On August 20, 2012, the American Chemical Society at its biannual meeting held a special Presidential Seminar called “Innocence! The Work of the Innocence Project.” It was funded by The McShane Firm, LLC and presented through the Chemistry and the Law Division and the Forensic Science, Chemistry and the Law subdivision. At the presentation, were three exonerees. […]
The illusion of choice: The Limits of Science—and Scientists
It must be tough to be a testifying witness in any trial. It must be incredibly difficult to be a testifying expert witness at trial. There is pressure to have the answers. There is pressure to preform in keeping with one side or the other’s theory of the case. There is pressure. At some point, […]
Readability versus trueness
People mistake readability with trueness all the time. Imagine a full-sized live elephant gets on scale. The scale reads “113 pounds.” Not a single one of us would have any difficulty rejecting that measurement. We intuit that it is wrong. Really wrong. It’s not feasible. It’s not plausible. There is no way it could be. […]
The McShane Firm uses DNA to Free the Falsely Accused
It was a little past midnight on January 28. 2012. It was a “normal” night. A horrible crime was about to happen. A good police officer trying to do his duty to protect and serve the community of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania was about to be assaulted. He saw a car that was violating the law. He […]
Is forensic science truly scientific?
There is a fundamental question before us today: In the world of forensic science as practiced today, is it truly scientific? Or does forensic science create a veneer of science that whitewashes what in reality is science fiction? We have blogged on it before: The scientific framework of forensic science is it wrong? The scientific method […]
Yet another crime lab scandal – the real question is how many failures until they get caught and when is enough enough?
It seems that every week there is more news coming out of a forensic laboratory of major laboratory failures. This time it is from the state of Massachusetts where a state crime lab has been shut down and 50,000 samples from at least 34,000 different accused citizens are now all in question. Mass. Crime Lab […]
Another week another forensic laboratory scandal. It’s the Wild Wild West
With no standardization of methods, a whole scale lack of basic validity, and a lack of meaningful oversight, today’s forensic laboratory system is beyond “badly fragmented.” It is utterly lawless. It is like the Wild Wild West. Like I have written before (Why Don’t we Six Sigma Forensic Science? It’s all about method validation, traceability, […]
“I don’t know” is a perfectly acceptable answer
I was reading an article. It got me to thinking about testifying expert witnesses. Basically, the premise of the article is that “I don’t know” is a perfectly acceptable answer. It is. It is a beautiful answer. It should be our default position in forensic science. We should start out with no presumptions or assumptions. […]
Some random thoughts on forensic science
While at the ACS press conference last week, I was asked by an international reporter my thoughts on the current state of affairs in Forensic Science by a Brazilian science reporter. I wanted to share my answers with you all and see if there are different points of view that may be out there. So […]
More junk science debunked: Probation urinalysis testing and analysis by undertrained probation officers halted
As I have written many times, science should be reserved to true, credentialed scientists. The worst thing in the world is the veneer of science whereby some technique earns admissibility and presumed validity simply because it has been in the Courtroom repeatedly. We need to start challenging more of these sacred cows in the courtroom. […]
False positives and bad interpretation of analytical chemistry results happen: Case Study of Jake Gibb
I love the Olympics. Everything about it is awesome in my opinion. From the pageantry to the personal stories of triumph… The competition, but also the community of it all is so very inspiring. One of the stories the NBC featured was that of Jake Gibb. Jake Gibb represents the United States If you recall, […]
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