In January 2015, Joseph Sledge was released after 37 years in prison. The state of North Carolina finally caught up to what he already knew: He didn't murder anyone. Bloody fingerprints, shoe marks, and other evidence didn't match him.
So they found another way.
Whoever committed the murder had left head and pubic hair behind. Sledge was bald. But investigators found microscopic similarities in the pubic hair, which should have meant nothing, since looking closely at two strands of hair doesn't involve DNA testing.
DNA testing only emerged in the 1980s. In the decades prior, hair analysis held false forensic power. It was "science." But, much like the criminal legal system itself, it had been developed by human beings with biases.
After revisiting 268 out of thousands of hair analysis cases, the FBI and Justice Department found that 95% were flawed.
Bite marks, arson investigation, fingerprint analysis, and false positive drug tests have also been used to punish people for crimes they didn't commit.
One quarter of 3,439 exonerations from the National Registry involved "false or misleading forensic evidence.” A report stated that most of the exonerees who had been convicted on hair-related evidence were Black.
We're told these systems have legitimacy and authority. But even "fact" can be manipulated by anti-Black bias. In an abolitionist future, we need to build something new.