Canada and the World
Current Events with a Canadian Perspective
Last update
19 November 2010
Faulty Forensic Hair Analysis Convicts Innocent People
The analysis of hair left behind at a crime scene
has put many a bad guy behind bars;
some of those “bad guys” weren’t bad guys at all
Barry Gaudette was a forensic scientist working for the RCMP in the 1970s. He carried
out a study on hair comparison. He said a trained specialist could match hairs under
a microscope. The probability of a false match, said Mr. Gaudette, was one in 4,500
times.
James Driskell Wrongfully Convicted
A Winnipeg, Manitoba man ran into terrible trouble because of Mr. Gaudette’s claim
for the near-
In 1991, James Driskell was convicted of murdering a friend, Peter Harder, a small-
Police found three hairs in Mr. Driskell’s van that an expert said matched those taken from Mr. Harder’s body. But, it turns out that hair analysis is not a very reliable tool in determining guilt or innocence.
Here’s what Margaret Berger of the Brooklyn Law School wrote about microscopic hair
matching in the Seton Hall University Law Review in 2003: “This mode of examination,
however, has come under a good deal of attack since the advent of DNA testing…It
is now known that evidence obtained through microscopic hair analysis was admitted
in a considerable percentage of the cases in which courts vacated convictions on
the basis of post-
Hair Matching is Junk Science
It turns out Gaudette’s study in the 1970s wasn’t all that scientific. Far from delivering
that 4,500-
Later DNA analysis found the hairs in Driskell’s truck had not come from Harder. In fact, they had come from three different people.
James Driskell spent 12 years in prison and is seeking to clear his name. As Allison Dunfield reported in The Globe and Mail (March 3, 2005), “He was released on bail in late 2003 after new evidence came forward, prompting the federal Justice Department to undertake the review of the case…”
In a statement, Federal Justice Minister Irwin Cotler said he concluded “that a miscarriage of justice likely occurred in Mr. Driskell’s case.”
How many others Wrongfully Convicted?
The Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted has a long and growing list of
people who have served sentences for crimes they didn’t commit. Another victim, in
part because of hair-
In February 2007 article in The National Post Joseph Brean explained “Hair analysis under a microscope, on the other hand, which played a crucial role in the conviction of Mr. Morin, among several others, has been largely undermined.”
British Columbia Searching for Victims
The James Driskell case has raised alarms on Canada’s West Coast. In August 2008 the Vancouver Sun reported “The overturning of a murder conviction in Manitoba has prompted the B.C. criminal justice branch to launch a massive search dating back 25 years for cases in which microscopic hair analysis played an important role in obtaining a conviction.”
The article continued, “A commission of inquiry report into the Manitoba case concluded that ‘microscopic hair comparison evidence should be received with great caution’ and recommended jurors ‘be warned of the inherent frailties of such evidence.’ ”
Image credit
J. Durham
Sources
“Expert Testimony in Criminal Proceedings: Questions
Daubert Does Not Answer.” Margaret A. Berger, Seton Hall University Law Review, 2003.
“How to be Wrongfully Convicted.” Joseph Brean, National Post, February 15, 2007.
“Wrongful Conviction Triggers B.C. Review.” Vancouver Sun, August 23, 2008.
© Canada and the World, August 2010
All rights reserved
“In December 2002, the FBI issued a report on the hair analysis that had been introduced in the case of a Montana
defendant who was cleared by DNA testing after spending fifteen years in prison for
raping an 8-
The FBI’s trace evidence unit concluded that the crime scene samples did not match samples provided by the defendant.”
Margaret Berger
At trial an expert witness testified the chances of the hair samples not belonging to the accused were 10,000 to one against.