Category Archives: forensic science reform
Looking at a Revolution? Getting Forensics Out of Law Enforcement
Many reform ideas in this series of Q&A to forensic and legal experts by the WaPo’s Radley Balko. All are logical and very practical. Prosecutors must be gagging. Here is a quote: Chris Fabricant, the Innocence Project Easiest reform: Eliminate … Continue reading
Forensics: Dentists continue to assume bitemark patterns are accurate
As usual, dentists show little interest and generally ignore the fact that skin is easily distorted. This paper studies skin color. Meh. http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Scheila_Manica/publication/332415224_Exploring_bite_marks_on_different_types_of_skin_tones/links/5cb73f0692851c8d22f23ef3/Exploring-bite-marks-on-different-types-of-skin-tones.pdf
Forensics: Runaway use of touch DNA by Prosecutors ignores it’s limitations and cautions.
Framed By Your Own Cells: How DNA Evidence Imprisons The Innocent Marina Medvin Tiny amounts of touch-transferred DNA have placed people at locations they had never visited and implicated people for crimes they did not commit. | Getty Images … Continue reading
Forensics: regulating junk forensic expertise continues in Texas; other states lagging; from ‘Grits for Breakfast’
Top 10 junk forensic sciences challenged in Texas In the wake of the Forensic Science Commission declaring blood-spatter evidence in a 30-year old murder case “not accurate or scientifically supported,” Texas has lately again been getting deserved credit as a national leader on forensic … Continue reading
Science versus police forensics’ “reasonable medical certainty” mythology.
For those unaware, the cop forensics use of “individualization” for pattern-matchers ain’t science. These authors explain why in simple terms for all of us. https://judicialstudies.duke.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/JUDICATURE102.1-THOMPSON-etal-1.pdf
Chris Fabricant of the IP talks about judges avoiding science in the courtroom
“At some point, we have to acknowledge that precedent has to be overruled by scientific reality.” Some of that science — analysis of bite marks, latent fingerprints, firearms identification, burn patterns in arson investigations, footwear patterns and tire treads — … Continue reading
How DNA and exonerations dropped a bomb on police crime labs
These exon cases (350) brought forth a 45% presence of flawed, inaccurate or misleading prosecution forensics. Ignore the dude who says in this article that its only a matter of “resources.” http://www.nbcmontana.com/news/technology/the-shifting-science-of-dna-in-the-courtroom/533124173
US Forensics now in charge of Prosecutors
Backsliding from bipartisan input on forensic science reform continues to invest more control to the police and the @NDAA (District Attorneys). These are the same lawyer bunch who think bitemark matching is a jolly good means of human identification. Washington … Continue reading
Familiar? Another bitemark conviction getting a DNA-based look after 16 years
Forensic science is not immune to the need for retesting and consideration of its’ flawed methods -Anon The number of exonerations in the US is probably going to increase with the addition of ‘new DNA technology’ evidence recovered from a … Continue reading
Today’s #Forensic News around the Globe: Crime rate within crime labs increasing
From the archives. Smithsonian talks about the career of a very reclusive founding father of scientific approaches to trace evidence analysis who worked from 1929 to 1954. Some called him “Detective X.” Somehow he determined the ransom notes in the Lindberg kidnapping … Continue reading
