PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "In this devastating forensic takedown, noted legal expert Brandon Garrett asks the questions that should be asked in courtrooms every day: Where are the studies validating the basic premises of widely accepted techniques such as fingerprinting? How can experts testify with 100% certainty, when there is no such thing as a 100% match? Where is the quality control in the laboratories and at the crime scenes? Should we so readily adopt powerful new technologies like facial recognition software and rapid DNA machines? And why have judges been so reluctant to consider the weaknesses of so many long-accepted methods?
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NEW BOOK: "Autopsy of a crime lab: Exposing the flaws of forensics," by Prof. Barndon L. Garrett.
DESCRIPTION: From Prof. Garrett's web site. "Autopsy of a Crime Lab is forthcoming in March 2021 from University of California Press. Here is a description:
“That’s not my fingerprint, your honor,” said the defendant, after FBI experts reported a “100% identification.” They were wrong; it is shocking how often they are. Autopsy of a Crime Lab is the first book to catalog the sources of error and the faulty science behind a range of well-known types of forensic evidence, from fingerprints and firearms to forensic algorithms.
In this devastating forensic takedown, noted legal expert Brandon Garrett asks the questions that should be asked in courtrooms every day: Where are the studies validating the basic premises of widely accepted techniques such as fingerprinting? How can experts testify with 100% certainty, when there is no such thing as a 100% match? Where is the quality control in the laboratories and at the crime scenes? Should we so readily adopt powerful new technologies like facial recognition software and rapid DNA machines? And why have judges been so reluctant to consider the weaknesses of so many long-accepted methods?
Taking us into the lives of the wrongfully or nearly convicted, into crime labs rocked by scandal, and onto the front lines of promising reform efforts driven by professionals and researchers alike, Autopsy of a Crime Scene illustrates the persistence and perniciousness of shaky science and its well-meaning practitioners. "
The entire post can be read at:
http://www.brandonlgarrett.com/autopsycrimelab
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Biography: Prof. Brandon L. Garrett: (From his web site);
Garrett teaches law at the Duke University School of Law, where he has been the L. Neil Williams, Jr. Professor of Law since 2018. Previously, he was the Justice Thurgood Marshall Distinguished Professor of Law and White Burkett Miller Professor of Law and Public Affairs at the University of Virginia School of Law, where he taught beginning in 2005. His research on our criminal justice system has ranged from the lessons to be learned from cases where innocent people were exonerated by DNA tests, to research on false confessions, forensics, and eyewitness memory, to the difficult compromises that prosecutors reach when targeting the largest corporations in the world. Garrett directs the Center for Science and Justice at Duke Law, which conducts empirical criminal justice research.
Garrett's new book, Autopsy of a Crime Lab, will be published by University of California Press in Spring 2021. His last book, “End of its Rope: How Killing the Death Penalty Can Revive Criminal Justice,” examining the implications of the decline of the death penalty, was published in Fall 2017 from Harvard University Press.In 2011, Harvard University Press published Garrett's book, "Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong," examining the cases of the first 250 people to be exonerated by DNA testing. That book was the subject of a symposium issue in New England Law Review, and received an A.B.A. Silver Gavel Award, Honorable Mention, and a Constitutional Commentary Award. It is has been translated in Japan and Taiwan, and in China. In 2013, Foundation Press published a casebook, “Federal Habeas Corpus: Executive Detention and Post-Conviction Litigation,” that co-authored with Lee Kovarsky. Garrett's new book examining corporate prosecutions, titled “Too Big to Jail: How Prosecutors Compromise with Corporations,” was published by Harvard University Press in Fall 2014. It has been translated in Taiwan and a translation is forthcoming Spain. Garrett's law review articles can be downloaded on SSRN.
Garrett's work has been cited by courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, lower federal courts, state supreme courts, and courts in other countries, such as the Supreme Courts of Canada and Israel. Garrett also frequently speak about criminal justice matters before legislative and policymaking bodies, groups of practicing lawyers, law enforcement, and to local and national media. Garrett is also currently collaborating on a series of research projects with scientists, including statisticians and psychologists, examining forensic science and eyewitness evidence. Garrett attended Columbia Law School, where he was an articles editor of the Columbia Law Review and a Kent Scholar. After graduating, he clerked for the Hon. Pierre N. Leval of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He then worked as an associate at Neufeld, Scheck & Brustin LLP in New York City. A more detailed bio is available here.
Garrett lives in Durham, North Carolina with his wonderful family. In all of his spare time, he tries to paint."
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Web page for 'Anatomy of a crime lab."
https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520379336/autopsy-of-a-crime-lab
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