FBI承認20年間法醫物證存在缺陷

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Justice Department have "formally acknowledged" that almost all of the examiners "in an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony" against criminal defendants for more than two-decades before 2000, a leading newspaper reports.

美國主要報紙《華盛頓郵報》報道，美國聯邦調查局和司法部“正式承認”，在2000年之前的20多年裏，聯邦調查局精英法醫團隊中的幾乎所有的檢驗者在針對刑事案件被告中給出了有缺陷的證詞。

The Washington Post reported Sunday the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Innocence Project say 26 of the 28 examiners with the FBI Laboratory's microscopic hair comparison unit "overstated forensic matches" to favor prosecutors in more than 95 percent of the 268 trials reviewed.

《華盛頓郵報》星期天報道，全國刑事辯護律師協會和法律援助組織“無辜項目”說，在對268個審判案件的複查中有95%以上的案件顯示，在聯邦調查局實驗室顯微鏡毛髮對比鑑定團隊的28名檢驗人員當中，有26人爲了有利於檢方而“誇大了法醫匹配”的結果。

The reviewed cases included 32 defendants who were sentenced to death. Fourteen of them have either been executed or died in prison, the two groups said.

這兩個組織說，複查的案子包括已被判處死刑的32名被告，他們中的14人或已被執行死刑，或已死在獄中。

The errors by the FBI do not mean there was not other evidence to convict the defendants.

聯邦調查局的錯誤並不意味着法庭缺乏其他證據判定被告有罪。

An FBI and Justice Department statement said they "are committed to ensuring that affected defendants are notified of past errors and justice is done in every instance."

聯邦調查局和司法部發布的聲明說，他們保證確保將過去的疏漏告知受到影響的被告，並保證正義在每一起案子中得以伸張。