More than 2,000 criminal cases across the United States involving FBI "hair examiners" will be reviewed under an agreement reached by federal law enforcement officials, defense lawyers and innocence advocates.
It is not known how many or if any of the cases occurred in Virginia, said Steven D. Benjamin, a Richmond lawyer and president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
Paul Cates, a spokesman for the Innocence Project, said there is a good chance some of the cases are in Virginia, but even if he knew, he could not identify them because the FBI and Department of Justice must contact local prosecutors first.
The review announced Thursday will focus on specific cases in which FBI Laboratory reports and testimony included statements that were scientifically invalid, Cates said.
Deemed unreliable in 2009 by the National Academy of Science, microscopic hair comparison analysis was routinely used by prosecutors in the years before DNA testing, to link a defendant to a crime.
Gail Jaspen, chief deputy director of the Virginia Department of Forensic Science, said the department stopped performing hair comparison analysis in 2006. "We will, nonetheless, monitor the FBI review and meet to discuss these developments," she said.
The review was prompted after three men were exonerated by DNA testing in cases in which FBI hair examiners provided testimony exceeding the limits of science and contributing to the wrongful convictions, Cates said.
The agreement, reached by the U.S. Department of Justice, the FBI, the Innocence Project and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, primarily concerns cases from between 1985 and 2000.
It will also cover an unknown number of cases handled in preceding years. The review covers cases in both the federal and state court systems where the FBI hair analysis was used as evidence.
The 2,000 FBI cases, suggests the Innocence Project, are the tip of the iceberg.
Over a 25-year period, the FBI conducted a training course for several hundred state and local hair examiners around the country that used some of the same scientifically flawed language that the FBI's examiners offered in lab reports and trial testimony.
"As a result, it is likely that audits similar to the FBI's will be necessary in most states," Cates said.
In the review, Cates said the Justice Department will notify the defendant, defense lawyer and prosecutor in each case where it is determined there was error in hair analysis evidence.
Also, the FBI agrees to perform DNA testing of hair evidence when it is ordered by a court or requested by the prosecution.
Copyright 2013 - Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
