The Maryland Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that firearms experts will no longer be able to testify that a bullet was fired from a particular gun. The decision is likely the first by a state supreme court to undercut the widespread forensic discipline of firearms identification, which is used in criminal cases across the country.
In a 4–3 decision first reported by The Baltimore Sun, the Maryland Supreme Court overturned the murder conviction of Kobina Ebo Abruquah after finding that a firearm expert's trial testimony linking Abruquah's gun to bullets found at a crime scene wasn't backed up by reliable science. In the majority opinion, Maryland Supreme Court Chief Justice Matthew J. Fader wrote that "firearms identification has not been shown to reach reliable results linking a particular unknown bullet to a particular known firearm."
5 comments:
I always wondered about that. Can the bullet from one Glock 19 be that different than another?
Ed
There was a fair stink years ago when it was proven that the FBI lab could NOT demonstrate that 'this bullet came from this box of ammunition' like they had been claiming they could. So there have been problems with this stuff for a long time.
I have suspected this for a long time. TV forensics labs convince the general public and potential juries that this is a viable source of evidence. Glad it is dying.
--Generic
I have wondered about this for years. Since modern gun barrels are produced to the same very tight tolerances using mandrels or broaches that do not wear appreciably how different would the 100th barrel produced be compared to the 101st or the 102nd? I read recently that Ruger revolvers in 357magnum have the same twist rate as S&W revolvers because they buy rifling broaches from the same specialty manufacturer. If that is true how would you tell which make of revolver a bullet was fired from?
It would be interesting to compare bullets fired from the 1st, 10th, 100th and 500th barrel of a batch manufactured on the same machine with the same tooling and see if there are any differences. Also would a bullet fired from the same gun when it is heavily fouled with copper have the same striations as one fired when it was shiny and new?
Al_in_Ottawa
Forensics "science" is as much OPINION as science. There will be a LOT of convictions being appealed now that the validity of this "evidence" has been successfully challenged.
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