QUOTE OF THE DAY: " “If you want to put in a nutshell what’s wrong with some of these forensic sciences, it’s that they’re not really science at all. They are suggestive techniques, based on some subjectivity.”
JED S. RAKOFF: A federal judge in New York who served on the commission.
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SECOND QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Science is not a matter of accreditation. You can have an accredited group of astrologers, and that still wouldn’t make it a science.”
JUDGE RAKOFF:
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COMMENTARY: ""Another reprieve for expert testimony that i anything but," by Jim Dwyer, published by The New York Times on April 11, 2017.
GIST: "A tooth expert came to a Staten Island court in 1998 and said the teeth in James O’Donnell’s mouth proved he had bitten a woman who had been sexually assaulted in Clove Lakes Park. Another such expert testified in upstate New York that Roy Brown’s teeth were “entirely consistent” with the bite marks found all over the body of a woman who was killed in 1991 outside a farmhouse near Auburn. Both men went to prison. Both were proved innocent later through DNA testing. The bite-mark testimony was wrong. Mr. O’Donnell and Mr. Brown were among 21 people across the country convicted on bite-mark evidence — some of them sent to death row — who were later proved innocent by DNA tests. It is one of the classic forensic practices, familiar to generations who watched television crime shows, that turned out to have hollow foundations when compared with the rigorous science involved in DNA testing. Besides bite marks, the techniques include comparisons of hair, handwriting, tire treads and footprints, and certain kinds of ballistic analysis. These revelations led to efforts over the past decade by scientists and the legal authorities to take stock of investigative practices that had become embedded in the American criminal justice system since the early 20th century. Many of them resembled science but turned out to be more like magic, and untrustworthy evidence. Those reform efforts appear to have lost their momentum. This week the United States Justice Department announced that it was shutting down a National Commission on Forensic Science set up four years ago. Separately, at another agency, studies of the “foundational validity” of bite marks and ballistic evidence that had been announced in September will not go forward because of a lack of funding, Kent Rochford, the acting director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, told the commission on Monday during its final meeting. In announcing that the commission was coming to an end, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said his department would take unspecified actions to “increase the capacity of forensic science providers” and improve the reliability of analysis. Yet there are many unresolved questions about which forensic practices even qualify as science and ought to be admitted as evidence. “If you want to put in a nutshell what’s wrong with some of these forensic sciences, it’s that they’re not really science at all,” said Jed S. Rakoff, a federal judge in New York who served on the commission. “They are suggestive techniques, based on some subjectivity.”.........Judge Rakoff said the value of the commission was that it included independent scientists, prosecutors, defense lawyers, judges, and people from crime laboratories. “It’s one thing to expose the shortcomings and another thing to try to bring everyone on board to find ways to mitigate them,” he said. Some of the procedures, like handwriting analysis and bite-mark comparisons, stood little chance of getting through a scientific review, the judge said, while others, like fingerprinting, probably could. “The Department of Justice gets their input from police — the F.B.I. most of all,” Judge Rakoff said. “Their view of forensic science is inevitably colored by who their constituency is. That’s equally true of defense counsel.” At Roy Brown’s trial, the defense noted that he had only four teeth, while the bite marks on the victim’s body showed six. The prosecution explained the extra teeth marks as a result of the struggle during the attack. The witnesses who testify about such obscure matters as teeth and hair often belong to organizations that issue certificates. “Science is not a matter of accreditation,” Judge Rakoff said. “You can have an accredited group of astrologers, and that still wouldn’t make it a science.”
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/04/11/nyregion/dental-molds-forensic-dentistry-research-bite-marks.html?_r=0&referer=
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/
