STORY: "Skepticism of Forensic Methods Urged at 9th Circuit Conference," published by Courthouse News on July 18, 2017. Thanks to Dr. Mike Bowers (CSIDDS Forensics in Focus) for bringing this to our attention:
GIST: "Trial judges should be more skeptical of forensic methods that don’t pass scientific muster, a panel of legal experts told judges at the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference on Tuesday. Jennifer Mnookin, dean of the UCLA School of Law, said Tuesday that popular culture, particularly TV shows like “CSI,” have led juries to believe forensic evidence is authoritative and almost always reliable. That simply isn’t true, she said. “Faulty forensic science is the second most frequently found contributing cause [of DNA exonerations], second only to eyewitness identifications that turn out to be erroneous,” she said. Forensic techniques like fingerprint identification, bite marks, ballistics, hair and footprint analysis were all called into question in a Barack Obama administration report last year by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. It debunked decades of forensic practices, saying evidence needs to be empirically and independently tested multiple times in order to determine its scientific validity. “It must take scientific study to make a field scientifically reliable,” Mnookin said. “Experience, no matter how extensive, could not be a substitute for scientific study.”
Law enforcement agencies were quick to challenge the PCAST report when it was released this past September, but Tuesday’s panel urged judges to strongly consider the report when deciding whether to admit forensic evidence in criminal trials. “PCAST was truly directed at the courts,” Los Angeles Deputy Public Defender Jennifer Friedman said. “It was not intended to tell the people in this room how to decide cases, but to discuss and explain the intersection of scientific validity and legal reliability.” Friedman said a real tension has developed between science and the courts. While science is always looking forward, questioning hypotheses and retesting methods, the courts tend to look backwards at precedent to ensure fairness. “But we have an opportunity in the courts to drive the science in a direction that many scientists really do want to go,” Friedman said.........Ninth Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski said like many judges and others in the legal community, he had long accepted the idea that certain forensic methods were virtually infallible. But he said a 2005 article in Science Magazine made him question his long-held beliefs. “It went through, step by step, various methods of forensic evidence used in criminal cases and just showed that when you subject them to tests of scientific validity they turn to be doubtful and all the way down to completely useless,” he said. “Bite marks turn out to be completely useless, bullet fragments tend to be highly unreliable. Fingerprints, which I thought were the standard of validity, turn out to have a significant error rate when you test them against unknown samples.” He added, “The PCAST report addresses some of these issues and I thought it was a step forward in bringing all of us to a conclusion that maybe we need to do a better job, because after all this is not a situation where we’re dealing with just technicalities but we’re dealing with the question of whether people are guilty or innocent.” Meanwhile, defense lawyers need to start raising concerns about forensic evidence with judges, Kozinski said. “I think there’s a reluctance to put to the test scientific evidence put on by the prosecution. Many defense lawyers, like the rest of us, grew up with fingerprints, bite marks and footprint evidence and simply accept it as being inherently valid and not worth challenging,” he said. “And if judges don’t have the issue presented, it’s difficult for a judge. Many judges are reluctant to say – if the lawyers don’t raise the issue – have you thought about the scientific validity of this.” An even bigger problem, Friedman added, was that there aren’t a lot of scientific experts out there who are available or willing to testify. “It’s challenging to find experts,” she said. “And we don’t always represent the most enviable clients.”"
The entire story can be found at:
https://www.courthousenews.com/skepticism-forensic-methods-urged-9th-circuit-conference/
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/c
