FBI Investigation of Lab Evidence
HARLOW: Well, the FBI and the justice department have recently launched an undertaking like nothing they have ever done before. This is really interesting. They're reviewing thousands of criminal cases, trying to find out if defendants were wrongly convicted and wrongly thrown in jail, based on faulty forensic analysis. I talked with a former FBI special agent, Harold Copus about that, and how he helped exonerate two men. Take a listen.</s>HAROLD COPUS, FORMER FBI SPECIAL AGENT: It was unbelievable, the number of people, the amount of time and the effort and the obstacles that you run into. So, if you think about the FBI, were to do this, they would do this in their field offices, I suspect they would create task forces, which would mean an FBI agent and then some officers from local law enforcement. That's about the only way it can be done and quite frankly, maybe you can only do one, two cases a year.</s>HARLOW: Now, I know that you left the FBI about 15 years ago. But I want to play something interesting that was reported in the "Washington Post" in April. They reported that justice officials had known for years about questionable forensic evidence or testimony in some trials, but they didn't take a new look at the cases at that time. They didn't notify the defendants or their attorneys about possible problems with the evidence. And I wonder, Harold, did your reaction to that. Did anything like that occur while you were working at the FBI that you know of?</s>COPUS: Well, you know, I did and I would venture to say that most of the agents would not know. If that happens, that sounds bad on the surface. We need to get that corrected. I will tell you that me and most of the agents I have worked with would go out of their way to work real hard to make sure that the person that was potentially going to be indicted, arrested and hopefully convicted, that it was a righteous case, meaning that there was no doubt that that person was guilty. We're not talking 99 percent or some 99.9 percent. It has to be up 100. If it's not 100 percent, it's not worth going. The justice system cannot be allowed to be broken that way.</s>HARLOW: You know, I think what's really interesting is, in the cases that you dealt with that exonerated these men, you said one of the biggest challenges was dealing with families on both sides, re-opening that wound that the families thought was settled on both sides. Explain.</s>COPUS: Well, really, you know, there are always going to be least the minimum of two victims. You've got, if someone wrongfully goes to jail, that is. You have the person that is in jail that is victim, and you have all the family members of the person in these cases they were murdered. But you have every one of those people, that extended family, they think, the family does, that justice has been served. And then all of a sudden, something comes and says we're going to turn this cart upside down and we're going to shake it up and sometimes they're going to walk away and after all this time has passed, how do we find this person who caused this crime, that caused my loved to maybe die.</s>HARLOW: Right.</s>COPUS: Well, that's very unsettled.</s>HARLOW: That also brings up the issue of statute of limitation, and whether or not, if it is indeed leaning towards another person, if they are exonerated if they can even be tried depending on the crime.</s>COPUS: It does and it requires in what I said a lot amount of time. It's not just investigative time. It is attorney time and research. But just you have to go is you have to go back in there and hopefully uncover some evidence that will then allow the attorneys to create an appeal on new evidence. A difficult task.</s>HARLOW: Absolutely. Harold, thank you for joining us tonight, we appreciate it.</s>HARLOW: Going broke. From Wall Street to main street. Now, entire cities. The paychecks for firefighters and police in one town, now minimum wage.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a catastrophic blow. I need to provide for my family.