Produced by the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism
WisconsinWatch.org (https://www.wisconsinwatch.org/author/dee-j-hall/)
Hall, a co-founder of the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, joined the staff as managing editor in June 2015. She worked at the Wisconsin State Journal for 24 years as an editor and reporter focusing on projects and investigations.
Charges against Richard Beranek were dropped after DNA proved hair and semen from rape were not his; junk hair analysis cause of numerous wrongful convictions.
As an administrative law judge hearing worker’s compensation cases in Wisconsin for three decades, Joe Schaeve said he often knew how certain doctors hired by employers and insurance companies would rule even before opening their reports.
Whistleblowing traditionally has been seen as a public-private effort to expose wrongdoing, said Patrick Burns, associate director of Taxpayers Against Fraud, whose group works to protect and advance the cause of whistleblowers.
The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism identifies nine cases with misleading microscopic hair or fiber comparisons; one man serving life for killing a police officer in 1994 says he is innocent.
The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism has found nine cases in the state involving 12 defendants that featured faulty crime laboratory hair or fiber comparison. Seven cases were flagged by the national task force re-examining cases involving FBI hair and fiber analysts. Two are cases in which DNA testing showed that Wisconsin State Crime Laboratory hair comparisons linking suspects to crime scene hairs were wrong.
Farmers, experts say reliance on immigrant workers, many of them in the U.S. illegally, will continue unless dairies — and Congress — make significant changes.
Richard Beranek’s conviction was overturned after serving 27 years in prison for sexual assault. His case is the latest in which flawed hair analysis by the FBI led to a wrongful conviction.
FBI admits errors in 90 percent of hair and fiber cases, including 13 in Wisconsin. Such errors are now a factor in one-fifth of all DNA exonerations.
Some worry about President Trump’s immigration policies; local officials assure immigrants they will not be targeted.
