Forensics on Trial
Chemical matching of bullets comes under fire
In 1997, a jury convicted Michael Behm of murdering a man in South River, N.J. The only physical evidence linking Behm to the murder was bullet fragments from the crime scene. An FBI examiner testified in court that the fragments chemically matched bullets from a box of ammunition Behm had at his home. “We were devastated by this,” says Jacquie Behm, whose brother is now serving a life sentence for murder. “At the time, we didn’t know anything about bullet-lead analysis.” Nor could her brother’s lawyer during the trial find anyone qualified to question the validity of the chemical evidence or the examiner’s interpretation of it.
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As it turns out, there should have been plenty to question. Since that trial, a growing body of research has revealed that the practice of chemically matching bullets is seriously flawed. This February, a report released by the National Academies in Washington D.C. called on the FBI to revise its rules on interpreting data from chemical analyses of bullets and to limit how its examiners testify about such data in the courtroom.