Bulletin: Arkansas: Eugene Pitts; The Arkansas Supreme Court has granted this inmate serving a life sentence for a 1979 murder after learning that his conviction was tainted by testimony from discredited FBI hair match analyst Michael Malone. "He is the second Arkansas inmate to get court-appointed help in petitioning for post-conviction relief after news that the forensic testimony used against him and potentially thousands of others went beyond the limits of science." Arkansas Today;

"The Arkansas Supreme Court gave an inmate serving a life sentence for a 1979 murder an attorney after the inmate demonstrated that his conviction was tainted by testimony from a discredited FBI expert. Eugene Pitts, 67, has been in prison since since his 1979 conviction for kidnapping and slaying a romantic rival, Dr. Bernard Jones. He is the second Arkansas inmate to get court-appointed help in petitioning for post-conviction relief after news that the forensic testimony used against him and potentially thousands of others went beyond the limits of science. Pitts' case is one of at least three Arkansas cases regarding the hair analysis that are being reviewed by officials from the FBI and the Department of Justice, as well as the Innocence Project. Since the review began in 2012, federal officials determined that 26 of their 28 non-DNA microscopic hair-follicle analysts gave "erroneous" testimony in 95 percent of the cases they reviewed.  The court appointed John Wesley Hall to guide Pitts through his petition, weeks after they appointed another Little Rock defense attorney, Jeff Rosenzweig, to help Lonnie Strawhacker. That prisoner's life sentence for rape and battery charges were partially the result of testimony from the same discredited expert who testified against Pitts......... In addition to his voice identification, prosecutors relied on dirt samples found in the stolen car that matched samples on Pitts' shoes, as well as the testimony of FBI analyst Michael Malone, who testified that Pitts' hair virtually matched a hair found at the crime scene. Pitts has filed several appeals in both state and federal courts over the last several decades, trying and failing to get a DNA analysis of the hair found at the crime scene that experts linked to him. Sometime in 2008, the hair sample disappeared. In November, the Justice Department notified Pitts that Malone was one of several analysts who had provided unreliable expert testimony. While advocates for convicts like the Innocence Project say that the science proffered by Malone was in and of itself faulty, the FBI still considers microscopic hair analysis a valid technique if done properly. It now uses the analysis to supplement DNA testing, which became the standard for forensic testing in the late 1990s. Hall said that procedurally, Pitts' efforts for relief could prove difficult because there isn't a ready rule that allows for appeals of this nature. But if given a chance, Pitts will be able to show that the hair analysis testimony was "nonsense," he said."
http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2015/jun/26/court-assigns-aid-to-convict-in-79-murd/