment of defendants. In 2013, the Department of Justice began a review of cases referred to them for hair analysis from 1982 through 1999, as many as 10,000 cases, to determine whether their agents' testimony resulted in wrongful convictions. DNA testing has revealed some convicted inmates to be innocent of violent crime charges against them. In 2015 the FBI reported that their expert witnesses overstated the reliability of hair analysis in matching suspects 96 percent of the time, likely influencing conviction of some defendants.<ref name="eric">[https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/04/us/justice-dept-fbi-scientist-forensic-test.html?mtrref=www.google.com ERIC LICHTBLAU, "Justice Dept. to Tighten Rules on Testimony by Scientists"], ''New York Times'', 03 June 2016; accessed 12 June 2017</ref> |
In a subsequent investigation in 2012, the DOJ found that evidence related to hair analysis had been falsified, altered, or suppressed, or that FBI agents had overstated the scientific basis of their testimony, to the detriment of defendants. In 2013, the Department of Justice began a review of cases referred to them for hair analysis from 1982 through 1999, as many as 10,000 cases, to determine whether their agents' testimony resulted in wrongful convictions. DNA testing has revealed some convicted inmates to be innocent of violent crime charges against them. In 2015 the FBI reported that their expert witnesses overstated the reliability of hair analysis in matching suspects 96 percent of the time, likely influencing conviction of some defendants.<ref name="eric">[https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/04/us/justice-dept-fbi-scientist-forensic-test.html?mtrref=www.google.com ERIC LICHTBLAU, "Justice Dept. to Tighten Rules on Testimony by Scientists"], ''New York Times'', 03 June 2016; accessed 12 June 2017</ref> |
||
Cases are still being overturned as a result of incorrect hair analysis testimony. <ref>[http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/Washington_Post_Calls_for_Full_Review_of_FBI_Crime_Lab.php "Washington Post Calls for Full Review of FBI Crime Lab"]</ref> In 2012 DNA testing revealed the innocence of three inmates from the District of Columbia who had been convicted to life and served years in prison based on hair analysis evidence and testimony by FBI experts. They have received large settlements from the city because of wrongful convictions and damages of the lost years. |
Cases are still being overturned as a result of incorrect hair analysis testimony. <ref>[http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/Washington_Post_Calls_for_Full_Review_of_FBI_Crime_Lab.php "Washington Post Calls for Full Review of FBI Crime Lab"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130522145408/http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/Washington_Post_Calls_for_Full_Review_of_FBI_Crime_Lab.php |date=2013-05-22 }}</ref> In 2012 DNA testing revealed the innocence of three inmates from the District of Columbia who had been convicted to life and served years in prison based on hair analysis evidence and testimony by FBI experts. They have received large settlements from the city because of wrongful convictions and damages of the lost years. |
||
"Scientific experts consider DNA — which first became widely used in courts in the 1990s — to be the only near-certain indicator of a forensic match."<ref name="eric"/> Neither hair analysis, fingerprints, gun analysis nor explosive analysis are considered reliable enough to identify a suspect. In addition to the undermining of such forensic tests, studies since the late 1990s have showed the eyewitness testimony may be very flawed and subject to shaping by the way police set up the test. There has been an effort in several states to establish methods for eyewitness identification that reduce factors known to wrongfully direct such identification. Among the issues in this area is that studies have found that cross-ethnic eyewitness identification has much higher rates of failure than does identification of a suspect from the complainant's ethnic group. |
"Scientific experts consider DNA — which first became widely used in courts in the 1990s — to be the only near-certain indicator of a forensic match."<ref name="eric"/> Neither hair analysis, fingerprints, gun analysis nor explosive analysis are considered reliable enough to identify a suspect. In addition to the undermining of such forensic tests, studies since the late 1990s have showed the eyewitness testimony may be very flawed and subject to shaping by the way police set up the test. There has been an effort in several states to establish methods for eyewitness identification that reduce factors known to wrongfully direct such identification. Among the issues in this area is that studies have found that cross-ethnic eyewitness identification has much higher rates of failure than does identification of a suspect from the complainant's ethnic group. |
||
Revision as of 22:11, 26 September 2017
 | This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages)
|
| Federal Bureau of Investigation | |
|---|---|
 | |
 Badge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation | |
 | |
| Common name | Federal Bureau of Investigation |
| Abbreviation | FBI |
| Motto | Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity |
| Agency overview | |
| Formed | July 26, 1908 |
| Employees | 35,104[1] (October 31, 2014) |
| Annual budget | US$8.3 billion (FY 2014)[1] |
| Jurisdictional structure | |
| Federal agency (Operations jurisdiction) | United States |
| Operations jurisdiction | United States |
| Legal jurisdiction | As per operations jurisdiction |
| Governing body | U.S. Department of Justice |
| Constituting instrument | |
| General nature | |
| Operational structure | |
| Headquarters | J. Edgar Hoover Building Northwest, Washington, D.C. |
| Sworn members | 13,260 (October 31, 2014)[1] |
| Unsworn members | 18,306 (October 31, 2014)[1] |
| Agency executives |
|
| Child agencies | |
| Major units | 5
|
| Field offices | 56 (List of FBI Field Offices) |
| Notables | |
| People |
|
| Programs | |
| Significant Operations | |
| Website | |
| www | |
The FBI Laboratory is a division within the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation that provides forensic analysis support services to the FBI, as well as to state and local law enforcement agencies free of charge. The lab is located at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Quantico, Virginia. Opening November 24, 1932,[2] the lab was first known as the Technical Laboratory. It became a separate division when the Bureau of Investigation (BOI) was renamed as the FBI.
From September 1934 to September 1975, the Lab was located on the 6th floor and the attic of Justice Department Building in Washington, D.C. Public tours of the lab work area were available until the FBI moved across the street to the newly constructed J. Edgar Hoover Building in 1974. Tours of the J. Edgar Hoover Building were available, but the tour route shifted away from the lab work space, thus sealing the lab from public view. The laboratory expanded to such an extent that the Forensic Science Research and Training Center (FSRTC) was established at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. Methods at the FSRTC have helped establish standardized forensic practices for law enforcement agencies. The FBI Lab has been in Quantico since the relocation from Washington around 2004.
It is a full-service operation, with some 500 scientific experts and special agents. The lab generally enjoys the reputation as the premier crime lab in the United States. However, during the 1990s, its reputation and integrity came under withering criticism, primarily due to the revelations of Special Agent Dr. Frederic Whitehurst, the most prominent whistleblower in the history of the Bureau. Whitehurst was a harsh critic of conduct at the Lab. He believed that a lack of funding had affected operations and that there was a pro-prosecution bias by the Lab technicians. He suggested they were FBI agents first and forensic scientists second, due to the institutional culture of the Bureau, which resulted in the tainting of much evidence.
Since the more widespread use of DNA testing since the late 20th century, the scientific reliability of FBI hair analysis has been questioned. DNA has exonerated persons convicted where the only physical evidence was hair analysis. In addition, in a high percentage of cases, the FBI has learned that its expert witnesses overstated the reliability of hair analysis in testimony in court cases.[3] In 2013 the Department of Justice began a review of thousands of cases from 1982 through 1999 referred to the FBI for hair analysis. By 2015 it found that these included 32 death penalty convictions, of which 14 people had died in prison or been executed, and narrowed its review to cases that went to court.[4] It has focused on cases in which hair analysis played a part in convictions, in order to follow up with defendants.[5]
Bullet and gun analysis is another forensic test that has been identified in recent studies as being less scientifically reliable than thought. The Bureau established an interdisciplinary commission in 2013 to establish the highest scientific standards in forensic testing and to understand the limits of these tests, and how they may be properly used in court.
History
| External videos | |
|---|---|
 Presentation by John F. Kelly on Tainting Evidence: Inside the Scandals at the FBI Crime Lab, July 10, 1998, C-SPAN |
Dr. Frederic Whitehurst, who joined the FBI in 1982 and served as a Supervisory Special Agent at the Lab from 1986 to 1998, blew the whistle on scientific misconduct at the Lab. As a result of Whitehurst's whistleblowing, the FBI Lab implemented forty major reforms, including undergoing an accreditation process. Reforms took place under FBI chief Louis Freeh, who served from 1993 to 2001.
Whitehurst's whistleblowing in the 1990s and the adverse publicity trials, in which FBI Lab employees were revealed as incompetent or disingenuous, led to major changes. According to John F. Kelly & Phillip K. Wearne's book Tainting Evidence: Inside the Scandals at the FBI Crime Lab (1998), the FBI Crime Lab had been hurt by a lack of funding and an institutional entropy rooted in Lab employees' belief that they were the best forensic experts in the country, if not the world. Some Lab employees failed to keep abreast of developments in forensic science.
The two authors concluded that the worst problem was that the Lab employees were FBI agents rather than pure forensic scientists. The investigative paradigm of the detective was antithetical to the investigative paradigm of the scientist. Lab employees began to work backwards, from a conclusion preordained by the prosecutors they served, and sought to justify that conclusion rather than using more scientific research paradigms.
21st century controversies
With a heightened attention to scientific rigor in its forensic testing, the FBI lab in 2005 abandoned its four-decade-long practice of tracing bullets to a specific manufacturer’s batch through chemical analyses, after its method were scientifically debunked.[6] A blue-ribbon panel of the National Academy of Sciences raised concerns about the FBI's reliance on forensic testing in a 2009 report that "found nearly every familiar staple of forensic science to be scientifically unsound" and highly subjective.
In 2016 a man was exonerated and freed in Virginia, based on DNA evidence, after serving 33 years in prison. He had been convicted of rape and murder and sentenced to life in part based on several FBI experts testifying to identification of him by bite-mark patterns, to a "medical certainty."Scientists say that such certainty is impossible to gain by this test.[6] The DNA testing showed that he was not the perpetrator of the crime. As the Washington Post reported, "No court in the United States has barred bite-mark evidence, despite 21 known wrongful convictions, a proposed moratorium in Texas and research showing that experts cannot consistently agree even on whether injuries are caused by human teeth."[6] This forensic test has been highly suspect for some years, but prosecutors and police continue to rely on it, and FBI agents make claims about it.
In a subsequent investigation in 2012, the DOJ found that evidence related to hair analysis had been falsified, altered, or suppressed, or that FBI agents had overstated the scientific basis of their testimony, to the detriment of defendants. In 2013, the Department of Justice began a review of cases referred to them for hair analysis from 1982 through 1999, as many as 10,000 cases, to determine whether their agents' testimony resulted in wrongful convictions. DNA testing has revealed some convicted inmates to be innocent of violent crime charges against them. In 2015 the FBI reported that their expert witnesses overstated the reliability of hair analysis in matching suspects 96 percent of the time, likely influencing conviction of some defendants.[7]
Cases are still being overturned as a result of incorrect hair analysis testimony. [8] In 2012 DNA testing revealed the innocence of three inmates from the District of Columbia who had been convicted to life and served years in prison based on hair analysis evidence and testimony by FBI experts. They have received large settlements from the city because of wrongful convictions and damages of the lost years.
"Scientific experts consider DNA — which first became widely used in courts in the 1990s — to be the only near-certain indicator of a forensic match."[7] Neither hair analysis, fingerprints, gun analysis nor explosive analysis are considered reliable enough to identify a suspect. In addition to the undermining of such forensic tests, studies since the late 1990s have showed the eyewitness testimony may be very flawed and subject to shaping by the way police set up the test. There has been an effort in several states to establish methods for eyewitness identification that reduce factors known to wrongfully direct such identification. Among the issues in this area is that studies have found that cross-ethnic eyewitness identification has much higher rates of failure than does identification of a suspect from the complainant's ethnic group.
References
- ^ a b c d "Frequently Asked Questions". Federal Bureau of Investigation. Retrieved 2016-09-02.
- ^ "FBI Laboratory History". Federal Bureau of Investigation. Archived from the original on 2015-01-03.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|deadurl=ignored (|url-status=suggested) (help) - ^ Hsu, Spencer (April 16, 2012). "Convicted defendants left uninformed of forensic flaws found by Justice Dept". The Washington Post. Retrieved August 31, 2014.
- ^ Hsu, Spencer (April 18, 2015). "FBI admits flaws in hair analysis over decades". The Washington Post. Retrieved April 22, 2015.
- ^ Hsu, Spencer (July 17, 2013). "U.S. reviewing 27 death penalty convictions for FBI forensic testimony errors". The Washington Post. Retrieved August 31, 2014.
- ^ a b c Spencer S. Hsu, "Sessions orders Justice Dept. to end forensic science commission, suspend review policy", Washington Post, 10 April 2017; 12 June 2017
- ^ a b ERIC LICHTBLAU, "Justice Dept. to Tighten Rules on Testimony by Scientists", New York Times, 03 June 2016; accessed 12 June 2017
- ^ "Washington Post Calls for Full Review of FBI Crime Lab" Archived 2013-05-22 at the Wayback Machine
External links
- The FBI Laboratory: An Investigation into Laboratory Practices and Alleged Misconduct in Explosives-Related and Other Cases (April 1997)
- Frederic Whitehurst's criticism of Unabomber investigation
- Frederic Whitehurst's criticism of World Trade Center bombing investigation
