The FBI has notified crime labs across the country it discovered errors in the data used to determine the likelihood that DNA from a crime scene matches a suspect, the Washington Post reported late on Friday, citing several people familiar with the issue.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation said it believes the errors, which go back more than 15 years, are unlikely to result in dramatic changes that would affect the thousands of cases that included the data, according to the Post.
But the Post reported that crime labs and lawyers want to know more about the problem before conceding it would not make much difference in any given case.
Reuters could not independently confirm the report.
Last month the FBI, the top U.S. law enforcement agency, said it was addressing hair analysis errors its examiners had made before 1999 by notifying defendants of the problems and ensuring "that justice is done in every instance."
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