Bite marks, blood-splatter patterns, ballistics, and hair, fiber and handwriting analysis sound compelling in the courtroom, but much of the “science” behind forensic science rests on surprisingly shaky foundations. Many well-established forms of evidence are the product of highly subjective analysis by people with minimal credentials—according to the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors, no advanced degree is required for a career in forensics. And even the most experienced and respected professionals can come to inaccurate conclusions, because the body of research behind the majority of the forensic sciences is incomplete, and the established methodologies are often inexact. “There is no scientific foundation for it,” says Arizona State University law professor Michael Saks. “As you begin to unpack it you find it’s a lot of loosey-goosey stuff.”
Via
Flashback: – Another Forensic Myth: DNA matching
What bothers me is shows like CSI, which are so totally far removed from reality it skews the public’s thinking.
These TV shows have databases of footprints from every sneaker ever made, floorplans of every building ever built, etc etc. People think that all case investigations should therefore be simple, cut and dried.
This has altered conviction rates in cases with little physical evidence, and has been called the “CSI effect”
Yeah, but at least lie detectors are deadly accurate.
Or not:
http://khvorostin.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/eriksson-lacerda-2007.pdf
To quote…
Given such results and the absence of scientific support for the underlying principles it is
justified to view the use of these machines as charlatanry and we argue that there
are serious ethical and security reasons to demand that responsible authorities and
institutions should not get involved in such practices.
Even fingerprint evidence is interpretive.
It’s all circumstantial.
But, circumstantial evidence can be cumulative and point to guilt in a way that eliminates doubt of innocence.
check out the first class forensic guy ontario had and are now and have been releasing people wrongly accused. more than one. by the way iam in favour of the death penalty.
What CSI is not REAL?!!!??
What the heck! are you going to tell me that the WWF is fake too!(Wrestling not Wildlife…second thought does not really matter…)
Damn! I took a class 1 day a week for 6 weeks to learn all about the science, and now its malarkey! I want my 65 bucks back! ( ok this is true I did take a fun Adult night class for something to do )
“…says Arizona State University law professor Michael Saks”
Ya, and eddie greenspan declared Michael Jackson innocent cause he wasn’t convicted.
Lawyers are people who lie for a living.
Sounds like the same as global warming/climate change/what ever.
Fingerprints are not infallible either, nothing is.
http://www.truthinjustice.org/fingerprint-myth.htm
Meh. Who with an IQ above room temperature watches CSI anyways? I think I made it through two episodes and then I could no longer manage the suspension of disbelief necessary to suffer through it.
Wow- if forensic science isn’t really a science at all, then what of the “science” behind the IPCC’s outrageous claims? Yep, all fiction.
At least CSI has Marg Helgenberger in it… oh, my! 🙂
And how about the women on CSI: Miami? Ok, time for a cold shower for me…
do the producers of the TV detective shows know this? CSI is notorious for graphic depiction of modes of death. in slo-mo no less. Ive only seen a couple episodes courtesy the people at alluc.com.
methinks they should rename the franchise CGI but that abbrev is taken.
what is being said may be true, but i would not put much faith in anything coming from popular mechanics.
So… OJ -didn’t- do it?
what is being said may be true, but i would not put much faith in anything coming from popular mechanics.
My Dad’s small town Saskatchewan store was broken into many years ago. (1966??) The RCMP brought in a German shepherd that couldn’t find the scent of it’s own butt, much less an inturder’s.
Near the store, a plasterer had cleaned out his trowel and his tub; the intruder had stepped right in the middle of the spot. The print was a size 12 Addidas runner. Nobody wore Addidas back then except a few jocks. The mounties ignored that evidence.
Finally my Dad went to the bar one night and put out the word that he was offering a $100.00 reward for the name of the culprit. We got the name in three days. He was the only guy in town who wore size 12 Addidas.
Even with the name, a footrpint and an eyewitness, the guy walked. The culprit’s Dad was a farmer, my dad and I went out to their farm one night and stole a truck full of antiques. In the end, we collected our losses. So much for scientific advancement.
So… OJ -didn’t- do it?
~The Phantom
OJ did it.
The gloves were proof positive that he did it.
Meh. Who with an IQ above room temperature watches CSI anyways? ~ Edward Teach
I find that the older I get the higher the room temperature gets.
What the heck does “Meh” mean anyway? I’m getting too old to do my own research so please help me out.
meh is the new “bah”.
You know like Ebeneezer Scrooge’s, “Bah, humbug.”
“Meh,humbug”
Who would’ve thought?
Meh. Who with an IQ above room temperature watches CSI anyways? ~ Edward Teach
I find that the older I get the higher the room temperature gets.
What the heck does “Meh” mean anyway? I’m getting too old to do my own research so please help me out.
Posted by: glasnost at July 27, 2009 8:14 PM
It is blogspeak for ‘whatever’. Sort of like NTTAWWT. (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Seems to be the acronym for any subject involving gay people.
Hope it helps and yes I’m getting up there in the age too.
Reading all the comments it suprises me how much we all put trust in certain institutions without any reason except there say so.
JMO
Oz – I was talking to a guy intimately involved with the forensic investigation in the OJ case – he told me that OJ’s blood was found INSIDE the glove! I don’t know why that wasn’t emphasized during trial. Because the glove had been frozen and unfrozen, and shrunk from the blood-soaking, and because OJ stopped his arthritis meds, it didn’t fit, and that really swung the case IMHO.
The prosecution mishandled the case terribly, there was a mountain of evidence implicating OJ
glasnost – the term “Meh” was introduced into the English lexicon from the Simpsons, a word indicating indifference, and in Nov 2008 it was included in the Collins English Dictionary.
I think the forerunner to Meh was Bleh.
just saying
Erik Larsen,
OJ’s gloves were a very special pair.
Isotomer, the maker, only made 400 pairs of various sizes of them very specially for the one and only Bloomingdale’s Department Store of New York City.
Of the 400 pairs only 80 were ever sold.
The remainder were returned to Isotomer and never ever sold.
Now 2 of those 80 sold pairs were purchased by Nicole Brown Simpson on a Christmas trip to NYC and Nicole kept one pair, medium, while she gave the other pair as a Christmas present to OJ.
New York City, with a population of over 8 million people, Greater New York City Area 27+ million, is on the opposite coast of the United States from Los Angeles, population 3.7 million with over 11 million in the Greater L.A. area.
Each glove was found at either end of a blood trail that started at Nicole’s house with the other glove found at Rockingham, OJ’s house.
These were rare gloves indeed and Nicole had a receipt for them among her private papers.
That evidence alone is enough to dispel reasonable doubt, but the rareness of those gloves was never explained in the trial.
The prosecution thought that DNA was the way to go.
They were very wrong.
Funny coincidence – I read this article earlier today, while waiting for a prescription, at Superstore. I’ve always been skeptical of TV forensics. Partial prints, DNA, all those little tidbits that can’t possibly be 100% accurate.
Ballistics make me wonder also. How is it, that no two guns can have the same rifling marks? How can they prove that? I can understand using it to exclude a certain weapon, but not to positively identify one. I’ve even heard of using firing pin marks on bullets to identify a weapon. I think they’re stretching it a bit.
On some of these shows, they even claim to be able to tell which service station the gasoline came from. Come on, get real.
I love CSI … best scrip writing on the tube.
Science? …… not so much ….
Statistics?
Odds are that if your DNA matches a sample the police have …. then they have your sample.
Bullets? Oddds are that if the sample bullet from your gun matches a bullet from a crime …. the cops have your bullet.
OJ … Odds are that at least on of his Dream Team … or maybe Al Cowlings … will as soon as OJ gets shived in jail and dies ….. tell everyone that they knew all a long he was guilty.
Better than science. License to kill undetected 007.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKkYVVInRnc&feature=related
CSI meet CIA. Catch me if you can.
dp,
I agree completely.
I’ve even heard of using firing pin marks on bullets to identify a weapon.
I think this part, which they call tool marks, helps to identify the model of weapon which probably used a common type of ammunition.
It helps narrow things down, maybe. If a good suspect owns this particular weapon, and I know you know how varied firearms can be, it adds to the preponderance of evidence.
But I can’t see how the rifling grooves can do more than the tool marks…., because I think they point in the same direction, to the model that fired the ammo.(end of that avenue)
The only identifying marks I could imagine would be if the gunner was some sort of clumsy oaf that would put weird damage on the grooves or lands from a bad cleaning regime or something.
Bullets? Oddds are that if the sample bullet from your gun matches a bullet from a crime …. the cops have your bullet.
~OMMAG
Here is a good test that I’ve never read was ever done: Buy 10 same firearms from the same lot from a manufacturer and fire them all in groups of 10 shots into a barrel of water.
I bet the “experts” can neither tell the “tool marks” nor the fired “balls” apart.
Odds are that if your DNA matches a sample the police have …. then they have your sample.
~OMMAG
Odds are…you’re right.
Odds are better, that the same dumb schumcks who believe in AGW are on your jury and can’t understand the science of DNA and some will vote against the state’s case based on feelings and (well founded) distrust for the state and lawyers in general.
PS- I’m a CSI fan. The original one. It’s great entertainment.
I don’t question the science of DNA matching, I question the reliability of the people and equipment. I imagine that comes up, regularly, in real courtrooms.
I agree that ballistics are important, for maintaining consistency of evidence. If a defendant owns a .45, the victim was killed by a .45, and the tool marks are similar, that’s useful evidence. First you have to find a reason to suspect the defendant did it. The ballistics are not enough, on their own.
Firing pin marks on bullets?? I don’t think so.
The shell casing- ok, the bullet- never.
But I call bullshit on this whole unique rifling evidence. In Remington’s production of tens of thousands of firearms per year, I doubt very much of even the slightest variances in the lands and grooves of the rifling- I’d go so far as to say there is no discernable difference at all (based on production standards). There would be way more inconsistency in the bullets themselves- both pre and post firing, owing to the softness of their structure.
CSI~~ AGW~~ Same shit, different pile.
Don’t get me started on the DNA foolishness…
This comment relates more to the flashback portion of the post.
A coworker I knew some 10 years ago had 2 identical twin sons who were then 25 years old, and very easy on the eyes I might add, but only one of her identical sons was gay. I was puzzled to say the least.
I wondered what meh meant.
Don’t get me started on the DNA foolishness…
~Snagglepuss
I agree with your post. dp’s mostly too.
Bullet/casing evidence is about as useful as shoeprint evidence.
It goes to weight of the preponderance of circumstantial evidence.
Please, Snagglepuss, if you have something to add to my understanding of the value of DNA evidence, I would really like to know, even a little more, please?
The math is completely wrong in that LA Times article and that destroys the whole “DNA Evidence isn’t reliable” myth, but hey, don’t let that stop your narrative. See Patterico, who had an extensive discussion about it in several articles.
This screams ‘David Olofson’ louder than everything else.
It’s funny that you title this the same as your climate change posts, “the sound of settled science”, but the article starts out: “Forensic science was not developed by scientists.”
Unlike, oh say, the study of climate change.
You guys don’t believe in DNA anyway, do you? That would entail believing in stuff like evolutionary biology, and stuff.
There’s not a single comment that disputes the science of DNA. We simply dispute the accuracy of testing all those tiny samples, with equipment that’s mass produced.
You’re off base, John.
Leave it to a frackin’ attorney to open Pandora’s box. The best people at hand are using the most accurate techniques available to them at that given moment. If people would think about how well they do their own jobs, which tools they have at hand and which they choose to use…
I have a point but lost the thread. Anyway, since things aren’t perfect, let’s just disband the police. Idiots.
This issue is not wether or not forensic testing or DNA testing are accurate, so much as how accurate they are. It’s in no one’s interest to over play one’s hand with respect to forensic evidence. The results, as we have seen, are the innocent being incarcerated while the perp walks, likely to reoffend. Things such as polygraph tests are not admissible as evidence in court for good reason. But they are useful as aids to investigation.
Forensic tests share much in common with medical tests. Few are 100% sensitive or specific. And good investigators, like good diagnosticians have to know the limits of their tests in order to apply them intelligently. Unfortunately the “CSI effect” seems to bamboozle people into believing that there is an endless selection of laboratory “silver bullets” that can nail a diagnosis or a determination of innocence or guilt every time. There simply aren’t. Similarly, the testimony of forensic and medical experts, particularly those in very arcane fields not subject to third party audit, has to be taken very advisedly, especially when it may be simply rationalizing presumptive guilt.
And yet, most of the people in this discussion would support capital punishment for those crimes where “we’re absolutely sure”.
anon- I’m pretty sure the best evidence in the majority of cases is still eye witness accounts. The rest is probably used more by the defense, than by prosecuters.
dp wrote:
**anon- I’m pretty sure the best evidence in the majority of cases is still eye witness accounts.**
Personal testimony is not highly regarded or reliable…..most judges prefer “something they can hold in their hand”….physical evidence….
The recent scandal here in Ontario, with regard to the “pediatric pathologist” whose testimony convicted many many innocents…..for in some instances crimes which were not crimes at all. One sorry SOB was convicted of murdering his neice when the deceased succumbed to sudden infant death syndrome.
In law school, the day we examined the veracity of “eye witnesses”….a woman entered the lecture hall, circulated and then left. 10 minutes later the lecturer called upon all present to write a detailed description of the woman and hand it in. Then he called into the hall and 7 women entered and the students were called upon to write down the number of the woman who had entered previous.
60 students—-60 descriptions….males were close on physical attribute and females were close on clothing…..HMMMM.
60 students—-60 wrong picks from the lineup.
…..the woman was wearing a wig and changed her clothes before returning.
Lesson learned……do you really wish to risk your life on an eye witness.