Sen. Blumenthal calls out forensic flaws in crime labs

Sen. Richard Blumenthal is calling for stricter rules regarding forensic crime labs after the FBI's own analysis found an alarming number of mistakes that led to wrongful convictions. The report released

News 12 Staff

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May 28, 2015, 12:48 AM

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Updated 3,501 days ago

Sen. Richard Blumenthal is calling for stricter rules regarding forensic crime labs after the FBI's own analysis found an alarming number of mistakes that led to wrongful convictions.

The report released by the FBI found mistakes that affected hundreds of criminal cases.

The reports says these mistakes came when labs looked at hair samples left behind at crime scenes.

In those cases, the FBI found that crime lab technicians gave mistaken testimony 96 percent of the time.

The FBI says three of those cases happened in Connecticut.

The senator met with forensic experts Wednesday at the University of New Haven to discuss concerns about how police collect physical evidence from crime scenes.

They say hair analysis alone, without the help of DNA, is simply not reliable enough to link a suspect to a crime scene.

Their findings have the potential to reopen hundreds of cases nationwide.

Authorities aren't saying which three cases in Connecticut were affected by these mistakes; only that they happened in the early 1990s.

Those defendants' lawyers are now deciding whether to ask for new trials.