"This week, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is sponsoring a conference
in Arlington, Va., called the “International Symposium on Forensic
Science Error Management – Detection, Measurement and Mitigation.” NIST
is the government agency that’s attempting to carve out some standards
and best practices for the use of forensics in the courtroom. In my series on bite mark evidence
last February, I pointed out that while the practice of bite mark
matching has been roundly criticized by the scientific community for
lacking any of the basic principles of the scientific method, some
critics of bite mark evidence were concerned that the subcommittees
under NIST that were charged with looking into the field had been
stacked with bite mark analysts and their allies. But this week, the fate of bite mark evidence took a much different turn. In her speech to open the conference, Jo Handelsman,
assistant director of the White House Office of Science and Technology
Policy called for the “eradication” of bite mark evidence. I’ve
obtained an audio clip of her speech. Here’s a transcript of the
relevant portion: "Two of the
elements highly focused on in the report are that we need to have highly
consistent data and methods, and we need to have a high degree of
certainty in the results that we obtain in forensics science when we’re
linking an individual to a crime scene or sample. There are a number of examples where we haven’t lived up to that standard of both certainty and consistency. One
of the studies . . . is really quite disturbing. They showed variable
conclusions among expert practitioners about whether in the example of
bite marks the injury was in fact a bite mark, whether the marks were
made by human teeth . . . or by animals, and whether the images of those
marks were suitable for analysis. And
interestingly, those who had more experience, the more experienced
practitioners, showed more variability between the practitioners — they
came to less agreement than the less experienced practitioners. So where
in many fields we might say, well we just need people who have more
experience, more of a feel for the data, in fact it goes the wrong way
in forensics. And then they found that many of
the practitioners show no consistency. It wasn’t as if some
practitioners were consistently conservative and others made less
conservative assessments. They were all over the place. Suggesting
that bite marks [should] still be a seriously used technology is not
based on science, on measurement, on something that has standards, but
more of a gut-level reaction. Those are the kinds of methods that have
to be eradicated from forensic science, and replaced with those that
come directly out of science, and have the ability to stand up to the
standards of scientific evaluation.".........Chris
Fabricant, a director of strategic litigation for the Innocence Project
who specializes in bite mark cases, says it’s difficult to overstate
the significance of a senior White House policy adviser
on science issues calling for the end of a major field of forensics.
“It’s unprecedented,” Fabricant says. “It’s necessary, and she’s
completely right. But this has never happened before.”"......... Judges aren’t
scientists, and neither are most jurors. Like most of the rest of us,
they can be swayed by such non-scientific factors as a witness’s charm,
demeanor and tone. Good scientists don’t speak in absolutes, they talk
about probabilities. That can make them sound wishy-washy, and thus less
convincing, than a charlatan who is willing to make assertions without
equivocating. Handelsman’s comments are progress,
but they also further expose the core problem with scientific evidence:
If not a single court in the country to date has been able to rule
against a self-evidently absurd field like bite mark matching,
why should we continue to entrust the courts to arbitrate the scientific
validity of other evidence?"
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
Bulletin: Radley Balko; (The Watch); A high-ranking Obama official just called for the “eradication” of bite mark evidence; "Suggesting that bite marks [should] still be a seriously used technology is not based on science, on measurement, on something that has standards, but more of a gut-level reaction. Those are the kinds of methods that have to be eradicated from forensic science, and replaced with those that come directly out of science, and have the ability to stand up to the standards of scientific evaluation." (Jo Handelsman, assistant director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy); Washington Post;
