IIPPI

An FBI expert’s testimony about Comparative Bullet Lead Analysis was used at Bowling’s trial. Cases like his are entitled to be retried nationwide. The FBI reviewed Bowling’s case, and found its expert’s testimony was overstated and misled the jury.

Germany (IIPPI), August 20, 2008

Ronnie Lee Bowling, a Kentucky death row inmate, was convicted through the use of junk-science in Laurel County in 1992. The testimony of the FBI expert Havekost misled the jury regarding Comparative Bullet Lead Analysis (CBLA). The prosecutor told the jurors about the CBLA evidence in his opening statement, “This is the string that ties all my evidence together.” 

Havekost testified in the evidence phase, “In my view they are the same, fall into the same composition group and therefore originate from the same manufacturer’s batch of bullet lead.” In the closing argument, the district attorney repeated, “But this case can come down to cold analytical facts … by an FBI agent … told you that he has never seen bullets out of the same batch used in unrelated crimes.”  

The FBI received much criticism over their CBLA methods and experts during the late 80s and early 90s. They commissioned the National Research Council (NRC) to study and give a report. It took about two years, and on February 10, 2004 they released a 113 page report titled, “Forensic Analysis: Weighing Bullet Lead Evidence”. The report sums up, “Finding: The available data do not support any statement that a crime bullet came from, or is likely to have come from a particular box of ammunition, and references to boxes of ammunition in any form are seriously misleading under Federal Rule of Evidence 403…”  

The FBI took this as a recommendation and conducted their own study of CBLA. They concluded and publically announced in a memo it would not longer use CBLA evidence. Now, it is not used anywhere in the USA.  On November 17, 2007, the FBI took it a step further in multiple press releases. They want the courts to identify cases, like Bowling’s, and grant a new trial for those where CBLA evidence and FBI expert testimony was used in court. Several cases have already been granted new trials over this junk-science. On March 23, 2006, the Kentucky Supreme Court concludes in Ragland v. Commonwealth, 191 S.W.3d 569, “that the admission of the CBLA test results and expert’s opinions about those require reversal for a new trial”. Other cases are: Clemons v. Maryland, 2006 WL 1007644, United States v. Mikos, 2003 WL 22922197, Commonwealth v. Lykus, 2005 WL 3804726. Bowling filed for a new trial at the Laurel Circuit Court, where he had been sentenced to death, raising this new evidence that shows the testimony is junk-science and no longer used in the USA. That court did not grant him a new trial. Bowling has appealed that decision, and currently has a fully-briefed appeal before the Kentucky Supreme Court. For details of this case go to http://www.iippi.org/inmates/kentucky/ronnieleebowling.html .

Contact Katja Pumm at info@iippi.org .