Wrongful convictions and almost daily news reports of exonerations have spurred a new industry in forensic science. These events have created a new theme in forensic science, namely “forensic science reform,” where government agencies, CJ institutes, academia and private parties have amplified their focus onto ethics and anti “cognitive bias” training in varied curricula. A curious outlier within all this education includes John A. Collins.

A pre-paid PR notice on Collin’s offerings regarding forensic ethics training just came out here. Connected to this is his business of forensic training here, which leads to the plethora of courses Collins offers to LE and crime lab folks for a pretty penny.

Collins is a multi-credentialed ex-crime lab director who has become rather notorious in the hard-core police crime lab community as an out spoken self-published debunker of wrongful convictions litigators and Criminal Justice meta-data analysts like the Innocence Projects and the National Registry of Exonerations. A closer look at his opinions are reflected here.

I’m reluctant to express much more than confusion regarding this confluence of Collin’s recent PR blast and his past public statements considering forensic science, in its practice, as being “nearly flawless.”