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Category Archives: AAFS
Forensics: 44 exoneration cases involving bitemark opinions had a 77% error rate. The Impact of False or Misleading Forensic Evidence on Wrongful Convictions | National Institute of Justice
Wrongful conviction, or the conviction of a person for a crime that they did not commit, is one of the greatest travesties of the criminal justice system. As of 2023, The National Registry of Exonerations has recorded over 3,000 cases … Continue reading
Forensics: Unfair Ballistics examiners wrongly describe some results, Iowa State profs say
When ballistics experts say a match between 2 bullet casings is ‘inconclusive,’ it nearly always means a non-match, a result that could help defendants — Read on http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/crime-and-courts/2023/11/27/forensic-ballistics-examiners-results-questioned-in-isu-research-iowa-state-evidence-crime-scene/71584697007/
Forensics: Right to ‘bodily autonomy’ upheld. ‘Disproven and unsupportable’: Kansas judge blocks junk science abortion restrictions – Kansas Reflector
A Kansas judge blocked several long-standing and newly-implemented abortion restrictions in the state on Monday. — Read on kansasreflector.com/2023/10/30/disproven-and-unsupportable-kansas-judge-blocks-junk-science-abortion-restrictions/
Forensics: NamUs Missing Persons cases. 600K reports a year.
Posted in AAFS, human identification, missing persons
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Forensics: Do this for bitemarks please. Colorado may soon bar police and coroners from referencing “excited delirium” in lethal force cases
The now-debunked diagnosis has been widely used by police and paramedics to justify the use of force — even lethal force — in cases where they say suspects exhibit superhuman strength and extreme agitation. — Read on http://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/colorado-may-soon-bar-police-coroners-referencing-excited-delirium-lethal-force-cases/
Forensics: Heavy use of rapid DNA. Foreign media given unprecedented access to forensic institute to witness atrocities
Staff at Abu Kabir work 24/7 along with colleagues in IDF and police to identify victims of mass butchery by Hamas terrorists; in some cases identification likely impossible — Read on http://www.timesofisrael.com/foreign-media-given-unprecedented-access-to-forensic-institute-to-witness-atrocities/
Posted in AAFS, DNA profiling, genocide, Holocaust, human identification
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Forensics: Mass casualty ID in Israel. ‘I only knew that from the Nazis’: Israeli forensic experts identify tortured and burned bodies
Experts say they have found evidence of decapitation, rape and people being burned alive. — Read on http://www.politico.eu/article/i-only-knew-that-from-the-nazis-what-israeli-forensics-have-been-seeing-for-days/
Forensics: A medieval test in use. “Unreliable” Lung Float Test Still Being Used to Convict Women of Murder — ProPublica
The “lung float” test claims to help determine if a baby was born alive or dead, but many medical examiners say it’s too unreliable. Yet the test is still being used to bring murder charges — and get convictions. — … Continue reading
Forensic bias: Telling us less than what they know: Expert inconclusive reports conceal exculpatory evidence in forensic cartridge-case comparisons.
APA PsycNet DoiLanding page — Read on psycnet.apa.org/
Forensics: Koehler, Mnookin and Saks on The scientific reinvention of forensic science. Bitemarks NOT reinvented in their analysis. Ask the #AAFS why this has NOT happened.
Forensic science is undergoing an evolution in which a long-standing “trust the examiner” focus is being replaced by a “trust the scientific method… — Read on http://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2301840120
FORENSICS and LAW in FOCUS @ CSIDDS | News and Trends 