2015/03/31

The New York Times March 30, 2015: Evidence Needn’t Be Air Tight If Its Limitations Are Clear

If you are a fan of "C.S.I." or other police TV shows, you might be surprised to learn that crime labs, the heroic center of those programs, are under fire. While many call forensic science an essential part of modern police work and point to the thousands of criminal cases solved through the application of science, others have derided it as “junk science.”

Defense lawyers, legal scholars and academic scientists frequently claim that work done by the nation’s public crime labs is flawed; testing procedures are not always trustworthy and sometimes result in unreliable conclusions. So-called pattern evidence analysis is particularly at issue, with the ability of examiners to conclude that an item from a body or crime scene is associated with one person, and only one person, most heavily doubted.

Fingerprint examinations, firearms testing, shoe print and tire impression evidence are suspect. Bite mark evidence is especially singled out as unsound. Handwriting comparison has come under scrutiny. Can absolute assertions about such evidence be made? more