2016/09/07

Forensicmag September 6, 2016: Inside the White House Report Blasting Some Forensic Disciplines

A White House panel of experts including federal judges are recommending that some forensic disciplines be thrown out of courtrooms, while some others need further scientific validation.

The report, approved last Thursday by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, blasts some analyses which have drawn recent scrutiny, including bite marks and hair follicles.

But the report also contends that the culture needs to change to focus on fact-finding in the laboratory – and not by on-the-job experience during criminal investigations, a Forensic Magazine review of the document found.

“Casework is not scientifically valid research, and experience alone cannot establish scientific validity,” the report states. “In particular, one cannot reliably estimate error rates from casework because one typically does not have independent knowledge of the ‘ground truth’ or ‘right answer.’”

The group included nine federal judges, a former U.S. Solicitor General, a state supreme court justice, law school deans, and statisticians.

Overall, they concluded that forensic science results be “repeatable, reproducible, and accurate.”

The forensic review recommended:

• DNA mixtures. The combined-probability of inclusion (CPI) analysis of complex mixtures does not have a valid foundation, they found. Instead, probabilistic genotyping software needs to be further validated by third parties, they added.
• Bitemarks and hair analysis, which have come under fire over the last year, do not meet scientific standards, the panel said.
• Shoeprints and footwear comparisons, beyond size and make, are not scientifically valid.
• Latent fingerprints are “heading in the right direction” from a forensic science standpoint – especially with a recent FBI “black box” analysis.
• Firearms and ammunition comparison need to be better explained to juries. But a fully-automated analysis method could be coming in the near future, which would provide further validation. more