COMMENTARY: "We Must Strengthen the "Science" in Forensic Science," by By Sunita Sah, Arturo Casadevall, Suzanne Bell, S. James Gates Jr., Thomas D. Albright, M. Bonner Denton, published by Scientific American on May 8, 2017."
SUB-HEADING: "A national commission created to improve the reliability of forensics has been dealt a possibly fatal blow."
GIST: "Keith Allen Harward served 33
years in jail after being convicted of rape and murder, largely on the
strength of bite mark evidence. He was subsequently found to be innocent
on the basis of DNA evidence and released. During his incarceration the
actual criminal remained free and committed other crimes. This
miscarriage of justice was the result of bad science. Bite mark evidence
has been shown to lack any scientific credibility, yet it continues to
be used in court. To a public accustomed to watching crimes being solved
on television shows, where the results are always pristine and the
guilty are always convicted, there is a perception that forensic science
is flawless. The reality is that it is not, and we are in danger of
halting and even reversing the considerable progress that has been made
in improving it. In 2009, the National Academy of Sciences evaluated the state
of forensic science and, shockingly, concluded that many of the
techniques used in court actually have no scientific validity. This
means that the science used to convict the accused is neither reliable,
nor robust and cannot be trusted in a court of law. In response to this
report, the government established the National Commission of Forensic Science
(NCFS) in 2013, which was tasked to explore these issues and make
recommendations for improvement (all of the authors of this piece have
served on the NCFS). Administered jointly by the Department of Justice
and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the commission
has worked diligently over the past four years to identify problems and
propose changes to strengthen forensic science. This progress is now in danger of being undone. On April 10, the
Justice Department, under the leadership of Attorney General Sessions,
refused to extend the term of the NCFS. The demise of the NCFS is a
tremendous missed opportunity for the progress of forensic science and
criminal justice. The NCFS brought together diverse stakeholders
including forensic scientists, judges, lawyers, victims’ advocates, law
enforcement, and practicing independent scientists. NCFS was the only
formal link between mainstream science and the communities that support
and consume the products of forensic science, most notably the criminal
justice system. During the four years in which it operated, the NCFS
made considerable progress in bridging the scientific and legal
disciplines. For example, the NCFS found such language as “reasonable
scientific certainty: to be meaningless and recommended that it not be
used in court, since it gave the false impression of scientific
validity. Even more importantly, the NCFS recommended that all
forensic techniques should be independently validated before being used
in criminal investigations. Some have been; but too many others have
not. Bite mark evidence is one example; despite lacking any scientific
foundation, it is incredibly is still being admitted into the courts.
Last year the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology
identified latent fingerprints, firearms identification and footwear
analysis as also lacking scientific validity. Medical therapies, airplanes and electrical devices are tested by
independent entities before they can be used routinely; the public
demands it and takes for granted that this has occurred. The public has
the right to expect the same of forensic techniques, given the
substantial consequences of the ‘evidence’ produced in court.
Independent and unbiased assessment is fundamentally essential to
determining the efficacy of any technique claiming to be scientific. By
stating this principle clearly, the NCFS established an important
precedent that should have far reaching consequences on the future
development of forensic science. Now the public should demand this
validation. ......... The Justice Department now proposes to improve forensic science by
moving its oversight and development to an office within the department.
This is precisely the opposite of what was recommended by the National
Academy of Sciences report and the NCFS. It is a step backwards, because
it reinforces the conditions that contributed to the current problems,
namely, placing this discipline within the control of law enforcement
and prosecutors. The Justice Department is home to many dedicated public
servants including scientists whose passion for justice is
unquestioned. However, DOJ is not a scientific body, and it is difficult
to see how forensic science can become a true science in that
environment. Science flourishes when free and independent; only then can
the tools and technology that it creates be truly reliable. Scientists and the justice department can do the necessary research
to put forensic techniques on a scientifically sound footing, or they
can retreat into the status quo in which untested forensic practices are
admitted in court simply because they have been in the past.
Proclaiming evidence to be scientific does make it so. Given this state
of affairs, we are bewildered by the decision to end the NCFS. Questions
about the validity of forensic science will not go away. Failure to
address them will lead to further convictions of innocent people. For
our society, the stakes don’t get much higher."
The entire commentary can be found at:
See related Radley Balko commentary (Washington Post) at the link below: "The notion that the Justice Department handles all of this internally (which, incidentally, was also the position of Sessions’s predecessor Loretta Lynch) is particularly problematic when you consider the fact that the FBI crime lab has been the source of some of the more wide-reaching forensic scandals of the past few decades, including advancing at least two fields (a method of hair fiber analysis and bullet composition analysis) that tainted thousands of cases and have no scientific support at all."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2017/05/08/scientists-blast-sessions-decision-on-forensics/?utm_term=.72adde8330a4
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/
