Pseudo Science in the Courtroom: Bullet Lead Analysis

The FBI crime lab in Quantico conducted bullet lead analysis for federal, state, local and foreign law enforcement agencies from the early 1980s to 2005 in over 2,500 criminal cases. They claimed to be able to match a bullet recovered from a crime scene to the exact box of ammunition from which the bullet originated. However, the technique was never scientifically tested until 1998 when the former chief metallurgist for the FBI retired and conducted his own tests. In 2002, the National Academies of Sciences evaluated the technique and found it to be unreliable. In 2005, the FBI issued a press release announcing they would no longer conduct bullet lead analysis. However, as of 2007, hundreds of people in the United States remained incarcerated on convictions based on this debunked forensics technique.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/evidence-of-injustice/

https://www.davisvanguard.org/2020/08/bullet-lead-analysis-a-junk-science-that-has-helped-to-convict-thousands/

https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/10924/forensic-analysis-weighing-bullet-lead-evidence

https://innocenceproject.org/overturning-wrongful-convictions-involving-flawed-forensics/

#innocenceproject
#Crimelabscandal
#forensics
#bulletfingerprinting
#bulletleadanalysis