Another hair match overturned by DNA testing, PA conviction called into question

04.22.08

The precise evidence of DNA testing continues to erode confidence in microscopic hair comparison, an extremely imprecise practice relied heavily upon in years past and still very much alive in courtrooms today. Emerson McCauley has spent the last 19 years in a Pennsylvania prison for a murder he says he didn’t commit. A centerpiece of the prosecution’s evidence against him at his 1989 trial was testimony from a police chemist that a hair found on the victim’s leg could have been McCauley’s chest hair. DNA testing in the case has now proven that the hair is not McCauley’s.


Read more about McCauley’s case here

. (Patriot-News, 04/20/08)

Misleading testimony about hair evidence has contributed to dozens of wrongful convictions later overturned by DNA testing.

Learn more about cases involving unreliable and limited forensic science here

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