Election non-relief: Judges allowing risky “probably” forensic opinions

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Bitemarks lead the list: NIST speaker reveals…….

Conference: The 5 Problems That Stand Between Scientists and the Courtroom

[excerpt:]

  1. Epstein showed the results of a recent survey of odonatologists that asked three questions about the reliability of bite marks. The answers were split on all three questions.

    “They can’t even agree on their own science,” Epstein said. “But bite marks as evidence continue to be used.”

  2. Only 5 percent of lawyers have a forensic background, so the lawyers who use forensic analysis results in their arguments and the judges who rule based upon those arguments are often completed disconnected from the actual forensic science.

“It’s a pitiful stat,” Epstein remarked.

Full article

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PCAST: Much to consider about forensic certainties largely beyond police training

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The instantaneous rejection of the latest Executive Office’s forensic review revealed much about the deniers.

This discussion on likelihoods of forensic success or failure from the ‘Einstein Institute’ leads me to wonder if the US cohorts of lawyers: DAs, Attorney Generals, and other US pattern-lookers really have the discerning, training and motivation for any of this.

It really about preventing “subjective” testimony leading to wrongful convictions. Be forewarned, as a good portion of this has a distinctive European origin. Note: Here is AFSP (UK) and ENFSI (EuroZone).

One proposal is to assign probabilities based on experience and subjective judgement. This appears to be advocated in the Association of Forensic Science Providers (AFSP) 2009 standards, and the 2015 European Network of Forensic Science Institutes (ENFSI) guideline on evaluative reporting. But the warrant for such subjective judgements has been questioned. The 1993 US Supreme Court Daubert ruling and the 2016 report by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) argue strongly that subjective judgment is not enough, that empirical validation is needed.

If a forensic likelihood ratio is to be based on subjective judgement, it has been proposed that the judgement be empirically calibrated.

Read the discussion’s reasoning and alternative choices. I’m sure it will be thought-provoking.

 

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CSI effect on prosecutors, defense counsel and plea bargains

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An important look at the 95% of criminal cases that end up plea bargains.

By Garrett and Mitchell

However, a CSI effect could be more consequential if it affects how criminal lawyers assess forensic evidence when they negotiate pleas or decide what evidence to present at trial. In this Essay, we begin to examine how criminal defense lawyers and prosecutors assess forensics, and we compare their views to those expressed by lay jurors. Part I of this Essay surveys the literature on the role that evidence plays in the plea bargaining process. In Part II, we present the results of two surveys that examine views on fingerprint and DNA evidence. We conclude in Part III by outlining how these surveys can provide a useful starting place for further research and policy.

forensics-and-fallibility

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CBSLA: Bill Richards broke and ill after 23 years in prison – WrongConvBlog

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Only four  months ago, he walked out of a Rancho Cucamonga prison, 23 years after he was convicted of murdering his wife, a crime that now the state Supreme Court says he never committed.

“I get out of the house and I keep busy but I don’t really have a life,” said Richards, now 67.

That’s partly because he is broke. His house and cars were liquidated during his lockup, and the people he used to lean on are gone.

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Despite No dishonesty found after UK witchhunt of Waney Squier : Burking continues

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Here is the latest from Dr. Squier saying how she was “targeted”  for her adversarial stance opposing another doubtful forensic method popular with some law enforcement agencies and prosecutors in both the UK and the US.

I have a couple comments after having read the holding giving Dr Squier her medical license back after the UK London police put a hit on her with the General Medical Council. She now remains muzzled from criminal and civil courts for three years.

  1. Shaken Baby Syndrome has little to nothing to support opines about its’ “triad” diagnosis. Its just opinion, over-stated in its proofs and its’ experts can be weak-to-silent about competing differential diagnoses. Surprisingly, being “silent” was one of the few successful charges against Squier confirmed by an appellate arbiter (see more below). The peer articles brought against her have miniscule sample size and, within some, they declare that very fact.
  2. The “science” is being upheld by the arbiter (Mr. Justice Mitting). He denies this inference and self-absolves himself as being  a non-science, just a legal-rules, kinda guy. The Squier inquiry illustrated 6 articles “against” her in the words of her accusers. This reveals SBA as merely a hypothesis.  But some MET cops and prosecutors and some physicians (not all trauma specialists) use it as dogma and a settled fact during criminal proceedings. That’s OK for Mr Mitting (sympathy to the arbiter, as despite his magic cloak of legalisms, he fell into a serious of their conceptual traps).
  3. The arbiter’s myopic line-by-line of Waney’s testimony review ultimately confirmed her ‘testifying’ outside her expertise. He ignored her repeated statements clearly qualifying her “opinion” to other experts in other medical and dynamic force “specialties.” Mitting uses common interpretive legal logic to absolve her of most of the burking and repetitive complaints but refused to use it for the following critical points.

A. The ploy of her cross examiner regarding honored “treatises” is surely just a trial of gamesmanship and misrepresentation against the material and factual evidence already present in her testimony. An expert agreeing a paper is an authoritative treatise does not mean that she has to declare every element within the paper that she does or does not believe to be certain. Many times treatises, in the same paper, can both support and or not support another expert’s testimony. But, tt is NOT always so according to Mr. Mitting. It is absolute to him. Black an white. That’s not the reality.

B.  While undergoing cross-examination, there is no rule of law saying the expert has to verbally footnote ‘ibid’ or ‘op cit’ to previous statements contained in her direct examination.The arbiter’s ruling offers a differing expectation and his lecturing on expert’s veracity is specious and misplaces legal logic.

C. The arbiter said such “silence” is misleading to the judge and jury. I say her body of testimony in each SBS case the Met Police objected to contains statements of her disagreement and agreement material to answer and dismiss the complaint in her favor. All are clearly referenced in other portions of her testimony. Repetitive cross examination about each treatise is “badgering” and should have been ruled as such by Mr. Mitting. Try the adjectival terms “inconsequential” or “meaningless” to these lines of  questioning.

D.The arbiter failed to exorcise the entire proceedings by failing to link the GMC’s misuse of due process and common law tenets allowed to Squier:

In one example, the GMC used Squier accepting counsel for advice as an indicia of her “dishonesty” and guilt. This is an abhorrent twisted view of justice.  This accusation and its later being considered ‘founded’ by the GMC surely tainted the entire process and undoubtedly chilled her responses during the hearing and later appeal.

Conclusion: I suggest Dr. Squier was a victim of over-arching unfairness, badgering and a 1-dimensional appellate review which diminished protections available for qualified expert witnesses with the audacity to speak about doubtful forensic matters.

 

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PCAST forensics on YouTube: Dean Mnookin keeps it simple and logical

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Jennifer Mnookin, law Dean at UCLA, was co-chair of the “working group”  assigned by the President’s Council on Sci and Tech to undertake the next step in forensic science review and reform. She recently was interviewed in Los Angeles and sews the threads connecting PCAST to the 2009 National Academy of Sci report titled in part: “a Pathway Forward.” She “calls it like it is” regarding the necessity that forensic “science” not avoid the common concept of scientific validation for its decades long court accepted “impression matching” methods.  Yet she says some may actually be proven valid. Bitemarks are explicitly denied that benefit.

I suggest the  45 min video as a great narrative of PCAST’s POV which was unceremoniously and quickly put into the dumpster by police crime lab agencies, the US DOJ, and the national district attorney association.

Unbeknownst to Dean Mnookin, the bitemarkers’  Bored of Directors are generating a response against such disrespect by PCAST. Should be a thrilling read.

PCAST deniers:

Fingerprint police

Prosecutors

the FBI

the Toolmark and Ballistics cops

 

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DIY Crime Stuff for Young Folks and Police Investigators

I’ve reviewed many a case where a first responding LEO needed some of this information. Especially the Time of Death (TOD) graphic showing the 0-36hr rigor events. More information on this is available hereLivor mortis gets a pass.

Here are specific TOD cases where things got jammed up because of poor training and police guesswork.  Blood Pattern Analysis (BPA) and some other topics are included and assuredly sound accurate and reliable. Sometimes yes and sometimes not so much.

Crime Scene Science Infographic

From the Forensic Nexus

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Exonerations in the News: the myth of “worst of the worst”

Photo: Briank Banks (right) and California Innocence Project director Justin Brooks after Banks' exoneration.

Justin Brooks and Brian Banks

From the WrongfulConvictionsBlog

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Comparing DNA mixtures with Trueallele and STRmix gets mixed results

Rorschach Inkblot Test

Where Traditional DNA Testing Fails, Algorithms Take Over

Powerful software is solving more crimes and raising new questions about due process.

[excerpt]

Studies have only established the validity of the available software in certain circumstances (such as a DNA mixture of three contributors), but not others, the report asserted. The authors cite a case in upstate New York in which TrueAllele and STRMix were used to analyze the same DNA data and came to different conclusions. (The judge in that case ultimately did not admit the DNA evidence into trial.)

Full article at ProPublica

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After scandals, Omaha campaign includes move to an independent crime lab

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Publicity about police crime lab goofs or worse do have a negative effect on confidences in lab enforcement’s activities.

Politics in Omaha includes its’ forensic lab.

Related:

Independent crime labs could help stop forensic fraud

The coming fight over independent crime labs (2009)

DC crime lab gets un-independent real fast. The replacement is straight from the FBI. -(2015)

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