- U.S. Atty. Ronald Machen
By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com
WASHINGTON — The District’s U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen has a potentially big headache on his hands.
The Washington Post reports that Machen’s office “has found more than 100 cases since the mid-1970s that need to be reviewed because of potentially falsified and inaccurate tests by FBI analysts.”
That information, the paper reports, was included in a report filed Friday in D.C. Superior Court, the city’s criminal court. An internal review was triggered as a result of the wrongful imprisonment of Donald E. Gates, who was exonerated in December because of new DNA evidence. He had serving 28 years for the 1981 rape and slaying of a Georgetown University student that he never committed.
The initital review of 20 cases found that only Gates’ case was impacted by the misinformation. But Justice came up with 100 more cases, the paper reported.
Of those 100, the paper reported that the U.S. Attorney’s Office conducted a preliminary review of 78 and found no misconduct. The paper reported that no findings have been presented for the other 22 cases thus far.
