Lead poisoning blinds Justice

It’s 44 years later, and the bullets Lee Harvey Oswald fired at President Kennedy are still claiming victims. During its investigation of the Kennedy assassination, the FBI introduced a new forensic tool: comparative bullet-lead analysis. But the FBI’s tool, which has been used in an estimated 2,500 cases, is as fictional as Oliver Stone’s movie JFK.  How many people are currently behind bars because of this analysis is unknown.

The idea behind comparative bullet-lead analysis is that bullets from the same manufacturer’s batch will have distinct chemical similarities, and can be distinguished from all other batches of bullets. Always suspect, definitely shown to be unreliable by research in the 1990’s, the idea was finally killed by a 2004 National Academies of Science report. A year later, the FBI bowed to reality, and dropped this type of analysis. The head of the FBI lab wrote to FBI Director Robert Mueller that continuing to use the comparative analysis would be “misleading to a jury”. Mueller, in turn, released a public letter announcing the FBI would no longer use the technique, but the bureau “still firmly supports the scientific foundation of bullet lead analysis.”

As the Washington Post reports this morning, it’s unclear how many people are currently behind bars because this phony science. There has been a Freedom of Information Act request for a full list of all cases in which the FBI used the comparative analysis pending since 2005. The bureau claims it cannot provide a list, because it cannot come up with the estimated $70,000 it would cost to search its records.

Even if the list is forthcoming, it may be of little use to some of those convicted. As the Post explains,

For the majority of affected prisoners, the typical two-to-four-year window to appeal their convictions based on new scientific evidence is closing.

So even if it can be shown the evidence that convicted them is wrong, it doesn’t matter to the courts, thanks to procedural changes introduced during the Reagan administration. Being innocent isn’t enough.

Justice is usually depicted as blindfolded, but this gives that image a new meaning.

Tags: comparative bullet-lead analysis, FBI, Kennedy assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald, National Academies of Science, Robert Mueller, Washington Post