“Strength­en­ing Foren­sic Sci­ence in the United States: A Path For­ward” was the end prod­uct of three (3) years of research and tes­ti­mony taken by the Com­mit­tee on Iden­ti­fy­ing the Needs of the Foren­sic Sci­ences Com­mu­nity and the Com­mit­tee on Applied and The­o­ret­i­cal Sta­tis­tics of the National Research Coun­cil of the National Acad­emy of Sci­ences.  To clas­sify it as ground­break­ing and alarm­ing would be an under­state­ment of bib­li­cal proportions.

What did they do?

• The Com­mit­tee that was formed spon­sored eight (8) meet­ings.  Four (4) of these meet­ings which were open to the public.
• The four (4) open meet­ings included tes­ti­mo­ni­als and rec­om­men­da­tions from rep­re­sen­ta­tives in the var­i­ous fields of foren­sic sci­ence, lab­o­ra­tory admin­is­tra­tors, acad­e­mia, sta­tis­ti­cians, and lawyers
• Dur­ing closed meet­ings, the com­mit­tee delib­er­ated, reviewed, and drafted a report with thir­teen (13) recommendations

The pur­pose of this blog post is just to high­light the major parts of this major mono­lith moment

THE MAIN FINDING:

The foren­sic sci­ence sys­tem, encom­pass­ing both research and prac­tice, has seri­ous prob­lems that can only be addressed by a national com­mit­ment to over­haul the cur­rent struc­ture that sup­ports the foren­sic sci­ence com­mu­nity in this coun­try. This can only be done with effec­tive lead­er­ship at the high­est lev­els of both fed­eral and state gov­ern­ments, pur­suant to national stan­dards, and with a sig­nif­i­cant infu­sion of fed­eral funds.

Rec­om­men­da­tions:

NIJ Response to the NAS Report:

NIJ rec­og­nizes the need for fun­da­men­tal research and cur­rently sup­ports projects that address the accu­racy and reli­a­bil­ity of foren­sic methods:

• Hand­writ­ing
• Firearms/bullets
• Tool Marks
• Footwear Impres­sions
• Tire Impres­sions
• Bitemarks
• Fin­ger­prints

THE TRUTH

The cur­rent foren­sic sci­ence sys­tem is not based on sci­ence.  The analy­sis is fre­quently sub­jec­tive.  The same tech­nique used by dif­fer­ent ana­lysts can lead to dif­fer­ent results.  The same tech­nique used by the same ana­lyst on the same sam­ple can lead to a dif­fer­ent result.  Anec­do­tal infor­ma­tion (“In my train­ing, knowl­edge, and expe­ri­ence.…) makes it way into the Court­room.  Crime labs are need­lessly secretive.

Accord­ing to Pro­fes­sor Con­stan­tine Gat­so­nis, Co-Chair, Foren­sic Sci­ence Com­mit­tee, Strength­en­ing Foren­sic Sci­ence in the United States: A Path For­ward, 2009:

.…there is a lot we do not know about other foren­sic dis­ci­plines. Con­sid­er­ably more research and devel­op­ment is needed to pro­vide a rig­or­ous eval­u­a­tion of the capac­ity of a method to con­sis­tently, and with a high degree of cer­tainty, demon­strate a con­nec­tion between evi­dence and a spe­cific indi­vid­ual or source.

Fur­ther within the NAS report it reads:

There are two very impor­tant ques­tions that should under­lie the law’s admis­sion of and reliance upon foren­sic evi­dence in crim­i­nal trials:

1. the extent to which a par­tic­u­lar foren­sic dis­ci­pline is founded on a reli­able sci­en­tific method­ol­ogy that gives it the capac­ity to accu­rately ana­lyze evi­dence and report find­ings and
2. the extent to which prac­ti­tion­ers in a par­tic­u­lar foren­sic dis­ci­pline rely on human inter­pre­ta­tion that could be tainted by error, the threat of bias, or the absence of sound oper­a­tional pro­ce­dures and robust per­for­mance stan­dards. p. 87

In his tes­ti­mony, the Hon­or­able Harry T. Edwards, Co-Chair, Foren­sic Sci­ence Committee:

Judi­cial review, by itself, will not cure the infir­mi­ties of the foren­sic sci­ence community

Reac­tions to the NAS report have been swift and all across the board from those that deny that there is any­thing wrong to those who have adopted the NAS report.

Very recently, the Sen­ate Judi­ciary Com­mit­tee released a Draft Out­line of Foren­sic Sci­ence Reform Leg­is­la­tion.