This is about the Freddie Gray related trial of police officers in Baltimore.
Dr. Vincent Di Maio, a forensic pathologist and former chief medical examiner in San Antonio, said Gray’s injury was “so violent, it’s so high-energy” that it would have immediately caused Gray to lose control of his body and his diaphragm, which is critical for breathing and speaking.
The scenario: A “rush to justice” with considerable “war on drugs” overcharging of simple possession penalties leads to coerced plea bargains occurring months before definitive forensic testing is completed.
Noteworthy news about lab docs following the lure of getting paid from outside vendors for allowing them to cook-book medical DNA results. It is not limited to India by any means.
Professor Sue Black’s comments are short but extremely relevant. She should be commended for speaking of her personal experience.
I suggest that forensic training courses and academic programs should recognize the subject of forensic-related PTSD prevention and treatment in their curricula.
The CSI glamorization of forensic experience is surely a myth.
Here is the keynote speaker ( Jo Handlesman Ph.D) at a 2015 NIJ conference on forensic science speaking about the unenviable position bitemarkers have attained by showing no reliability in their opinions and being individually inconsistent in their courtroom testimony. Her expectations are that forensic indentification of individuals and specimens be derived from “hard scientific methods.”
Image from a prosecution’s bitemark expert. All it shows are common dental features.
Overstated forensic science opinions can lead suspects into false confession. This Irish Times article gives this an overview and covers Itiel Dror’s decades long work examining how prosecutorial enthusiasm effects police run crime labs.
(excerpt)
According to Dror, one of the biggest problems is that forensic evidence is usually treated in court as beyond reproach and frequently not even challenged by the defence. It is so powerful it can force defendants to plead guilty in the hope of a lesser sentence, even if they are innocent.
“Often forensic examiners overstate the evidence and they rarely present the limitations and uncertainty.
“Every science has uncertainties, but they forget their role.”
A soon to be published law review.pdf article by Valena Beety (WVA School of Law and director of the WVA Innocence Project), describes in detail why “Cops in Lab Coats” correctly lobbies for independent crime labs to prevent wrongful convictions. The full book title is Cops in Lab Coats and Forensics in the Courtroom and is written by Sandra Guerra Thompson.
Title: “On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullshit”
This is a decidedly serious discussion on the soft belly of science and other expertism that is largely uncontrolled by peer review. It may join the continuum Peter W. Huber’s book “Galileo’s Revenge: Junk Science in the Courtroom” and critical papers on the subject.
Don’t think forensic science is immune.
This money ( being in UK currency} makes it way larger than any single university US program funding by a power of about 30. The US NIJ should wake up and pay attention. This is a much better investment than some of the peanut sized grants offered on this side of the pond.
Descriptive but not an over enthusiastic prediction of a novel attempt to revolutionize the future of “fighting crime.” The writer properly spells out the commercially developed DNA method as “skimpy” on validity.
“In truth, the science for conjuring a person’s appearance from DNA remains a little skimpy. Facial features may be shaped by hundreds or thousands of genes — each with very tiny effects.”
A police agency in FLA has spent $4500 on a composite sketch.
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