WASHINGTON, April 17 (UPI) -- Innocent people may have been imprisoned and even executed because prosecutors kept quiet about questionable work at the FBI lab, The Washington Post reports.
One man, Donald Gates, now 60, was cleared by DNA testing in 2009 of raping and killing a Georgetown University student. Gates, who spent 28 years in prison, was not told that an inspector general's investigation that began in 1995 questioned the work of FBI Special Agent Michael Malone, an expert on hair and fiber analysis whose work was critical to Gates' conviction, the Post said.
Lawyers for John Huffington, who was sentenced to life in Maryland for a 1981 double homicide, said they learned of evidence that might clear him from the Post, not the Justice Department.
Justice Department officials told the Post they met their legal responsibility, alerting prosecutors to potentially exculpatory evidence, and were not required to notify the defense.
The newspaper said its review found some prosecutors never alerted defense lawyers to exculpatory material or did so very late. Others did so quickly.
The Post suggested the inspector general's investigation, which concluded in 2004, was too narrow. While officials allegedly knew there were problems with the lab's work generally in analyzing hair and fiber, including a lack of protocols, only Malone's findings were scrutinized.
Recent cases have put more attention on forensic science. They include that of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in Texas in 2004 after a respected arson expert found no real evidence the fire that killed his three daughters was deliberately set. The findings suggested arson investigators' work had frequently been based on false assumptions.
