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Forensics
Bullet IDs
Slammed As Bad Science
WASHINGTON, March 8, 2005
An FBI crime lab technique
used for decades to match bullets to crimes - and relied on by
prosecutors in hundreds of criminal trials - is based on "erroneous
scientific foundations," a New Jersey appeals court has
ruled.
In a decision Monday overturning
a 1997 murder conviction, the court said Michael S. Behn deserves
a new trial because expert testimony based on the FBI technique
was central to his conviction.
"The integrity of the
criminal justice system is ill-served by allowing a conviction
based on evidence of this quality, whether described as false,
unproven or unreliable, to stand," the judges said.
The ruling is believed to be
the first to overturn a conviction based on a challenge to the
FBI analysis of the lead content of bullets since the National
Academy of Sciences last year raised new questions about the
technique.
FBI Lab Director Dwight Adams
asked for the academy study in 2003 after a retired bureau metallurgist
began questioning the validity of the science that matches bullets
by comparing the chemical composition of their lead content.
The academy, chartered by Congress and privately run, is widely
respected.
The FBI request came as the
Associated Press reported the retired metallurgist's findings
based on his own research into the science behind the lead bullet
analysis. The AP also disclosed that an FBI scientist had admitted
giving false testimony about lead bullet analysis in a Kentucky
case.
Adams has estimated that the
technique has been used in about 2,500 cases since 1980 and has
been mentioned in court testimony about 500 times since then.
Barry Scheck, president of
the National Association of Defense Lawyers, said the ruling
will probably be followed by similar challenges in other courts.
"There's no question since
the National Academy of Science report that testimony pursuant
to CBLA (chemical bullet lead analysis) is unreliable,"
said Scheck, who is a founder of The Innocence Project, a legal
team at Benjamin Cardozo Law School at Yeshiva University in
New York which uses DNA evidence to clear wrongly convicted individuals.
The bullet analysis technique
in question, says Sheck, can't be used "for any probative
evidentiary purpose. In many of these cases, people been wrongly
convicted."
One of the nation's most prominent
defense lawyers, Scheck's past clients include O.J. Simpson and
Abner Louima.
In the New Jersey case that
sparked Monday's court ruling, William Tobin, the retired FBI
metallurgist who first questioned the technique, submitted a
sworn statement that resulted in a new trial for Behn, who was
sentenced to life in prison after his 1997 conviction in the
shooting death of a coin dealer.
The FBI is the only law enforcement
agency that analyzes the metal content of bullets. It is done
when bullet fragments are too small or damaged to compare the
marks left on the slug by the barrel of the firearm. The goal
is to determine if the bullet from the crime matches other bullets
found in the suspect's possession or weapon.
In a technique known as chaining,
researchers compare the amounts of trace elements in a series
of bullets. If they find that bullet A is like bullet B and B
is like C and C is like D and so on, they then conclude that
A is the same as E because they are part of the same chain.
In the New Jersey case, the
appellate court said the FBI analysis that used chaining to link
bullets found at Behn's residence with those used in the killing
was the only expert testimony in the circumstantial case that
was not countered by the Behn's lawyers during his trial.
"We conclude that the
expert testimony was based on erroneous scientific foundations,"
the court said.
- Behn's lawyer had asked the
appeals courtFBI to order a new hearing on the evidence
challenging the FBI analysis. But the court went a step further,
reversing his conviction and ordering a new trial.
-
-
- Work Challenged,
Conviction Negated
- Court Overturns Murder Conviction
After Challenge of FBI Bullet Analysis
By DAVID PACE, The Associated
Press
Mar. 8, 2005 - An FBI crime
lab technique used for decades to match bullets to crimes and
relied on by prosecutors in hundreds of criminal trials is based
on "erroneous scientific foundations," a New Jersey
appeals court has ruled.
In a decision Monday overturning
a 1997 murder conviction, the court said Michael S. Behn deserves
a new trial because expert testimony based on the FBI technique
was central to his conviction.
"The integrity of the
criminal justice system is ill-served by allowing a conviction
based on evidence of this quality, whether described as false,
unproven or unreliable, to stand," the judges said.
The ruling is believed to be
the first to overturn a conviction based on a challenge to the
FBI analysis of the lead content of bullets since the National
Academy of Sciences last year raised new questions about the
technique.
FBI Lab Director Dwight Adams
asked for the academy study in 2003 after a retired bureau metallurgist
began questioning the validity of the science that matches bullets
by comparing the chemical composition of their lead content.
The academy, chartered by Congress and privately run, is widely
respected.
The FBI request came as the
Associated Press reported the retired metallurgist's findings
based on his own research into the science behind the lead bullet
analysis. The AP also disclosed that an FBI scientist had admitted
giving false testimony about lead bullet analysis in a Kentucky
case.
Adams has estimated that the
technique has been used in about 2,500 cases since 1980 and has
been mentioned in court testimony about 500 times since then.
William Tobin, the retired
FBI metallurgist who first questioned the technique, submitted
a sworn statement in the New Jersey case that resulted in a new
trial for Behn, who was sentenced to life in prison after his
1997 conviction in the shooting death of a coin dealer.
The FBI is the only law enforcement
agency that analyzes the metal content of bullets. It is done
when bullet fragments are too small or damaged to compare the
marks left on the slug by the barrel of the firearm. The goal
is to determine if the bullet from the crime matches other bullets
found in the suspect's possession or weapon.
In a technique known as chaining,
researchers compare the amounts of trace elements in a series
of bullets. If they find that bullet A is like bullet B and B
is like C and C is like D and so on, they then conclude that
A is the same as E because they are part of the same chain.
In the New Jersey case, the
appellate court said the FBI analysis that used chaining to link
bullets found at Behn's residence with those used in the killing
was the only expert testimony in the circumstantial case that
was not countered by the Behn's lawyers during his trial.
"We conclude that the
expert testimony was based on erroneous scientific foundations,"
the court said.
Behn's lawyer had asked the
appeals court to order a new hearing on the evidence challenging
the FBI analysis. But the court went a step further, reversing
his conviction and ordering a new trial.
Barry Scheck, president of
the National Association of Defense Lawyers, said the ruling
will probably be followed by similar challenges in other courts.
"There's no question since
the National Academy of Science report that testimony pursuant
to CBLA (chemical bullet lead analysis) is unreliable,"
Scheck said. "You can't use it for any probative evidentiary
purpose. In many of these cases, people been wrongly convicted."
Copyright 2005 The Associated
Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell
