FBI Doesn't Tell Courts About Bogus Evidence

dprovine writes "According to a joint investigation by The Washington Post and 60 Minutes, a forensic test used by the FBI for decades is known to be invalid. The National Academy of Science issued a report in 2004 that FBI investigators had given "problematic" testimony to juries. The FBI later stopped using "bullet lead analysis", but sent a letter to law enforcement officials saying that they still fully supported the science behind it. Hundreds of criminal defendants — some already convicted in part on the testimony of FBI experts — were not informed about the problems with the evidence used against them in court."

Comments

Innocent Man Behind Bars...

[appleguru]

To be fair. the legal system in the US is at best a compromise; a system designed to be as fair as possible and lead mostly correct convictions. Unfortunately, it is lacking in a lot of places, and frankly, I'm not really sure how I'd go about improving it. But for starters, having a lawyer disbarred because he violated client-lawyer privilege after his client was dead is insane. Especially when the privilege required the man to withhold crucial testimony that proved another man's innocence.

From the CBS article:

Twenty-two years ago, as a young public defender, Hughes was representing Lee Wayne Hunt's co-defendant in the double murder that sent him to prison for life.

Hughes says his client, Jerry Cashwell, told him in great detail, shortly after he was arrested, how he alone had committed the double murder. Lee Wayne Hunt, he said, wasn't even there. But because of the attorney-client privilege, Staples Hughes was duty-bound to keep the secret.

"It was sort of one of those moments that stops you completely still," Hughes says. "You know, my client's saying, 'Not only did I kill two people, but these other folks didn't have anything to do with it. The state's case is a lie. It's a fabrication.'"

Asked if he tried to get Cashwell to tell that to the authorities, Hughes says, "No."

Because?

"I'm his lawyer," Hughes says. "It wasn't in his interest to tell, to have that known at all."

"Because he could have been facing the death penalty?" Kroft asks.

"He was facing the death penalty. It wasn't theoretical," Hughes says.

Asked if this bothered him, Hughes tells Kroft, "It bothered me most when Mr. Hunt was being tried. And it's bothered me ever since. There wasn't anything I could do about it. But I knew they were trying a guy who didn't do it."

It wasn't until his client committed suicide in prison that Hughes felt he could come forward to tell his story in court. But instead of being commended for coming forward to clear an innocent man, the judge threw out his testimony and reported Hughes to the North Carolina bar for violating attorney-client privilege, even though his client was dead.

While the bullet lead analysis story is indeed big news, the number of people that are unjustly behind bars because of it can likely be counted on one hand. And while that's hardly fair, and they fully deserve retrials with fair evidence... our legal system has much bigger problems that affect many more people. Imposing big fines for filing frivolous lawsuits would be a start towards unclogging the courts and getting the attention and funding of the legal system back to where it's needed most.

Re:does the article state

[smartfart]

And why are we bothering to listen to anything 60 Minutes has to say? Remember Rathergate? These guys are about the last source for information that I'd ever turn to.