For Flathead Valley Community College’s forensic science and corrections classes, having a speaker like Peter Neufeld come to Kalispell on Tuesday was a treat.

Neufeld, co-founder of the nation’s first Innocence Project in New York, answered questions from the 15 students and several instructors eager to hear about his experience exonerating falsely convicted people.

Later Tuesday evening he went to Whitefish with Montana Innocence Project founder Dan Weinberg to raise money for the organization.

The Innocence Project, founded in 1992, looks at DNA evidence that may have been mismanaged in an initial trial.

“To date, our project has exonerated 314 people,” Neufeld said. “Of those, 35 percent were convicted of murder or rape and murder.”

Oftentimes, particularly in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, investigators would look at evidence from a subjective, unscientific point of view and offer false information. In other cases there was simple misidentification, which can help send an innocent man or woman to prison.

That was the case for Jimmy Ray Bromgard, who was a Billings teenager when he was convicted of three counts of unwilling sex with an 8-year old girl.

The heinous crime found its primary suspect in 1987 after Bromgard got into a fight at school and an officer thought he matched the girl’s description of her assailant. The victim was “60 to 65 percent” sure Bromgard was the perpetrator.

“The prosecutor had hairs collected, one pubic and one from the head,” Neufeld said. “He sent them to the state crime lab where the analyst said the hairs were a match. He said the chances the hairs did not come from Jimmy were one in ten thousand.”

Bromgard was convicted and sentenced to three 40-year sentences to be served concurrently.

It wasn’t until 2002, 14 years after he had arrived in prison, that Bromgard was exonerated by DNA evidence that should have been found in the trial. Bromgard was 33 when he was released from prison.

Neufeld told the students the leading factor for false imprisonment was misidentification.

“It happens all the time,” he said. “It is easier to misidentify someone of a different race than your own race.”

Other factors include the misuse of forensic science, false confessions and jailhouse informants.

The Montana Innocence Project was founded in 2008, and Neufeld — for his interest in Bromgard’s case six years earlier — was made a board member.

In his roundtable discussion with the students, he addressed those students looking at careers in correctional facilities by talking about the over-arrest rate of the United States.

“It’s really embarrassing,” Neufeld said. “We’re behind Pakistan, Iran and per capita behind China. I love this country but it’s embarrassing.”

He also talked about the early 1990s effort to be able to characterize hair evidence like blood types had been for blood evidence for nearly a century. The forensic science students in the room got to hear how their studies could save an innocent man from death row (as it had 12 times since the project began in 1992).

Janice Alexander, a chemistry professor at FVCC, was one of those in attendance for Neufeld’s discussion. Her own background in forensic science led to a discussion of the changing methods of criminalists.

“Forensic science in 2014 is very different from what it was during the Bromgard trial,” Neufeld said. “I don’t think these wrongful incarcerations were ill will, just ignorance from the analysts.”

The Montana project, based in Missoula, says it is not anti-incarceration but pro-truth. Donations or inquiries to the 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization can be made at www.mtinnocenceproject.org.

According to Neufeld and Weinberg, improving the way DNA evidence and methodical police work is used in the legal system will benefit Americans.

“It’s a win-win for everyone,” Neufeld said.

Reporter Ryan Murray may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at rmurray@dailyinterlake.com.