STORY: "Review of FBI forensics does not extend to federally trained state/local examiners," by reporter Spencer S. Hsu, published in the Washington Post on December 22, 2012.
GIST: "Thousands of criminal cases at the
state and local level may have relied on exaggerated testimony or false
forensic evidence to convict defendants of murder, rape and other
felonies. The forensic experts in these cases were trained by the same
elite FBI team whose members gave misleading court testimony about hair
matches and later taught the local examiners to follow the same suspect
practices, according to interviews and documents. In July, the Justice Department announced a nationwide review
of all cases handled by the FBI Laboratory’s hair and fibers unit before
2000 — at least 21,000 cases — to determine whether improper lab
reports or testimony might have contributed to wrongful convictions. But
about three dozen FBI agents trained 600 to 1,000 state and local
examiners to apply the same standards that have proved problematic. None
of the local cases is included in the federal review. As a result,
legal experts say, although the federal inquiry is laudable, the number
of flawed cases at the state and local levels could be even higher, and
those are going uncorrected. The FBI review was prompted by a series of articles in The Washington Post about errors at the bureau’s renowned crime lab involving microscopic hair comparisons. The articles highlighted the cases of two District men who each spent more than 20 years in prison based on false hair matches by FBI experts. Since The Post’s articles, the men have been declared innocent by D.C. Superior Court judges."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/review-of-fbi-forensics-does-not-extend-to-federally-trained-state-local-examiners/2012/12/22/b7ef9c2e-4965-11e2-ad54-580638ede391_story.html
PUBLISHER'S NOTE
I have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses several thousand posts. The search box is located near the bottom of the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and myself get more out of the site.
The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/
Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.
Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.
