According to a report released on July 16 by the Inspector General’s Office of the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation failed to pro­vide time­ly notice to many cap­i­tal defen­dants that their cas­es were under review for pos­si­bly inac­cu­rate tes­ti­mo­ny by FBI experts. Some of these defen­dants were exe­cut­ed with­out being informed of the mis­lead­ing tes­ti­mo­ny pro­vid­ed by the gov­ern­ment. The report stat­ed: “[T]he FBI did not take suf­fi­cient steps to ensure that the cap­i­tal cas­es were the Task Force’s top pri­or­i­ty. We found that it took the FBI almost 5 years to iden­ti­fy the 64 defen­dants on death row whose cas­es involved analy­ses or tes­ti­mo­ny by 1 or more of the 13 exam­in­ers. The Department did not noti­fy state author­i­ties that con­vic­tions of cap­i­tal defen­dants could be affect­ed by involve­ment of any of the 13 crit­i­cized exam­in­ers. Therefore, state author­i­ties had no basis to con­sid­er delay­ing sched­uled exe­cu­tions.” At least three defen­dants were exe­cut­ed before the FBI made it known that their cas­es were under review. The report rec­om­mend­ed retest­ing of phys­i­cal evi­dence for 24 defen­dants who were exe­cut­ed or died on death row.

(E. Tucker, ​“Watchdog report faults FBI lab­o­ra­to­ry probe,” Associated Press, July 16, 2014). Read the Inspector General’s report. See Arbitrariness and Innocence.

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