Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #152 Wrongful Conviction: Junk Science - Hair Microscopy Evidence

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#152 Wrongful Conviction: Junk Science - Hair Microscopy Evidence · Wrongful Conviction

0:00
Speaker 1: Washington, DC. A muggy summer day finally starts to cool
0:04
Speaker 1: as night falls, street lights turn on, Crickets chirp, there's
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Speaker 1: the soft jingle of the tags on a dog collar.
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Speaker 1: A black poodle walks up someone's porch steps, sniffs around.
0:18
Speaker 1: The dog leaps back down the stairs when its owner
0:20
Speaker 1: calls its name. A few hours later, on those same
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Speaker 1: porch steps, the man who lives there slowly walks up,
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Speaker 1: and a masked figure walks up behind him. There's a gunshot.
0:33
Speaker 1: Someone screams. The shooter makes a run for it, ripping
0:36
Speaker 1: a stocking mask from his face. It lands on a
0:40
Speaker 1: porch step as he disappears down the street into the night.
0:46
Speaker 1: You live down the street from where the gunshot went off.
0:50
Speaker 1: Three days later, you're hanging out with your girlfriend and
0:52
Speaker 1: your mom's basement, sitting on the couch watching TV. Your
0:57
Speaker 1: mom is upstairs cleaning up after dinner, and then there's
1:01
Speaker 1: a knock at the door. You hear someone introduce themselves
1:06
Speaker 1: as an officer, officer something or other, and damn it,
1:10
Speaker 1: you think, and your teenage mind you figure he must
1:13
Speaker 1: be there about the parking ticket you got a few
1:15
Speaker 1: weeks ago and didn't pay yet. Your mom's going to
1:18
Speaker 1: be pissed. You head upstairs, but they cuff you and
1:24
Speaker 1: take you away. You're brought down to the station and
1:28
Speaker 1: put in a cell, and they tell you that you'll
1:30
Speaker 1: be tried for the murder of your neighbor. The next
1:35
Speaker 1: day you're transferred to the county jail, and you're beginning
1:38
Speaker 1: to absorb the shock of it all. The one thing
1:41
Speaker 1: that you can't get past is the filth. It's just
1:44
Speaker 1: terrible in there, everything from the bugs to the food,
1:47
Speaker 1: to the living conditions, and the noise. The noise is unbearable.
1:52
Speaker 1: You can hardly sleep. You begin to miss out on things.
1:57
Speaker 1: Your family summer vacation comes and goes. Six months pass.
2:02
Speaker 1: You would have had your ged by now. A year
2:06
Speaker 1: slips by, and then a year turns into a year
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Speaker 1: and a half. Your nieces and nephews, the ones that
2:12
Speaker 1: you helped raise or growing up. You've spoken to them
2:15
Speaker 1: a few times, but they haven't come to visit. Are
2:18
Speaker 1: they thinking that their uncle may have done this? You
2:22
Speaker 1: miss out on the final years of being a care
2:24
Speaker 1: free teen. It seems as though everything's moving on without you. Finally,
2:30
Speaker 1: after two agonizing years, your case goes to trial. You
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Speaker 1: want to get your life back. You didn't kill anyone.
2:40
Speaker 1: You were in that same basement all night when someone
2:43
Speaker 1: else climbed your neighbors steps and ended his life with
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Speaker 1: a single gunshot blast of the head. A few weeks ago,
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Speaker 1: an officer came to your cell and cut some of
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Speaker 1: your hair. Of course, you willingly let them take it
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Speaker 1: because you were sure help prove your innocence. As you
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Speaker 1: sit in the courtroom at your trial, the prosecutor says
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Speaker 1: that there was a nylon stocking mass found at the
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Speaker 1: scene of the crime. An FBI agent takes the stand
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Speaker 1: for the prosecution and tells the jury, I compare the
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Speaker 1: defendant's hair to the thirteen hairs found on the mask.
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Speaker 1: This agent tells the jury that the defendant's hair is
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Speaker 1: indistinguishable from one of those thirteen hairs. The prosecutor says,
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Speaker 1: there's one chance, perhaps for all we know in ten million,
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Speaker 1: that it could be someone else's hair. This single hair
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Speaker 1: proves critical because it's the only physical evidence that ties
3:43
Speaker 1: you to the homicide. You're told the jury's reached a verdict.
3:48
Speaker 1: That shuffle back into the courtroom, and none of them
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Speaker 1: will look at you when you hear the word guilty.
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Speaker 1: There's the sudden eruption of uncontrolled sobbing, the turning on
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Speaker 1: of a spigot. There's the unraveling of your mother in Wales.
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Speaker 1: Not my baby, my baby didn't do it. Your aunts
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Speaker 1: are crying, your relatives are trying to console each other.
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Speaker 1: There's just a medley of weeping and misery. You feel
4:16
Speaker 1: like you're going to pass out. The room is sideways,
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Speaker 1: and then it's upside down, and then you're all white.
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Speaker 1: All you can hear, all you can see. Everything turns white,
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Speaker 1: and you go numb. You're sentenced to twenty years to
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Speaker 1: life and stay prison, and then there is nothing. Everything
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Speaker 1: goes blank. You do everything you can to prove your innocence.
4:46
Speaker 1: You write letters, study the law. Your father comes to
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Speaker 1: visit you just about every single Saturday. But he dies
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Speaker 1: four years after your arrest. Your mom dies two years
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Speaker 1: after that, and you can't go to either of their funerals.
5:00
Speaker 1: You can't help but to think, did this kill them?
5:04
Speaker 1: My wrongful conviction. You sit in your cell, numb most days,
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Speaker 1: and you try to recall little things that will bring
5:12
Speaker 1: some comfort. To smell your mother's cooking, sitting around playing cards,
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Speaker 1: with your friends, holding hands with your girlfriend, and your
5:22
Speaker 1: mother's basement watching TV. You live a lifetime in that prison,
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Speaker 1: thirty three long years. It takes all of that time
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Speaker 1: for the district attorney to finally agree to test the
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Speaker 1: DNA contained in the hair that was found on that
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Speaker 1: stocking mask that dropped to the steps of that porch.
5:43
Speaker 1: It turns out the way you knew it would. Your
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Speaker 1: DNA does not match any of those thirteen hairs. But
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Speaker 1: they do figure out who one of the hairs belongs to,
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Speaker 1: and it's not a person. Turns out that one of
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Speaker 1: the hairs they found on that stock mask and argued
6:01
Speaker 1: that the jury was a human hair belonged to that poodle.
6:06
Speaker 1: When you re enter the world, they say you're free,
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Speaker 1: but are you really. You went in as an eighteen
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Speaker 1: year old boy and came out a fifty one year
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Speaker 1: old man, and you've aged beyond your years. You're fighting
6:19
Speaker 1: an illness caused by the burden of carrying around your
6:22
Speaker 1: innocence for your entire adult life. You die at the
6:27
Speaker 1: age of fifty nine, enjoying only eight free years with
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Speaker 1: what's left of your family. But your death, your suffering
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Speaker 1: is not in vain. After you were found to be innocent,
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Speaker 1: the FBI starts to re examine over three thousand cases
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Speaker 1: where similar evidence was used. They're looking for other people, who,
6:48
Speaker 1: like you, were wrongfully convicted of crimes they didn't commit,
6:52
Speaker 1: people whose lives were destroyed by the junk science of
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Speaker 1: hair comparison analysis. The story you just heard is based
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Speaker 1: on true events of Sante Trebble's life. He was wrongfully
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Speaker 1: convicted in nineteen seventy eight and exonerated in twenty twelve.
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Speaker 1: He passed away in July of twenty twenty. This episode
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Speaker 1: is dedicated to him. I'm Josh duban civil rights and
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Speaker 1: criminal defense attorney and Innocent ambassador to the Innocence Project
7:32
Speaker 1: in New York. Even when examined under a microscope, the
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Speaker 1: similarities that can be observed between two hairs are open
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Speaker 1: to a wide interpretation. In other words, there are no
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Speaker 1: definitive traits that can prove with any scientific certainty that
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Speaker 1: a suspect's hair matches a hair found at a crime scene.
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Speaker 1: Yet hair comparison analysis was still being used to falsely
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Speaker 1: identify and convict innocent people up until the year two
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Speaker 1: thousand and Today, there are still people who are incarcerated
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Speaker 1: that were convicted based on this false evidence. So how
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Speaker 1: did this evidence get admitted into courts in the first place.
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Speaker 1: Turns out, hair my Crosscoby was born in the eighteen hundreds,
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Speaker 1: and the methods used to analyze and compare human hairs
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Speaker 1: haven't changed much since. In eighteen sixty nine, a man
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Speaker 1: named John Dorsey was accused of killing his wife by
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Speaker 1: beating her over the head with a club in his
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Speaker 1: own yard in Massachusetts. During the trial, two men claimed
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Speaker 1: that they had seen hairs attached to the alleged murder weapon,
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Speaker 1: and that the hair appeared to be brunette human hair
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Speaker 1: that was the color of mister Dorsey's wife's hair. Mister
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Speaker 1: Dorsey was shocked his wife was brunette, but so were
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Speaker 1: as horses. According to mister Dorsey, the club wasn't a
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Speaker 1: murder weapon, it was just one of many pieces of
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Speaker 1: wood that was set out by the horse stables. The
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Speaker 1: hair and the clubs didn't belong to his wife, but
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Speaker 1: was a hair that had fallen from his horse's tail.
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Speaker 1: But the court ruled that mister Dorsey couldn't present this
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Speaker 1: account about the horse hair. Meanwhile, the testimony from the
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Speaker 1: men claiming that the hair was mister Dorsey's wife's was permitted.
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Speaker 1: Mister Dorsey was eventually convicted of killing his wife. This
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Speaker 1: was the first time a coord admitted hair comparison analysis
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Speaker 1: as evidence in our legal system, and it definitely wouldn't
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Speaker 1: be the last. Over a century later, animal hair and
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Speaker 1: human hair would again be an issue in the Sante
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Speaker 1: triple case.
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Speaker 2: That case was just an example of the overconfidence in
9:57
Speaker 2: overreaching and what it could do to different individuals. The
10:02
Speaker 2: idea that not only could they be wrong about linking
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Speaker 2: a hare to a person, which they can because you
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Speaker 2: can't do that at all, but that they can't even
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Speaker 2: identify what is human here and what isn't. Not only
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Speaker 2: did it occur in that case, but it continued to
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Speaker 2: occur unchecked. That was just outrageous, all right.
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Speaker 1: So joining us today is Vanessa Antone and Vanessa is
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Speaker 1: a member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
10:33
Speaker 1: I think will refer to them as the NACDL, And
10:35
Speaker 1: this is just a wonderful, wonderful group. I'm a member
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Speaker 1: of the NACDL, and it is a policy and advocacy
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Speaker 1: organization that really is on the ground working for reforms
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Speaker 1: and improvements in the criminal justice system. You're going to
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Speaker 1: learn about a really remarkable project that they have been
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Speaker 1: involved in with the FBI, and Vanessa is a key
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Speaker 1: member of this project. And what they are doing is
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Speaker 1: reading hundreds of transcripts from old cases and cases where
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Speaker 1: defendants and the accused were convicted and in many cases
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Speaker 1: wrongfully convicted based on hair comparison analysis. So to start, Vanessa,
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Speaker 1: hair comparison analysis is also called hair microscopy, and we'll
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Speaker 1: use these terms interchangeably, but tell us a little bit
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Speaker 1: about what hair microscopy or hair comparison analysis is exactly.
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Speaker 2: It's looking at hair under a microscope, as you would
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Speaker 2: think from the title. But what a well trained hair
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Speaker 2: examiner was supposed to be able to do is look
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Speaker 2: at different characteristics and hair and try to make an
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Speaker 2: association from those characteristics. They look at characteristics like the
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Speaker 2: color and the thickness, whether it looks wavy, if it
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Speaker 2: has what they call scales on the cuticle, whether it's
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Speaker 2: smooth or ragged. They also look at the part of
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Speaker 2: the hair that's the medula, which is the middle of
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Speaker 2: the hair, and they look at the shape of that,
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Speaker 2: the thickness, the color. They also look at the cortex,
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Speaker 2: which is the main part of the hair, and that
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Speaker 2: gives the hair characteristics like the pigment. And when they
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Speaker 2: do the examination, they make note of all these characteristics
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Speaker 2: in like a known sample of hair, and then they
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Speaker 2: seek to compare that to the evidentiary hair.
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Speaker 1: So it sounds scientific, I guess in a way. The
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Speaker 1: examiner takes some hair from the suspect's head and they
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Speaker 1: know where that's coming from because it's the person that's
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Speaker 1: accused of the crime right in front of them, sitting
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Speaker 1: in a jail cell. So they take that hair and
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Speaker 1: put it in a little bag and label it, and
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Speaker 1: they take that hair sample compare it to what you
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Speaker 1: refer to as the evidentiary hair or the unknown sample
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Speaker 1: that was found at the scene of a crime. And
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Speaker 1: so they're looking at characteristics of the hair found at
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Speaker 1: the crime scene and then seeing if the person that
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Speaker 1: they claim committed this crime has hair that matches these characteristics.
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Speaker 1: But the problem seems to be that there are so
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Speaker 1: many different characteristics and variables and hair that matching one
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Speaker 1: hair to another, and you know, doing that to try
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Speaker 1: to find out whether it came from the same person
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Speaker 1: isn't as easy as some might think.
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Speaker 2: And reading all of these transcripts from hair examiners, you know,
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Speaker 2: throughout decades until two thousand, they would tell you that
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Speaker 2: there's a range, even in a person's own head of hair.
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Speaker 3: They don't all look identical.
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Speaker 1: So where does hair my cross could be really run
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Speaker 1: into trouble? Why isn't it reliable?
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Speaker 2: Microscopic hair comparison doesn't rely on a chemical analysis or
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Speaker 2: a set of concrete standards to associate or to make
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Speaker 2: a comparison. It's what is known as a pattern and
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Speaker 2: matching discipline. So it's basically eyeballing it. It's a subjective
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Speaker 2: forensic discipline. In fact, in the words of one of
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Speaker 2: the FBI hair examiners, it's the most subjective of the
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Speaker 2: forensic disciplines. As another microscopic hair examiner said, you just
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Speaker 2: you know, sometimes you get a feeling about a hair
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Speaker 2: and you know, it just bowls you over and you
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Speaker 2: just look at it. And so that's why there won't
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Speaker 2: be a database. You can't make a database of that
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Speaker 2: type of subjective feeling about hair.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I get it. I mean you could make a
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Speaker 1: database of people's subjective feelings about hair, but it's not
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Speaker 1: going to tell you very much, But it really begs
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Speaker 1: the question why were prosecutors using this to try to
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Speaker 1: get convictions. If it's so subjective and so speculative, why
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Speaker 1: were they using it at all.
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Speaker 2: Generally, they would start out operating on the transfer principle
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Speaker 2: that if your hair falls out and you are in
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Speaker 2: a location or you're near someone, hair can transfer to
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Speaker 2: another person or to the place that you're in close
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Speaker 2: proximity to, So it could give evidence of someone's presence
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Speaker 2: in a certain location or with a certain person. When
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Speaker 2: that is one of the few pieces of evidence you have,
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Speaker 2: obviously you want to pursue that. And a lot of
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Speaker 2: these cases, not all, but a lot of them were
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Speaker 2: in pre DNA times, so this would be very powerful
15:48
Speaker 2: evidence when you can't just DNA test something.
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Speaker 3: So what you had is the hair.
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Speaker 1: But DNA testing could come out in the nineties, So
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Speaker 1: why wasn't it being used on hair evidence? Why were
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Speaker 1: prosecutors still an FBI examiners for that matter, still using
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Speaker 1: this hair comparison analysis.
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Speaker 2: When we think of DNA testing, that's nuclear DNA testing.
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Speaker 2: And the problem with hair and why this happened was
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Speaker 2: because unless there was tissue at the root of the hair,
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Speaker 2: Like if you yank your hair out and it may
16:23
Speaker 2: or may not have some tissue at the root. Unless
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Speaker 2: there was tissue there that could be tested with nuclear DNA,
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Speaker 2: you couldn't do a DNA test on hair. All you
16:33
Speaker 2: could do is eyeball it under a microscope until mitochondrial DNA,
16:38
Speaker 2: you know, different type of DNA testing allowed testing of
16:42
Speaker 2: the hair shaft to give a result. So in all
16:46
Speaker 2: those decades that was not there, that technology wasn't being used,
16:52
Speaker 2: and it wasn't until around two thousand that even you know,
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Speaker 2: the FBI lab started using that in all the cases,
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Speaker 2: and that is when they could actually look at the
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Speaker 2: hair and say conclusively, no, it wasn't from this individual.
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Speaker 1: I want to talk about three cases that all occurred
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Speaker 1: around the Washington, DC area. One was Sante Tribble, who
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Speaker 1: we mentioned earlier, where a dog hare was mistaken for
17:28
Speaker 1: a human air. Now, another case was the case of
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Speaker 1: Donald Eugene Gates, and Donald Gates was accused of raping
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Speaker 1: and killing a girl in a park. Now, during his trial,
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Speaker 1: an FBI special agent testified that Donald's hair was quote
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Speaker 1: microscopically indistinguishable end quote from hairs found on the victim's body,
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Speaker 1: and based on that that the hair from the crime
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Speaker 1: scene probably belonged to Donald Gates. And so Donald was
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Speaker 1: convicted and sentenced to twenty years to life in prison.
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Speaker 1: And then there's yet a third case, and that is
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Speaker 1: the case of an eighteen year old named kirk Odom.
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Speaker 1: Now this one was, you know, another sort of mind
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Speaker 1: bending example of this junk science being applied, because here
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Speaker 1: you have mister Odom just walking down the street one day.
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Speaker 1: He's on his way to go see his infant daughter
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Speaker 1: at his house, and a cop stops him on the
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Speaker 1: street and says, you know, you look like the guy
18:30
Speaker 1: in this picture. And the picture was a sketch that
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Speaker 1: had been drawn based on a description given by a
18:37
Speaker 1: woman that had been attacked, blindfolded and raped by a
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Speaker 1: stranger with a gun. And the victim only got a
18:44
Speaker 1: brief look at her attacker, but the officers drew the
18:48
Speaker 1: sketch based on what she described, which was basically a
18:52
Speaker 1: young black man. Based on that, the officer arrests kirk Odem.
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Speaker 1: And you have another example of an FBI agent testifying
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Speaker 1: at a trial. And here the agent gets on the
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Speaker 1: stand and says, kirk Odom's hair matches essentially hair found
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Speaker 1: on the victim's nightgown, and they use the same sort
19:14
Speaker 1: of language that is indistinguishable from Kirk's hair. Kirk spent
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Speaker 1: over twenty two years in prison. So what happens next
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Speaker 1: is mitochondrial DNA testing finally becomes available, right, that's the
19:28
Speaker 1: DNA testing of hair. And all three of these men's
19:33
Speaker 1: hair was tested, and what do you know, none of
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Speaker 1: their DNA matched any of the hairs that were found
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Speaker 1: at the scenes of these crimes. And at this point,
19:42
Speaker 1: the FBI couldn't hide behind this anymore. So tell us, Vanessa,
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Speaker 1: what happens next.
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Speaker 2: Well, I was lucky enough to be working with ANACDL
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Speaker 2: when NACDL joined in work in a partnership with the FBI,
20:00
Speaker 2: the Department of Justice, and the Innocence Project to conduct
20:03
Speaker 2: a review of the FBI Hair Examiner's cases from you know,
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Speaker 2: whenever they started, when the earliest we could find up
20:10
Speaker 2: to about two thousand and that came about for a
20:15
Speaker 2: couple reasons, one of which was the National Academy of
20:19
Speaker 2: Sciences Report on Strengthening Forensic Science, which looked at patterned
20:23
Speaker 2: and matching disciplines, including specifically hair comparison and said, you know,
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Speaker 2: it just doesn't have a sufficient foundation to be used
20:32
Speaker 2: for identifying people.
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Speaker 1: So the NACDL is working with the FBI, and you
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Speaker 1: start going through all of these old cases. You're reading
20:41
Speaker 1: the transcripts, and these are trials where hair evidence was
20:44
Speaker 1: used to get a conviction. So what did you find.
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Speaker 2: Part of the frustration that the lawyers had and that
20:53
Speaker 2: we all had reading these transcripts back to back was
20:56
Speaker 2: the continued nature of the same states that were unscientific,
21:01
Speaker 2: and so we called them error type one, two, and three.
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Speaker 2: And in Layman's terms, air type one is basically where
21:11
Speaker 2: they're making a one to one association between a person
21:15
Speaker 2: and a hair, which can never be done with microscopic
21:18
Speaker 2: hare comparison. So that's when an examiner either states or
21:23
Speaker 2: implies that the evidentiary hair can be associated to a
21:27
Speaker 2: specific individual to the exclusion of all others. And that
21:31
Speaker 2: would include statements indicating that hair is unique. Sometimes an
21:36
Speaker 2: analogy of a fingerprint was used in testimony. Well, it's
21:39
Speaker 2: not exactly like a fingerprint, but it kind of is,
21:42
Speaker 2: and that's why we can say that this hair came
21:46
Speaker 2: from this person. So that's that one to one association,
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Speaker 2: and that is absolutely incorrect. You can't say hair is
21:54
Speaker 2: unique and use it to associate people. You know, you
21:57
Speaker 2: shouldn't have to say it's like this or it's like that.
21:59
Speaker 2: You should just what it is, and if what it
22:02
Speaker 2: is isn't enough, then it shouldn't be used to connect
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Speaker 2: the hair to a person. That wasn't really the most
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Speaker 2: common type of error or scientifically invalid statement we saw.
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Speaker 2: It was usually what we call air two and what
22:20
Speaker 2: I'm talking about. There are statements like, well, it would
22:24
Speaker 2: be rare if two hairs that looked this similar came
22:28
Speaker 2: from two different individuals, and those were the things we
22:32
Speaker 2: were looking for in the review, and unfortunately found that
22:37
Speaker 2: in the majority, the vast majority, over ninety percent of
22:41
Speaker 2: cases where FBI examiners gave testimony, the conclusions were exaggerated
22:47
Speaker 2: and there were scientifically unsupported statements in the testimony.
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Speaker 1: Look, I always knew this was bad, but ninety percent
22:55
Speaker 1: of the cases, I mean, that's just an insane statistic.
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Speaker 1: And you know, our listeners really need to remember that
23:01
Speaker 1: these weren't just any experts coming in to give testimony.
23:06
Speaker 1: This is the FBI. This is an organization that has
23:10
Speaker 1: a reputation for having attained higher knowledge, you know, knowing
23:14
Speaker 1: more than just everyday people.
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Speaker 2: When an FBI examiner comes in, especially in a state case,
23:23
Speaker 2: great weight is given to what they say. It is
23:27
Speaker 2: very impressive to have the FBI show up and explain
23:32
Speaker 2: a discipline and tell you what something means in their experience.
23:36
Speaker 3: And that's what happened.
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Speaker 2: In some cases, an FBI was asked to do hair
23:42
Speaker 2: examination when the local examiners couldn't make an association, which
23:46
Speaker 2: makes the whole thing even more questionable because the inquiry
23:50
Speaker 2: should end there. You shouldn't be able to try to
23:53
Speaker 2: find someone else who will give you the answer that
23:56
Speaker 2: you want. Also, they found that the FBI hair examiners
24:01
Speaker 2: kept their identity as law enforcement agents first and foremost.
24:06
Speaker 2: And they found that instead of acting like impartial scientists,
24:11
Speaker 2: the FBI lab culture at the time embraced the agent
24:15
Speaker 2: examiners acting like more like detectives, and that that approach
24:20
Speaker 2: should have been pulled back. And remember, no, you're independent.
24:24
Speaker 2: This is scientific. You're not part of the law enforcement
24:27
Speaker 2: investigative team. You're a scientist.
24:30
Speaker 1: So, Vanessa, you read transcripts from a ton of cases,
24:33
Speaker 1: A lot of testimony were there any that really stood
24:37
Speaker 1: out to you where you sat back and said, Wow,
24:39
Speaker 1: this is really bad.
24:41
Speaker 2: A couple of things where I thought I could not believe.
24:44
Speaker 2: This was the case where the examiner said that he
24:47
Speaker 2: had significant experience, you know, examining pubic cares from people
24:53
Speaker 2: from Mexico, and therefore he could exclude people from Mexico
24:59
Speaker 2: from having we did the pubic care in the case
25:02
Speaker 2: at hand. Obviously that was because the alternate suspects other
25:07
Speaker 2: than the defendant were from Mexico.
25:09
Speaker 3: So that was entirely made up.
25:11
Speaker 2: I mean, I can't even there's no point trying to
25:14
Speaker 2: be nice about it. That's not a thing anybody can
25:17
Speaker 2: ever say, and it was just made up. You can't
25:21
Speaker 2: say that a hair came from an individual of a
25:25
Speaker 2: particular racial group. They can look at the hair and
25:27
Speaker 2: talk about some of the ancestral origins and some of
25:30
Speaker 2: the classifications into groups at a huge broad level, which
25:35
Speaker 2: really wouldn't have value and you know, crime investigation, but
25:40
Speaker 2: they absolutely can't say that it did or did not
25:43
Speaker 2: come from a person from a certain country. So that's
25:48
Speaker 2: you know, that's pretty ridiculous.
26:01
Speaker 1: So after you review the transcripts from a case and
26:04
Speaker 1: Let's say you determine that you know, an expert or
26:08
Speaker 1: a so called expert came in and gave testimony and
26:11
Speaker 1: said things that were just outside the bounds of science,
26:15
Speaker 1: and there was a conviction. What happened next? What were
26:19
Speaker 1: the next steps of the review?
26:21
Speaker 2: I seek to assist folks in finding counsel and hooking
26:27
Speaker 2: them up with lawyers who could assist them to pursue
26:30
Speaker 2: any claims they might have. If that type of evidence
26:33
Speaker 2: was used in their case, they would do the DNA
26:36
Speaker 2: testing on the hair, or if no hair could be
26:40
Speaker 2: found after all these years, because these are old cases,
26:43
Speaker 2: they would do testing on other biological evidence as long
26:47
Speaker 2: as a chain of custody could get established.
26:50
Speaker 1: So look, I just have to say, and if this
26:53
Speaker 1: is a shameless plug, so be it. The NACDL was
26:56
Speaker 1: just it's a remarkable organization because you're not only exposing problems,
27:01
Speaker 1: which you certainly did here, but it goes that extra
27:05
Speaker 1: step to helping people that you know have been the
27:09
Speaker 1: victim of a wrongful conviction or the victim of you know,
27:13
Speaker 1: testimony that goes outside the bounds of science, and getting
27:16
Speaker 1: them help and hooking them up with lawyers. So you
27:20
Speaker 1: must Vanessa have had an interesting experience from all these cases.
27:25
Speaker 1: What is your biggest takeaway from this work?
27:28
Speaker 2: No matter how much you want a conviction or how
27:32
Speaker 2: much other evidence you think you have of guilt, it's
27:35
Speaker 2: never appropriate to admit unsupported science and the idea that
27:41
Speaker 2: using certain techniques are needed as tools to quote unquote
27:47
Speaker 2: catch the bad guys, which is still a conversation that's
27:51
Speaker 2: going on with forensic science today. That's the fear that
27:56
Speaker 2: law enforcement won't have the tools they need to catch
28:01
Speaker 2: people or to convict people. And the appropriate response should be, well,
28:06
Speaker 2: those tools have to be scientifically valid and they have
28:11
Speaker 2: to be scientifically sound.
28:13
Speaker 1: So can't this model that the NACDL and the FBI
28:17
Speaker 1: employed here, which is rear reviewing cases and exposing problems
28:22
Speaker 1: and helping right these wrongs. Can't this model be applied
28:27
Speaker 1: to other disciplines of junk science. It just seems so effective.
28:31
Speaker 1: Then you're able to help so many people.
28:33
Speaker 2: As a result of the FBI hair Review and other
28:39
Speaker 2: movements to make sure forensic science was more reliable for
28:43
Speaker 2: the courtroom, there were plans in the Department of Justice
28:47
Speaker 2: in the last administration to do similar reviews of other
28:52
Speaker 2: pattern and matching disciplines, to take a historical look back
28:56
Speaker 2: and see if in some other disciplines in the FBI
29:00
Speaker 2: lab that were susceptible to similar errors, if similar errors
29:04
Speaker 2: had occurred, and like the hair of you to find
29:07
Speaker 2: those and identify them and provide notification and give a
29:13
Speaker 2: means for folks to address those potential scientific overstatements.
29:18
Speaker 1: All right, So the way you say that evans when
29:21
Speaker 1: you say there are were plans in the Department of
29:24
Speaker 1: Justice to do this historical look back, makes me have
29:29
Speaker 1: the sinking suspicion that maybe it didn't pan out.
29:32
Speaker 2: What happened that, along with several other plans, was rolled
29:38
Speaker 2: back by then Attorney General Sessions. Under the new administration,
29:44
Speaker 2: it has become a little harder. We have to be
29:46
Speaker 2: extra vigilant when you're dealing with the situation where plans
29:51
Speaker 2: for progress were abandoned. So while a lot of progress
29:58
Speaker 2: has been made, there's a lot to be done. You know,
30:01
Speaker 2: cases are still litigation, cases still need to be litigated. So, yeah,
30:07
Speaker 2: the struggle continues.
30:13
Speaker 1: You might be listening to this wondering what you can
30:16
Speaker 1: do to help. Thanks to the work that Vanessa is
30:19
Speaker 1: doing with the NACDL, many individuals have been exonerated, but
30:24
Speaker 1: being exonerated means moving from a life of injustice and
30:28
Speaker 1: hardship in prison to another kind of very difficult life
30:32
Speaker 1: outside of prison. Take for example, Drew Whitley. In nineteen
30:37
Speaker 1: eighty nine, the manager of McDonald's was murdered in Pennsylvania.
30:41
Speaker 1: Another McDonald's employee was there when the crime occurred. The
30:44
Speaker 1: witness could not see the face of the perpetrator because
30:47
Speaker 1: he was wearing a ski mask, but he claimed nonetheless
30:51
Speaker 1: that the person that committed the crime had been Drew Whitley,
30:54
Speaker 1: his neighbor. Investigators found a hair on a ski mask
30:58
Speaker 1: which was found near the crime scene. They compared it
31:01
Speaker 1: to Drew's hair and claimed that it matched Drew. Whitley
31:04
Speaker 1: was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. After fighting
31:09
Speaker 1: for years, Drew was finally able to get the hairs
31:11
Speaker 1: from the crime scene tested for mitochondrial DNA. The hairs
31:15
Speaker 1: did not belong to him, and he was exonerated in
31:19
Speaker 1: two thousand and six. The trauma from his wrongful conviction remains.
31:24
Speaker 1: He's always looking over his shoulder with the constant and
31:27
Speaker 1: perhaps justified worry that a police officer will bring him
31:31
Speaker 1: back to prison for no good reason at all. Something
31:35
Speaker 1: that strikes me about a lot of these men who
31:37
Speaker 1: have been convicted based on hair comparison evidence, like Drew
31:41
Speaker 1: Whitley and Kirk Odom, is that many of them have
31:45
Speaker 1: shaved their heads after their release. I can't help but
31:48
Speaker 1: to wonder if it's because of this fear that someone
31:51
Speaker 1: will find their hair where it shouldn't be and the
31:54
Speaker 1: nightmare will begin all over again. After serving seventeen years
31:59
Speaker 1: for he didn't commit dru was finally released, but he
32:03
Speaker 1: didn't receive any compensation from the state. So here's someone
32:08
Speaker 1: that lives a literal nightmare, struggling behind bars to prove
32:12
Speaker 1: his innocence, and now he has to struggle to survive
32:15
Speaker 1: on the outside. Right now, fifteen states in this country
32:20
Speaker 1: don't offer any compensation to exonaies. The thirty five states
32:24
Speaker 1: that do differ widely in the amounts that they offer,
32:28
Speaker 1: and it's often difficult to satisfy all of the procedural
32:31
Speaker 1: requirements to qualify for the money. As you can imagine,
32:35
Speaker 1: there are always loopholes, and the states often exploit them.
32:39
Speaker 1: Money can't give back the years of someone's life that
32:42
Speaker 1: they were robbed of, but compensation does help. It eases
32:46
Speaker 1: an ex houneries path forward and healing and living a
32:49
Speaker 1: more comfortable life. The Innocence Project is fighting to hold
32:53
Speaker 1: states accountable for compensating wrongfully convicted individuals. Until all states
32:59
Speaker 1: enact legislation to compensate the wrongly convicted, that fight will continue.
33:05
Speaker 1: The Innocence Project has set up a fund to support exonrees.
33:09
Speaker 1: The fund is currently expanding to cover those exoneries who
33:12
Speaker 1: are facing job loss or economic hardships due to COVID nineteen.
33:16
Speaker 1: You can donate to this fund by going to Innocenceproject
33:20
Speaker 1: dot org slash Exonery dash Fund DASH twenty twenty. You
33:27
Speaker 1: can also support the amazing work that the NACDL is
33:30
Speaker 1: doing by donating to the NACDL Foundation for Criminal Justice.
33:34
Speaker 1: You can find out more about that at NACDL dot org.
33:48
Speaker 1: Next week, we'll explore the junk science of shoe print
33:51
Speaker 1: and tire track evidence Wrongful conviction. Junk Science is a
33:56
Speaker 1: production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal
34:00
Speaker 1: Company Number One. Thanks to our executive producer Jason Flamm
34:04
Speaker 1: and the team at Signal Company Number one, Executive producer
34:07
Speaker 1: Kevin Wartis and senior producers Kara Kornhaber and Britz Spangler.
34:12
Speaker 1: Our music was composed by Jay Ralph. You can follow
34:15
Speaker 1: me on Instagram at dubin Josh. Follow the Wrongful Conviction
34:19
Speaker 1: podcast on Facebook and on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and
34:24
Speaker 1: on Twitter at wrong Conviction