Five Disturbing Things You Didn’t Know About Forensic “Science”

[Disir]

Last week, The Washington Post revealed that in 268 trials dating back to 1972, 26 out of 28 examiners within the FBI Laboratory’s microscopic hair comparison unit “overstated forensic matches in a way that favored prosecutors in more than 95 percent” of the cases. These included cases where 14 people have since been either executed or died in prison.

The hair analysis review — the largest-ever post-conviction review of questionable forensic evidence by the FBI — has been ongoing since 2012. The review is a joint effort by the FBI, Innocence Project and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. The preliminary results announced last week represent just a small percentage of the nearly 3,000 criminal cases in which the FBI hair examiners may have provided analysis. Of the 329 DNA exonerations to date, 74 involved flawed hair evidence analysis.

While these revelations are certainly disturbing — and the implications alarming — the reality is that they represent the tip of the iceberg when it comes to flawed forensics.

In a landmark 2009 report, the National Academy of Sciences concluded that, aside from DNA, there was little, if any, meaningful scientific underpinning to many of the forensic disciplines. “With the exception of nuclear DNA analysis … no forensic method has been rigorously shown to have the capacity to consistently, and with a high degree of certainty, demonstrate a connection between evidence and a specific individual or source,” reads the report.

There is one thing that all troubling forensic techniques have in common: They’re all based on the idea that patterns, or impressions, are unique and can be matched to the thing, or person, who made them. But the validity of this premise has not been subjected to rigorous scientific inquiry. “The forensic science community has had little opportunity to pursue or become proficient in the research that is needed to support what it does,” the NAS report said.

Nonetheless, courts routinely allow forensic practitioners to testify in front of jurors, anointing them “experts” in these pattern-matching fields — together dubbed forensic “sciences” despite the lack of evidence to support that — based only on their individual, practical experience. These witnesses, who are largely presented as learned and unbiased arbiters of truth, can hold great sway with jurors whose expectations are often that real life mimics the television crime lab or police procedural.
Five Disturbing Things You Didn t Know About Forensic Science - The Intercept

Junk science. What isn't in the five is fire pattern analysis-that which Texas used to execute an innocent man.

 

[Ringel05]

Forensic science was considered the be all, end all tool for solving crimes, we've since discovered that aspects of it are less exact than previously thought. This doesn't mean all the forensic sciences are bad, just a few are "questionable" which of course means we need to take a hard look at all aspects of forensics and determine which ones should be tossed, used as a possible adjunct to evidence, not as definitive evidence in and of themselves and which ones are definitive.

 

[Sonny Clark]

Last week, The Washington Post revealed that in 268 trials dating back to 1972, 26 out of 28 examiners within the FBI Laboratory’s microscopic hair comparison unit “overstated forensic matches in a way that favored prosecutors in more than 95 percent” of the cases. These included cases where 14 people have since been either executed or died in prison.

The hair analysis review — the largest-ever post-conviction review of questionable forensic evidence by the FBI — has been ongoing since 2012. The review is a joint effort by the FBI, Innocence Project and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. The preliminary results announced last week represent just a small percentage of the nearly 3,000 criminal cases in which the FBI hair examiners may have provided analysis. Of the 329 DNA exonerations to date, 74 involved flawed hair evidence analysis.

While these revelations are certainly disturbing — and the implications alarming — the reality is that they represent the tip of the iceberg when it comes to flawed forensics.

In a landmark 2009 report, the National Academy of Sciences concluded that, aside from DNA, there was little, if any, meaningful scientific underpinning to many of the forensic disciplines. “With the exception of nuclear DNA analysis … no forensic method has been rigorously shown to have the capacity to consistently, and with a high degree of certainty, demonstrate a connection between evidence and a specific individual or source,” reads the report.

There is one thing that all troubling forensic techniques have in common: They’re all based on the idea that patterns, or impressions, are unique and can be matched to the thing, or person, who made them. But the validity of this premise has not been subjected to rigorous scientific inquiry. “The forensic science community has had little opportunity to pursue or become proficient in the research that is needed to support what it does,” the NAS report said.

Nonetheless, courts routinely allow forensic practitioners to testify in front of jurors, anointing them “experts” in these pattern-matching fields — together dubbed forensic “sciences” despite the lack of evidence to support that — based only on their individual, practical experience. These witnesses, who are largely presented as learned and unbiased arbiters of truth, can hold great sway with jurors whose expectations are often that real life mimics the television crime lab or police procedural.
Five Disturbing Things You Didn t Know About Forensic Science - The Intercept

Junk science. What isn't in the five is fire pattern analysis-that which Texas used to execute an innocent man.

This is more evidence that we put innocent people behind bars on a regular basis. Yet, many citizens run around and shout "land of the free", and we send our soldiers to fight and die on foreign soil all in the name of freedom, when there's none here in their home country. In America, your freedom is your luck, plain and simple.

 

[Disir]

Forensic science was considered the be all, end all tool for solving crimes, we've since discovered that aspects of it are less exact than previously thought. This doesn't mean all the forensic sciences are bad, just a few are "questionable" which of course means we need to take a hard look at all aspects of forensics and determine which ones should be tossed, used as a possible adjunct to evidence, not as definitive evidence in and of themselves and which ones are definitive.

This was supposed to be the game changer:
National Commission on Forensic Science Department of Justice

 

[Derideo_Te]

Last week, The Washington Post revealed that in 268 trials dating back to 1972, 26 out of 28 examiners within the FBI Laboratory’s microscopic hair comparison unit “overstated forensic matches in a way that favored prosecutors in more than 95 percent” of the cases. These included cases where 14 people have since been either executed or died in prison.

The hair analysis review — the largest-ever post-conviction review of questionable forensic evidence by the FBI — has been ongoing since 2012. The review is a joint effort by the FBI, Innocence Project and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. The preliminary results announced last week represent just a small percentage of the nearly 3,000 criminal cases in which the FBI hair examiners may have provided analysis. Of the 329 DNA exonerations to date, 74 involved flawed hair evidence analysis.

While these revelations are certainly disturbing — and the implications alarming — the reality is that they represent the tip of the iceberg when it comes to flawed forensics.

In a landmark 2009 report, the National Academy of Sciences concluded that, aside from DNA, there was little, if any, meaningful scientific underpinning to many of the forensic disciplines. “With the exception of nuclear DNA analysis … no forensic method has been rigorously shown to have the capacity to consistently, and with a high degree of certainty, demonstrate a connection between evidence and a specific individual or source,” reads the report.

There is one thing that all troubling forensic techniques have in common: They’re all based on the idea that patterns, or impressions, are unique and can be matched to the thing, or person, who made them. But the validity of this premise has not been subjected to rigorous scientific inquiry. “The forensic science community has had little opportunity to pursue or become proficient in the research that is needed to support what it does,” the NAS report said.

Nonetheless, courts routinely allow forensic practitioners to testify in front of jurors, anointing them “experts” in these pattern-matching fields — together dubbed forensic “sciences” despite the lack of evidence to support that — based only on their individual, practical experience. These witnesses, who are largely presented as learned and unbiased arbiters of truth, can hold great sway with jurors whose expectations are often that real life mimics the television crime lab or police procedural.
Five Disturbing Things You Didn t Know About Forensic Science - The Intercept

Junk science. What isn't in the five is fire pattern analysis-that which Texas used to execute an innocent man.

In 1972 forensics was still in the "dark ages". It has come a long way since. Yes, more still needs to be done to improve it but to denigrate the current science because of mistakes made more than 4 decades ago is unfair.

 

[Sonny Clark]

Last week, The Washington Post revealed that in 268 trials dating back to 1972, 26 out of 28 examiners within the FBI Laboratory’s microscopic hair comparison unit “overstated forensic matches in a way that favored prosecutors in more than 95 percent” of the cases. These included cases where 14 people have since been either executed or died in prison.

The hair analysis review — the largest-ever post-conviction review of questionable forensic evidence by the FBI — has been ongoing since 2012. The review is a joint effort by the FBI, Innocence Project and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. The preliminary results announced last week represent just a small percentage of the nearly 3,000 criminal cases in which the FBI hair examiners may have provided analysis. Of the 329 DNA exonerations to date, 74 involved flawed hair evidence analysis.

While these revelations are certainly disturbing — and the implications alarming — the reality is that they represent the tip of the iceberg when it comes to flawed forensics.

In a landmark 2009 report, the National Academy of Sciences concluded that, aside from DNA, there was little, if any, meaningful scientific underpinning to many of the forensic disciplines. “With the exception of nuclear DNA analysis … no forensic method has been rigorously shown to have the capacity to consistently, and with a high degree of certainty, demonstrate a connection between evidence and a specific individual or source,” reads the report.

There is one thing that all troubling forensic techniques have in common: They’re all based on the idea that patterns, or impressions, are unique and can be matched to the thing, or person, who made them. But the validity of this premise has not been subjected to rigorous scientific inquiry. “The forensic science community has had little opportunity to pursue or become proficient in the research that is needed to support what it does,” the NAS report said.

Nonetheless, courts routinely allow forensic practitioners to testify in front of jurors, anointing them “experts” in these pattern-matching fields — together dubbed forensic “sciences” despite the lack of evidence to support that — based only on their individual, practical experience. These witnesses, who are largely presented as learned and unbiased arbiters of truth, can hold great sway with jurors whose expectations are often that real life mimics the television crime lab or police procedural.
Five Disturbing Things You Didn t Know About Forensic Science - The Intercept

Junk science. What isn't in the five is fire pattern analysis-that which Texas used to execute an innocent man.

In 1972 forensics was still in the "dark ages". It has come a long way since. Yes, more still needs to be done to improve it but to denigrate the current science because of mistakes made more than 4 decades ago is unfair.

Convicted defendants left uninformed of forensic flaws found by Justice Dept. - The Washington Post
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/19/us/dna-analysis-exposes-an-inexact-forensic-science.html?_r=0
Federal Forensics Investigation Calls Into Question Hundreds Of Convictions ThinkProgress
Forensic Science Grand Goals Tragic Flaws and Judicial Gatekeeping by Jane Campbell Moriarty
Flawed Forensics BFDE
Prosecutors Knew Of FBI s Forensics Flaws For Years The Washington Post Reports The Two-Way NPR
Miscarriages of Justice Actual Innocence Forensic Evidence and the Law - Brent E. Turvey Craig M Cooley - Google Books
The Real CSI FRONTLINE PBS

It's been going on for a very long time, and citizens have been convicted on flawed evidence. It's shameful and inexcusable. I hope the innocent are released, and sue for multi-$Billions.

 

[Disir]

Last week, The Washington Post revealed that in 268 trials dating back to 1972, 26 out of 28 examiners within the FBI Laboratory’s microscopic hair comparison unit “overstated forensic matches in a way that favored prosecutors in more than 95 percent” of the cases. These included cases where 14 people have since been either executed or died in prison.

The hair analysis review — the largest-ever post-conviction review of questionable forensic evidence by the FBI — has been ongoing since 2012. The review is a joint effort by the FBI, Innocence Project and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. The preliminary results announced last week represent just a small percentage of the nearly 3,000 criminal cases in which the FBI hair examiners may have provided analysis. Of the 329 DNA exonerations to date, 74 involved flawed hair evidence analysis.

While these revelations are certainly disturbing — and the implications alarming — the reality is that they represent the tip of the iceberg when it comes to flawed forensics.

In a landmark 2009 report, the National Academy of Sciences concluded that, aside from DNA, there was little, if any, meaningful scientific underpinning to many of the forensic disciplines. “With the exception of nuclear DNA analysis … no forensic method has been rigorously shown to have the capacity to consistently, and with a high degree of certainty, demonstrate a connection between evidence and a specific individual or source,” reads the report.

There is one thing that all troubling forensic techniques have in common: They’re all based on the idea that patterns, or impressions, are unique and can be matched to the thing, or person, who made them. But the validity of this premise has not been subjected to rigorous scientific inquiry. “The forensic science community has had little opportunity to pursue or become proficient in the research that is needed to support what it does,” the NAS report said.

Nonetheless, courts routinely allow forensic practitioners to testify in front of jurors, anointing them “experts” in these pattern-matching fields — together dubbed forensic “sciences” despite the lack of evidence to support that — based only on their individual, practical experience. These witnesses, who are largely presented as learned and unbiased arbiters of truth, can hold great sway with jurors whose expectations are often that real life mimics the television crime lab or police procedural.
Five Disturbing Things You Didn t Know About Forensic Science - The Intercept

Junk science. What isn't in the five is fire pattern analysis-that which Texas used to execute an innocent man.

In 1972 forensics was still in the "dark ages". It has come a long way since. Yes, more still needs to be done to improve it but to denigrate the current science because of mistakes made more than 4 decades ago is unfair.

It was really unfair for Cameron Todd Willingham. Junk science is junk science and there have been multiple problems with accreditation and standards.

It isn't about throwing out forensic science. It is about throwing out junk science.

 

[Ringel05]

Apparently judges and DAs generally don't want to know they convicted innocent people and the process to review convictions is heavily slanted towards the prosecution, that's part of the problem, hell some of these judges and DAs have and are looking towards a political career...... They want to be seen as "tough on crime" and not oops, I made a mistake. Also though "we've known" comes into play there are those who, for whatever reason, defend the "science" so the "science" has to be shown it's faulty, that process is lengthy also.
Hopefully as we learn more and more the bad science will more quickly go by the wayside and those wrongfully convicted more quickly released, we're actually starting to see more of that as we learn more and the correct forensics are applied to the case.