The Washington Post reports:
The Justice Department and the FBI have launched a review of thousands of criminal cases to determine whether any defendants were wrongly convicted or deserve a new trial because of flawed forensic evidence, officials said Tuesday.
The Justice Department made the right decision in reviewing cases where defendants were convicted with potentially flawed forensic evidence, and Justice Department should dedicate enough resources so that reviews can happen as fast as possible so that the hundreds of potentially innocent people can be cleared.
However, the Justice Department should have made this decision years ago, when the flawed evidence was first discovered. Instead, the Justice Department went into cover up mode, and failed to inform defendants or their attorneys that defendants were convicted with flawed evidence and could be exonerated.
Only after the grave mistakes were made public by media reports did the Justice Department take action to do a comprehensive review of cases where the Justice Department convicted hundreds of potentially innocent people.
I wrote about this issue back in April when WaPo first reported:
We've all seen CSI on t.v. Forensic evidence is better than ever and supposedly results in greater sureness in convictions. But not if it came from the FBI crime lab when you have the tragic convergence of:
1) The Justice Department became aware of sloppy forensic work by examiners at the FBI lab, but reviewed only a limited number of cases, focusing on the work of one scientist (Michael Malone), despite warnings that the problems were widespread.
2) A Justice Department task force investigated for 9 years, but made the findings available only to the prosecutors in the affected cases.
3) Prosecutors failed to notify defendants or their attorneys in many cases they knew were troubled.
WaPo
reported in April:
Justice Department officials have known for years that flawed forensic work might have led to the convictions of potentially innocent people, but prosecutors failed to notify defendants or their attorneys even in many cases they knew were troubled.
Officials started reviewing the cases in the 1990s after reports that sloppy work by examiners at the FBI lab was producing unreliable forensic evidence in court trials. Instead of releasing those findings, they made them available only to the prosecutors in the affected cases, according to documents and interviews with dozens of officials.
In addition, the Justice Department reviewed only a limited number of cases and focused on the work of one scientist at the FBI lab, despite warnings that problems were far more widespread and could affect potentially thousands of cases in federal, state and local courts.
Prosecutors at the Justice Department have a duty beyond simply racking up as many convictions as possible. Prosecutors should seek justice and protect the rule of law, and they monumentally failed in this unique responsibility when the Justice Department hid potentially exonerating forensic errors from defendants and their attorneys. It is unacceptable that the Justice Department only agreed to perform a comprehensive review after their mistakes appeared in the newspaper.
Nonetheless, the fact that WaPo's commendable investigative reporting was needed for the Justice Department to devote resources to re-examining these cases demonstrates the importance of preserving the media as the Fourth Estate overseeing government actions.