Latest News on Forensic Science and Criminal Law
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Tag Archives: criminal justice
From mere suggestion, to simple research, to accurate “forensics” in 2 days – Hair II
New Hair Testing Technique Can Accurately Predict a Criminal’s Personal Traits The time line of promoting forensic research into actual use in criminal investigation seems to be incredibly rapid when reading media reports. It all started on Tuesday with this … Continue reading
A look at the promotion of new forensics – Hair news release
I just love how things have changed in the forensic science arena. One can all of a sudden go from some preliminary studies on human hair protein analysis (aka amino acid content) and then take it on the road to … Continue reading
Looking at legal appellate process error rate – and its weak cure
The clamor for ‘error rates’ in forensics seems a strange contrast to the legal system which decides on its admissibility. Is there a claim of legal malpractice by judges? Read this detailed article on risk management tools available when a … Continue reading
Suppression of evidence is prosecutor misconduct but not material to the conviction?
The US Supreme Court (the pic is the DC Court of Appeals) is looking at this conviction case. It largely is about testifying eyewitness credibility failures and other available witnesses being known by the prosecution but were hidden from the … Continue reading
Here we go again. Police Chief takes on problems in his Forensics DNA lab
Chief Hank Stawinski (above) is getting outside auditing help for his county crime lab. This article seems to say that an employee of his had previously been working at the Austin TX crime lab that was shut down last year. … Continue reading
Left for Dead: DNA lab closes its doors for Missing and Unknown cases. No $$
Program to identify dead and missing across US put on hold Another example of the inequality towards forensic science (“..in the middle of an upheaval”) being merely a blip on the funding radar of the prancing ‘tough on crime’ rhetoric … Continue reading
Overreaching judge bans autopsy report on subject of police restraint Cause of Death
Here’s a rather strange ruling that short-stops criminal investigators looking into the manner (homicide, accidental or natural?) of an adult females’s death while in police custody. I’m assuming the legal theory on excluding a medical examiner’s report is that it … Continue reading
Progressive DAs get backlash from their “lock-em-up” peers like Michael Ramos
District Attorney Aramis D. Ayala of Orlando, FL is getting targeted for realizing that the death penalty is only in play in 0.01% of her criminal cases and is much too expensive to pursue. Elected Senior Prosecutors and police chiefs … Continue reading
Leading Australian state DNA analyst seems to be in a bit of a pickle
This one article ( from a large collection) about a very senior Western Australia DNA prosecutorial lab DNA scientist raises a bunch of questions on his decades long case work. Here are some key comments: State’s leading DNA expert sacked. … Continue reading
Forensics: Archaic and scientifically bogus TX mental disability statute ruled unconstitutional
SCOTUS Rejects Texas’s Death Penalty Standards for Disabled Inmates – This could be huge for other states to follow suit regarding mental competence and the death penalty. Texas’s standards for evaluating mentally disabled death row inmates are unconstitutional, the Supreme … Continue reading
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