DOJ review of flawed FBI forensics processes lacked transparency

Attorney General Janet Reno and FBI Director Louis J. Freeh decided to launch a task force to dig through thousands of cases involving discredited agents. The task force took nine years to complete its work and never publicly released its findings. Officials never notified many defendants of the forensic flaws in their cases and never expanded their review to catch similar mistakes. If the Justice Department was secretive, the agency’s independent inspector general was not. Michael R. Bromwich’s probe culminated in a devastating 517-page report in April 1997 on misconduct at the FBI lab. He concluded that FBI managers failed — in some cases for years — to respond to warnings about the scientific integrity and competence of agents. The chief of the lab’s explosives unit, for example, “repeatedly reached conclusions that incriminated the defendants without a scientific basis”.

2012-04-17, Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/doj-review-of-flawed-fbi-forensics-processes-lacked-transparency/2012/04/17/gIQAFegIPT_story.html