A refreshing look at political support for forensic science research and crime investigation using a multi-disciplinary scientific approach. Professor Christophe Champod, from Lausanne, Switzerland, is mentioned as an international contributor for crime scene investigation.
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/lord-advocate-scotlands-crime-campus-6878875
Illustration by Oliver Munday
Im not one to delve deeply into the epistemology of science, but having been given this book review ( quote: “what makes science science?”) article to read from the New Yorker, I think this next quote is interesting as it touches on the progress of science in relation to physics. Just substitute forensics and police science and its a good read.
The article lives in the broader world of Einstein, alchemy, secret knowledge, quantum theory debunking and, in a certain extent, how human “experts” mistreat each other and the public interest for personal gain.
The context:
“They see a muddle of coercion, old magical ideas, occasional experiment, hushed-up failures—all coming together in a social practice that gets results but rarely follows a definable logic.”
The book is by the Scientific American contributing editor George Musser, “Spooky Action at a Distance” (Scientific American/Farrar, Straus & Giroux).
Another example of the effects of inconsistent and non-standardized management of questionable deaths in the US. Most coroners are not trained medical professionals.
“Kane County Coroner changes cause of death from overdose to undetermined.”
Events of note: the prior coroner was indicted for “missing” personal effects.
“In this case, no autopsy was performed to see the possibility of a natural event,” Russell [ newly elected in 2012] said in a press release. “The cause of death was determined at that time to be polypharmacy [multiple drugs], and the manner was accidental. After I reviewed the toxicology report, my forensic pathologist and I agreed the determination was incorrect.”
The Facebook Slaying in Florida.
One pathologist performed the autopsy.
Another pathologist looked at the photographs and documents much later.
Knife versus gun.
They don’t agree on reconstructing the victim’s posture at time of receiving 8 rounds of .380 ammo.
No mention of any certainty in either opinions. Best guess maybe shrouded as “possible”?
The jury has to decide. Was it self-defense or an execution by spouse?
PCAST consists of 20 of the nation’s leading scientists and engineers, appointed by the President to provide direct advice to him and the White House on important matters of science and technology.
PCAST has recently begun to explore how best to ensure the quality of forensic science, based on reliable scientific principles and methods, within the criminal justice system.
PCAST members are interested in hearing from the broad stakeholder community on each of the questions listed below in an effort to better understand the landscape of this topic.
Please note that any comments are subject to public release under the Freedom of Information Act, and may be archived consistent with the Federal Records Act and Presidential Records Act, as applicable.
This form will accept submissions until Wednesday, December 23, 2015.
This is about a missing elderly man and a male skeleton found months later. My assumption is that he may have either worn dentures (no natural teeth) with no patient name labeled placed in the dentures ( mandatory in some states but generally has poor compliance ), or the investigators could not find any relevant dental records of the gentleman who went missing. The story.
Needing timely DNA profiling of unknown human remains is certainly not “rapid.” Families are left suspended in doubt and uncertainty for months in these cases.
This is not an uncommon event in death investigations, as Coroners are generally the most underfunded units within the law enforcement community. Unidentified death cases are widely disparate within the US. Local Coroners may not have a county or regional crime lab and have to rely on the state-run lab with its associated delays.
This parallels the government run crime labs culture of putting rape kits in the back room refrigerator for years due to underfunding or just because some police chief has other priorities as happened in San Francisco. They seem to prioritize drug testing quite well though. Most of the time. (A crime lab accused of cook-booking their pot tests as “origin unknown” to enable felony prosecutions ).
Considering the furor over DNA mixture analysis now raging in the media/courts, arguments about keeping secret prosecutors’ laboratory methods appear to be doomed at some point in this process of advancing legal discovery for criminal defendants.
Unless a court wants to rewrite the book on the rights of defendants regarding the 6th Amendment “fair trial” clause.
[ the top picture shows 6 categories (1 to 6) of increasing bitemark severity types starting at the top left and progressing to the bottom right. My comments below will refer to this picture.]
At Monday’s hearing of the Texas Forensic Science Commission, the ABFO supporters of their brand of “magic” used their trump card of protecting child victim’s of violence. See here.
“Children will suffer”appears in their testimony as a new mantra. Their previous was “don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.”
Bitemark injuries on children are not uncommon, yet this group offers no solutions to the Commission regarding how their child abuse opinions will be any different than their well documented past bitemark disasters resulting in wrongful arrests and convictions. These cases are approaching 30.
As a clinician, it baffles me and apparently the Commission as well, that the pro-bitemarkers can claim any credibility without a scintilla of supporting empirical research.
Especially no research regarding child abuse bitemarks.
This absolutely follows the plot-line of Shaken Baby Syndrom cases from over the decades.
Counter Point Research
I have personally, along with Professor Iain Pretty who testified to the Commission, researched and published in the Journal of Forensic Study, a study of 49 bitemark cases, one half of which went to court.
This could have been easily reproduced by the ABFO. As usual, nothing happened as they prefer a more “un-scientific” approach to what they claim as fact.
The child abuse cases in our study showed the same lack of detail as did the adult cases that later became DNA exonerations. Both types, child and adult, fell into the lowest detail categories on the top row. Categories 1 and 2.
Here’s a lecture on the subject. .
Here’s the complete .pdf
Expert Disagreement in Bitemark Casework
Explanations on how the intersection of legal “yes or no” determinations of guilt and its interpretation of forensic “science” certainties is a train wreck.
From the Boston Review; “Forensic Psuedoscience.”
A quote from the BR
“Law is a poor vehicle for the interpretation of scientific results.”
http://bostonreview.net/books-ideas/nathan-robinson-forensic-pseudoscience-criminal-justice
Kozinski is often tagged as a conservative, but he has become one of the loudest, most eloquent and most consistent critics of the criminal justice system on the federal bench, both in his opinions and in his writing outside of court.
Excerpts from Kozinski’s interview at The Watch.
FORENSICS and LAW in FOCUS @ CSIDDS | News and Trends 