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The FBI’s crisis of credibility appears to have seeped into the jury room. The number of convictions in FBI-led investigations has declined in each of the last five years, dropping nearly 11% over that period, according to a TIME analysis of data obtained from the Justice Department by researchers at Syracuse University.
Some legal experts and defense advocates see the string of recent not guilty verdicts as a sign that jurors and judges are less inclined to take what the FBI says in court at face value. Data examined by TIME support that conclusion. The number of convictions in FBI-led investigations dropped last year for the fifth consecutive year–from 11,461 in 2012 to 10,232, according to Syracuse University data, which was obtained under Freedom of Information Act requests.
Moreover, TIME’s analysis shows a surprisingly low rate of success for the thousands of cases the FBI investigates and sends to the Justice Department for possible prosecution. Over that same time period, the Justice Department has ultimately won convictions in fewer than half the cases the FBI referred for prosecution, with a conviction rate of 47% last year, the data showed. That fell well below the average of 72% for all agencies. Prosecutors themselves have rejected many of the FBI’s referrals before they ever got to court. The bureau’s low success rate in these cases has remained largely unchanged in recent years.
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