Merged FBI gave flawed / overstated testimony in nearly all trials before 2000

[Samson]

And hair was the only direct link to Scott Watson. I am just reading the case.
There is a thread here I think.
Looks like he is innocent. Oh dear.

Hair evidence

The two hairs:

There was a strong possibility of inadvertent transfer of the hairs in the ESR laboratory in Auckland on 7th March 1998 when both ST05 (reference hairs from Olivia Hope's bedroom) and YA69 hairs (tiger blanket hairs from the accused's boat) were examined by the same scientist, on the same day, at the same examining laboratory table. There was an unexplained cut in bag ST05 and hairs from Olivia Hope could have inadvertently escaped from that bag. By 7 March 1998 the YA69 hairs had already been screened on two previous occasions without any examiner noticing the two crucial blond hairs. One being 250mm long and the other 150mm long;

The DNA evidence to show that these two hairs were Olivia Hope's was far from conclusive and was inconclusive and unconvincing. Hair 69/13 had shown one positive test in New Zealand which could not be replicated, the confirming test in Australia was said to be unreliable as there had been no contemporaneous test of a control sample which should have been undertaken, testing in the UK showed that the hair had a mixed DNA profile (i.e. from two or more sources). Hair 69/12 had produces no nuclear DNA results in New Zealand and the United Kingdom results only matched 12 out of the 13 positions. If unmatched on the 13th position the hair would be excluded and there was evidence of contamination in the UK testing;

There was a strong possibility, which could not be excluded by the crown hair expert of secondary hair transfer given that both Olivia Hope and the accused had been present at the same function on New Years Eve at Furneaux Lodge; Note: On the subject of secondary transfer, it should be noted that there were 16 animal hairs found on the tiger blanket and yet there has never been an animal onboard Blade since it's launch.

http://trudyandtom.tripod.com/defence.htm

 

[NWO Sentryman]

So how many retrials can be expected from this omnishambles?

 

[Samson]

So how many retrials can be expected from this omnishambles?

What is required is a successful application to the independent privy council in Great Britain. They will/would certainly annul the verdict, and request the New Zealand crown to consider the wisdom of a de novo trial. There will be no retrial because blind Freddie can see that Scott Watson had nothing to do with the unsolved murders.
Amen.

 

[Faydra]

An actual quote from the article made me giggle.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and the panel’s ranking Democrat, Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), urged the bureau to conduct “a root-cause analysis” to prevent future breakdowns.

Sorry, I'll go away now.

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

FBI: for decades "every examiner in an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony"

Of 28 examiners with the FBI Laboratory’s microscopic hair comparison unit, 26 overstated forensic matches in ways that favored prosecutors in more than 95 percent of the 268 trials reviewed so far, according to the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) and the Innocence Project, which are assisting the government with the country’s largest post-conviction review of questioned forensic evidence.

The cases include those of 32 defendants sentenced to death. Of those, 14 have been executed or died in prison, the groups said under an agreement with the government to release results after the review of the first 200 convictions.

The FBI errors alone do not mean there was not other evidence of a convict’s guilt. Defendants and federal and state prosecutors in 46 states and the District are being notified to determine whether there are grounds for appeals. Four defendants were previously exonerated.

The admissions mark a watershed in one of the country’s largest forensic scandals, highlighting the failure of the nation’s courts for decades to keep bogus scientific information from juries, legal analysts said. The question now, they said, is how state authorities and the courts will respond to findings that confirm long-suspected problems with subjective, pattern-based forensic techniques — like hair and bite-mark comparisons — that have contributed to wrongful convictions in more than one-quarter of 329 DNA-exoneration cases since 1989.

In a statement, the FBI and Justice Department vowed to continue to devote resources to address all cases and said they “are committed to ensuring that affected defendants are notified of past errors and that justice is done in every instance. The Department and the FBI are also committed to ensuring the accuracy of future hair analysis testimony, as well as the application of all disciplines of forensic science.”

Peter Neufeld, co-founder of the Innocence Project, commended the FBI and department for the collaboration but said, “The FBI’s three-decade use of microscopic hair analysis to incriminate defendants was a complete disaster.”

Linky.

("nearly" didn't fit in the title, so sue me)

 

[Aepervius]

Next : fingerprinting.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Next : fingerprinting.

Next? The accuracy of partial finger prints has been in question for decades. Googling for >finger prints partial match< gets me a "About 530,000 results".

Fairly typical is Why Fingerprints Aren't the Proof We Thought They Were at http://www.psmag.com/politics-and-law/why-fingerprints-arent-proof-47079

“Fingerprint examiners typically testify in the language of absolute certainty,” professor Jennifer Mnookin at the University of California Los Angeles has written. But like many other claims for forensic science, the assertion that fingerprints are unique lacked a solid scientific basis and now is viewed with new caution.

“The language of certainty that examiners are forced to use hides a great deal of uncertainty,” the U.K.’s Lord Justice Leveson put it when addressing the Forensic Science Society.

 

[catsmate]

Adam Ruins Everything had an ep on bad forensics. Fingerprints, bite marks, even ballistics.

 

[ddt]

Old news?

There was a thread on this from April 2015.

 

[JTF]

Parlor Games

It's important to point out that in many of these cases, the "overstated" hair testimony is the result of an examiner using the words origin/originated in their lab reports and/or trial testimony. Unfortunately, the FBI is engaging in classic Monday Morning quarterbacking. Prior to 2001, the Bureau did not take issue with the use of the words origin/originated in lab reports and court testimony. It was the decision makers in the Bureau, NOT the lab examiners, who constructed the appropriate language to use in microscopic hair reports.

This FBI report did not flag examiners for using the word "matched," yet engage in semantics by flagging them for using the words "origin" and "originated." The NADCL and the IP are aware of this in-house parlor game, but could care less because the headline feeds their collective egos. Back in the 80's and 90's, defense lawyers and/or the IP never questioned the language used in hair comparisons. The only thing they questioned was the result of those comparisons.