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| Composition Bullet Lead Analysis |
New Jersey v. Behn,
No. A-2062-03T3 (N.J. App., March 7, 2005) (Unpublished): This case is very interesting and useful primarily because of the good result and the extensive factual presentation by the appellate court. The basic issue is whether law enforcement can tie forensically bullet lead from fragments in a homicide victim to a batch of unfired bullets found in the home of a suspect. The FBI lab concocted some voodoo and claimed that it could.
The FBI lab's methods have been discredited in other ways I think, but this case is a good primer on the issue, particularly the way the court quotes extensively from affidavits and other evidentiary material.
This issue sticks with me because the FBI presented similar testimony years ago in a murder case in Altus in which I second chaired Bob Wyatt. The State flew in the FBI lab tech to testify that the bullet fragments found in the deceased were from the same batch as the boxed bullets found in our client's home. As explained in the Behn case, it was nearly impossible to impeach such testimony because the FBI lab was essentially the only lab that had the data and performed such analysis and they did not share for purposes of peer review.
The testimony probably did not affect the outcome of our case (client made incriminating statements to several others); but it is disconcerting the way the FBI lab does not allow its methods to be tested and critiqued.
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