WASHINGTON – A judge has awarded $13.2 million to a man who was convicted of murder in Washington based on forensic hair analysis that was later discredited.
The Washington Post (http://tinyurl.com/zbxma5b) reports that D.C. Superior Court Judge John Mott awarded the money on Friday to 55-year-old Santae Tribble, who spent 28 years in prison for the 1978 slaying of a taxi driver. He was exonerated in 2012 and released after DNA analysis revealed that hairs found in a stocking near the scene of the crime were not his.
Tribble is the third District of Columbia man who's received a multimillion-dollar judgment in his favor after being wrongly convicted based on hair analysis. The D.C. Public Defender Service uncovered a pattern in which prosecutors exaggerated claims about the reliability of forensic hair testing.
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Information from: The Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com
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