Punishing the innocent and rewarding the innocent
Mass media: thousands of mistakes made by the FBI were found in the databases of forensic experts
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has notified forensic laboratories across the country about the discovery of thousands of errors in the data used by forensic experts to compare DNA samples found at crime scenes, the Washington Post newspaper reports (FBI notifies crime labs of errors used in DNA match calculations since 1999), citing its sources.
According to the publication, the detected errors relate to the period since 1999 and, according to the FBI, are unlikely to lead to "dramatic changes" that may affect court cases. It is reported that the research materials will be published in the July issue of the Journal of Forensic Sciences.
In the bulletin, which was sent to forensic laboratories, the FBI reported that the cause of the problems were "technical errors in the transcription of genotypes and shortcomings of old technologies and software."
The disclosure of this information occurred against the background of an appeal by private researchers and lawyers to disclose the FBI database, which contains 13 million DNA samples. In their opinion, the data may contain errors, while judges and juries attach great importance to the data of such analyses when making decisions.
Forensic experts in the United States typically examine DNA samples by analyzing 13 or more specific sections of chromosomes, called loci, to identify specific markers. The analysis of samples to establish the identity of the offender is carried out by comparing these markers. The FBI plans to switch to using more than 20 loci, which theoretically should significantly improve the accuracy of the results.
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