Freelance writer, private investigator and contributor for The Blackwell Brief - a blog on criminal investigation and the law - http://blackwellbrief.blogspot.com
Because of public awareness brought on by a recent investigation by The Washington Post and 60 Minutes, the FBI Laboratory announced Saturday that it has undertaken outreach, analysis and review efforts concerning a discontinued forensic test known as Bullet Lead Analysis, or BLA.
In September 2005, the FBI Laboratory announced that, after extensive study and consideration, it would permanently discontinue the examination of bullet lead.
A recent joint investigation by The Washington Post and CBS News 60 Minutes shows that Bullet Lead Analysis (used by the FBI since the early 1960s) can be inaccurate and the FBI knew it.
The FBI has offered to work jointly with the Innocence Project, a legal defense and public policy organization which has done research to indentify criminal cases where Bullet Lead Analysis has been introduced at trial.
According to the FBI, an additional round of letters are being sent to state and local crime laboratories and other agencies on the flaws of Bullet Lead Analysis and requesting that they notify state and local prosecutors that may have introduced Bullet Lead Analysis during trial.
The FBI said they sent letters to crime laboratories and prosecutors in 2005 although there is no record.
In BLA cases in which an examiner testified and which resulted in a conviction, state, local and other prosecutors are being asked to obtain and provide transcripts to the FBI and the Department of Justice (DOJ) of BLA testimony by FBI Laboratory examiners.
According to the FBI, these transcripts will undergo a multi-step review conducted by scientific and legal experts at the FBI and DOJ to determine whether the testimony was consistent with the findings of the FBI Laboratory in 2005, particularly concerning the inability of scientists and manufacturers to definitively evaluate the significance of an association between bullets made in the course of a bullet lead examination. If the reviews identify questions about the testimony, the prosecuting offices responsible for any such cases will be notied.
Bullet Lead Analysis was developed in the early 1960s by researchers at General Atomic (now General Activation Analysis, Inc. located in Encinitas, California) under a federal grant.
Bullet lead examinations have historically been performed when a firearm has not been recovered or when a fired bullet is too mutilated for comparison of physical markings.
BLA uses analytical chemistry to determine the amounts of trace elements (such as copper, arsenic, antimony, tin, etc.) found within bullets.
From the early 1980s through 2004, the FBI Laboratory conducted Bullet Lead Analysis in approximately 2,500 cases submitted by federal, state, local and foreign law enforcement agencies. The results were introduced into evidence at trial.
Read more at http://blackwellbrief.blogspot.com/2007/11/fbi-helping-bullet-lead-cases-because.html
Find out about the history of Bullet Lead Analysis at http://blackwellbrief.blogspot.com/2007/11/bullet-lead-analysis-defendents-not.html
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