Yesterday, John Solomon of the Washington Post reported that the Senate Judiciary Committee is requiring that the FBI turn over records related to all criminal cases in which bullet-lead analysis was presented as evidence. There are over 2,500 such cases nationwide.
Dr. Frederic Whitehurst, the Executive Director of the Forensic Justice Project (a project of the National Whistleblower Center) has filed three lawsuits against the FBI since 1996 in an effort to obtain release of these records. Unfortunately, the FBI has never been fully compliant with the FJPs FOIA requests, and has engaged in extensive feet-dragging and stonewalling, even so far as demanding that the FJP pay over $70,000 for access to these public records.
The Senate’s action is in response to years of work by the FJP, which led to a joint investigation by the Washington Post and 60 Minutes.
