This is an important reminder -- remember Dr. Charles Smith... .
Science Found Wanting in Nation’s Crime Labs
By SOLOMON MOORE
Forensic evidence that has helped convict thousands of defendants for nearly a century is often the product of shoddy scientific practices that should be upgraded and standardized, according to accounts of a draft report by the nation’s pre-eminent scientific research group.
The report by the National Academy of Sciences is to be released this month. People who have seen it say it is a sweeping critique of many forensic methods that the police and prosecutors rely on, including fingerprinting, firearms identification and analysis of bite marks, blood spatter, hair and handwriting.
The report says such analyses are often handled by poorly trained technicians who then exaggerate the accuracy of their methods in court. It concludes that Congress should create a federal agency to guarantee the independence of the field, which has been dominated by law enforcement agencies, say forensic professionals, scholars and scientists who have seen review copies of the study. Early reviewers said the report was still subject to change.
Full story here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/05/us/05forensics.html?_r=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&pagewanted=print
2 comments:
Once the average citizen has had an opportunity to deal with police in a criminal matter they soon learn that A. rarely do police charge the wrong person and,
B. police do lie...all cops lie; like blankets. And, they're not above tampering with or withholding evidence.
So removing forensics out of thir control is one hell of a good idea and likely as the artice suggests, to greatly improve accuracy.
speaking of science - there was a discussion re: genetic manipulation of seeds/plants on daily kos yesterday and I mentioned corn with pig dna added to it as an example of why this is of concern. I was sure I read about this here, in one of your postings, in the past six months or so. I went through your archives back to sept/08 but only found mention of genetic manipulation of animals. Perhaps I was wrong about reading this here? Do you recall a posting you made, linking to a msm story, specifically noting this type of corn genetic manipulation?
-Blackstar
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