FBI accused of dragging feet on hair and fiber review; Texas plugging along

As the Forensic Science Commission this week in Fort Worth discussed Texas' nascent review of convictions involving possibly erroneous hair-and-fiber testimony, the FBI drew fire for dragging its heels on similar reviews at the national level, especially in death penalty cases, allowing three inmates including one in Texas to be executed without coming forward to say testimony in their cases was flawed. See the recent 146-page report (pdf) from a DoJ Inspector General at the center of the recent controversy.

New Scientist mentioned that New York and North Carolina have also launched state-level reviews and that, "of the 10 per cent of cases reviewed so far, the 'vast majority' contained errors. As a result, 136 defendants, including two on death row, will receive letters informing them of their right to DNA testing as a means of proving their innocence. This is in addition to 23 letters that went out last year, including to 14 people on death row." The magazine reminds us that:

hair analysis is just one of many forensic disciplines that hinge on using a microscope to visually compare two samples and declare a match. Ballistics, fibre analysis, tyre and shoeprint comparison and tool and bite-mark analysis all take a similar approach. All came under heavy criticism in a landmark report on the state of forensic science published in 2009.

"This review is likely to have an effect on any discipline where they didn't have a statistical reference to estimate the chances of another person being a match," [national Innocence Project cofounder Peter] Neufeld says. He believes it could even filter across to disciplines with a more robust statistical basis such as fingerprinting, but which have been exposed as flawed in recent years.