Category Archives: criminal justice reform
Forensics: Insights: Error Rates, Likelihood Ratios, and Jury Evaluation of Forensic Evidence – CSAFE
A study on the effect when known error rates are presented to juries. Assuming a forensic method even knows its error rate. This is the overview page with links to the actual research. Insights: Error Rates, Likelihood Ratios, and Jury … Continue reading
Forensics: Grits for Breakfast: Tarrant medical examiner who led Forensic Science Commission found to have misled jury in murder case
Good look at the different layers of resistance within attempts to improve forensic outcomes. Grits for Breakfast: Tarrant medical examiner who led Forensic Science Commission found to have misled jury in murder case — Read on gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2021/04/tarrant-medical-examiner-who-led.html
Forensics: A lookback on the DC crime lab’s political turmoil. Firings and nepotism reigned supreme.
The history of an acclaimed “independent” crime lab getting the shaft in Washington DC. Now the lab is in hot water for “deliberately concealed” botched lab tests. csidds.com/2016/05/25/wash-dc-crime-lab-continues-to-coverup-its-problems-of-law-enforcement-bungles/ Now the lab is suspended from operation. https://dcist.com/story/21/04/07/dc-crime-lab-loses-accreditation-over-allegations-of-conealing-information/
Forensics: Wrongful Conviction – Podcasts
Read about the dark side of wrongful convictions. Multiple podcasts. Based on the files of the lawyers who freed them, Wrongful Conviction features interviews with men and women who have spent decades in prison for crimes they did not commit … Continue reading
Forensics: What’s wrong with crime labs = DC mayor defends crime lab but says she wants issues ‘fully investigated’
What the heck does a mayor know about forensics? Politics, police and forensics is a hot mess of conflicts and agendas. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said she wants concerns about the operations of the District’s Department of Forensic Sciences “fully … Continue reading
Forensics: Integrity unit efforts gets results. Michigan had 2nd highest number of wrongful conviction exonerations in 2020
Twenty people wrongfully convicted of crimes in Michigan were exonerated last year. — Read on http://www.fox2detroit.com/news/michigan-had-2nd-highest-number-of-wrongful-conviction-exonerations-in-2020
Forensics: Blood spatter. 33 Years After Dubious Evidence Helped Convict Him, Joe Bryan Has Been Released on Parole
Another example where a recanting police expert admitting error was insufficient for a new trial for this man. I won’t even begin to explain whats wrong with BP. His murder conviction rested largely on bloodstain-pattern analysis, a technique still in … Continue reading
Forensics: Human rights group urges Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum to allow reversal of all nonunanimous jury convictions
Can we say “mass incarceration” of poor people? This statute was established to keep people “under control.” Abhorrent. The Oregon DA must be quivering in indignation over this “attack” on American justice. Human rights group urges Oregon Attorney General Ellen … Continue reading
Forensics: Another look at the history of quack forensic dentistry.
Cases like this are still being litigated by the Innocence Project. Eddie Lee Howard was just recently exonerated. Over 20 years on Parchman’s deathe row. DAs continue to argue these “masters of forensic dentistry” are legitimate. reason.com/2009/05/15/a-forensics-charlatan-gets-cau/
Forensics: DC forensic lab under criminal investigation over firearms case
Im sure the lab claimed 100% accuracy. The D.C. Department of Forensic Sciences is under criminal investigation amid allegations that managers at the independent lab pressured analysts to change their conclusions, and then potentially misrepresented findings to its accrediting body, … Continue reading
