June 22nd, 2009

Phillip Scott Cannon was convicted in 1998 of a triple homicide. He was sentenced to three life sentences. Cannon has protested his innocence for more than ten years. The key piece of evidence in Cannon’s trial was the use of “bullet-lead analysis”, a forensic science so unreliable that the FBI has stopped using it. Since the National Academy of Sciences released its report on forensic sciences in February 2009, Cannon has decided to appeal his conviction. A spokesman for the Oregon Department of Justice commented, “The post-conviction relief process is exactly the appropriate place to sort out these things. The FBI is no longer doing these tests because they don’t consider them valid. But, if there is other evidence lined up, then we want to get it in front of a judge to sort it out. We’re interested in getting to the truth. We have a higher obligation to the truth.”