Shock report into FBI errors cast doubt on TWENTY-SEVEN death penalty convictions

The FBI is reviewing 2,000 cases convicted on hair samples after it has emerged that there has been widespread errors in forensic testing and how the evidence was portrayed in court.

As many as 27 prisoners facing the death penalty may have been wrongfully convicted along with potentially thousands of others across the country.

Since the 1980s, hundreds of convictions have been overturned on improper forensic science - which includes bite marks, blood analysis and shoe prints along with hair samples.

Forensic testing has never been proved 100 per cent accurate by science - but at times, was presented by experts in court as if conclusive.

A current federal review of unprecedented scale is examining 2,000 cases from 1985 to 2000 where the FBI submitted testimony or reports on hair analysis. Cases where the individual is facing execution will be given priority.

The grievous errors could now potentially throw an unknown number of convictions across the country into doubt as 95 per cent of violent crimes are handled by local and state jurisdictions.

The Innocence Project told MailOnline today that they were hopeful that following the FBI review, state labs would follow suit and review cases where hair analysis had been the key evidence.

The results of the FBI review are due later in the summer, according to the Washington Post.

According to the Post investigation, the FBI is also planning to examine death penalty cases where the person has already been executed.

The Innocence Project, who worked alongside the FBI on the review, said that wrongful convictions are 'not isolated or rare events, but arise from systemic defects'.

Hair samples cannot be used to positively identify a perpetrator - however when some FBI experts gave evidence at trial, they led jurors to believed that hair analysis could provide definite matches to suspects.

The most recent case where hair analysis has been brought into question is that of Willie Jerome Manning, 44, who was hours before his execution in Mississippi for the murders of two students when the FBI cast doubt on his conviction. Federal investigators admitted that expert evidence given during his 1994 murder trial pushed the limits of science and were 'invalid'.

Manning was convicted and sentenced to die by lethal injection for shooting dead two Mississippi State University students in 1992. His sentence was due to be carried out at the Mississippi State Penitentiary on May 3 after 19 years on death row.

However in letters to state officials, the FBI and Department of Justice said an FBI examiner had overstated conclusions about a hair found in the car of one of the victims by suggesting it came from an African American.

Manning is black and the two victims, Tiffany Miller, 22, and Jon Steckler, 19, were white. The hair sample was the only physical evidence linking Manning to the crime scene. He has always maintained his innocence.

Manning's lawyers have asked the Mississippi Supreme Court to halt his lethal injection in light of the revelations, and the Mississippi Innocence Project filed a lawsuit to preserve the hair and other evidence for DNA testing even if Manning is executed.

Original report here




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