FBI Doesn't Tell Courts About Bogus Evidence

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday November 19, 2007 @07:53AM from the appelate-court-living-in-fear dept.

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."

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How can I ever avoid reasonable doubt now? by nasor · 2007-11-19 08:41 · Score: 5, Interesting

As a jurror, how the hell am I supposed to not have "reasonable doubt" about anything that's introduced as evidence in a trial? It's already very well-established that eye-witness identification has horrible reliability. Now apparently I shouldn't even take the reliability of forensic evidence forgranted. What's left? If the prosecution presents damning forensic evidence and the defense lawyer simply says "Yeah, but since it's been proven that even established forensic tests aren't necessarily reliable, why should anyone believe you?" how am I supposed to not have reasonable doubt about the forensic evidence now?