From the 1950s and during several decades onwards, investigators used hair microscopy to connect hair samples found during the course of a criminal investigation to hairs taken from suspects.
The analysis involves an examiner using a high powered microscope and their own visual judgment to compare the unknown hair found during the investigation to several strands of a suspect's hair. The examiner visually assesses characteristics including hair colour, chemical treatment, pigment aggregation, shaft form, and other characteristics, and compares it to the unknown hair to determine whether the two samples match.
This analysis has been utilized by FBI examiners for cases in both state and federal court. Additionally, investigators and analysts at state and local labs have also used hair microscopy analysis, frequently receiving training from the FBI in sessions sometimes lasting as little as two-weeks.
Like bitemarks and toolmarks, hair microscopy is a form of pattern matching, an inherently subjective “science”. According to the Committee for Public Counsel Services Innocence Program, “pattern matching is based on the unproven assumption of uniqueness — here, that hairs from different people will look different. But there is no scientific evidence that hairs are unique or even rarely share characteristics.”
In 2013, the Innocence Project announced a partnership alongside the FBI and the National Association of Criminal Defence Lawyers to conduct an internal review into more than 2000 cases in which the FBI used microscopic hair analysis. By 2015, the group had found nearly 3,000 cases where microscopic hair analysis was used and of those analyzed 500 of them. In 268 of those cases, examiners testified in trials providing evidence against a defendant. The review found that “erroneous statements” were made in 257 of those. Nine of these cases involved people who were already executed for their crimes.
The egregious injustices against innocent people all over the country based on this junk science would take years to rectify because of the scope of the problem. For instance, as of November 2021, 51 prisoners (convicted between 1976 and 1995) in a Colorado prison were waiting to have the hairs that sent them to prison tested through DNA. The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation is reviewing 81 convictions that included microscopic hair analysis to determine if any of those cases need to be reopened.
In June of 2016, FBI Director, James B. Comey sent letters to the governors of the states that sent lab professionals to the FBI two-week training in microscopic hair analysis, asking them to urge their labs to review their work and take appropriate corrective action.
Some of those directly impacted by hair microscopy include: Ralph Armstrong who served 29 years in prison before his 1981 conviction for a brutal rape and murder in Madison was overturned; George Perrot spent nearly 30 years in prison for the rape of a 78 year old woman in Springfield, Massachusetts; Timothy Bridges of Charlotte, North Carolina, served over 25 years for a rape and burglary he did not commit; Santae Tribble passed away in June 2020 after enjoying just eight years of freedom after being exonerated; and Richard Beranek served over 25 years for a rape in Dane County, Wisconsin, before a motion to dismiss was granted.
Although these individuals were finally freed, there are still those waiting for their day of justice all across the country.