FBI Labs, Technicians Under Investigation
Less than a decade after the FBI laboratories took steps to reform forensic practices in order to eliminate shoddy procedures and improve accuracy, the Bureau is now facing new concerns that experts are not following proper lab protocol and are jeopardizing cases by giving false testimony. Among the concerns outlined in internal FBI documents is the work of scientist Kathleen Lundy, who recently told her superiors that she knowingly gave false testimony about her specialty of lead bullet analysis during a court hearing involving a Kentucky murder. Retired FBI metallurgist William Tobin has also called Lundy's work into question, noting that he had long suspected while working alongside the bureau's lead bullet analysts that they were engaged in inaccurate science. He asserted that the scientists regularly stretched their conclusions when testifying.
The work of lab technician Jacqueline Blake is also under scrutiny by the Bureau. An internal FBI watchdog investigation revealed that Blake, who recently resigned from the lab, failed to follow proper scientific procedure when analyzing DNA in at least 103 cases over the past few years. (Associated Press, April 15, 2003) See Innocence.
Less than a decade after the FBI laboratories took steps to reform forensic practices in order to eliminate shoddy procedures and improve accuracy, the Bureau is now facing new concerns that experts are not following proper lab protocol and are jeopardizing cases by giving false testimony. Among the concerns outlined in internal FBI documents is the work of scientist Kathleen Lundy, who recently told her superiors that she knowingly gave false testimony about her specialty of lead bullet analysis during a court hearing involving a Kentucky murder. Retired FBI metallurgist William Tobin has also called Lundy's work into question, noting that he had long suspected while working alongside the bureau's lead bullet analysts that they were engaged in inaccurate science. He asserted that the scientists regularly stretched their conclusions when testifying.
The work of lab technician Jacqueline Blake is also under scrutiny by the Bureau. An internal FBI watchdog investigation revealed that Blake, who recently resigned from the lab, failed to follow proper scientific procedure when analyzing DNA in at least 103 cases over the past few years. (Associated Press, April 15, 2003) See Innocence.
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