Don't miss the Evidence of Misjustice segment on 60 Minutes tonight. It will air the results of a joint investigation with the Washington Post on the use of the discredited comparative bullet lead analysis technique.

Hundreds of defendants sitting in prisons nationwide have been convicted with the help of an FBI forensic tool that was discarded more than two years ago. But the FBI lab has yet to take steps to alert the affected defendants or courts, even as the window for appealing convictions is closing, a joint investigation by The Washington Post and "60 Minutes" has found.

Concerns developed over the technique in 1991. TalkLeft wrote about it in 2003 (here too.) In 2004, the National Academy of Sciences concluded the technique was bunk and the FBI stopped using it in 2005. But it has refused to release the list of the 2,500 cases in which the technique was used.

Dwight E. Adams, the now-retired FBI lab director who ended the technique, said the government has an obligation to release all the case files, to independently review the expert testimony and to alert courts to any errors that could have affected a conviction.

....The Post and "60 Minutes" identified at least 250 cases nationwide in which bullet-lead analysis was introduced, including more than a dozen in which courts have either reversed convictions or now face questions about whether innocent people were sent to prison.

More....