The FBI is notifying hundreds of defendants in 46 states that their convictions involved flawed expert testimony. It now admits that nearly Every Examiner in an elite forensic unit overstated hair matches that favored prosecutors.
This is one of the country's largest-ever forensic scandals and includes dozens of death row convictions, reports CBS News correspondent Julianna Goldman.
Cleveland Wright spent 28 years behind bars serving time for a 1978 murder. Wright was exonerated in 2014, but has not been compensated.
The Innocence Project and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers found from the 1970s through 1999, in 268 cases where FBI hair analysis led to a conviction, 257, or 96 percent, had errors in analysis.
Eighteen of those defendants were living on death row 12 had been executed.
"There's a certain aura about FBI agents. They are very sharp, and very trustworthy; it doesn't mean their experimentation was done properly," Kobilinsky said.
Errors do not mean there was no evidence of guilt, but defendants may have grounds for appeal.
Just a thought.
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