Comments on: Verdict on Forensic Science: It’s Quite Bad

By: DrPDNA

DrPDNA — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 00:59:18 +0000

DNA profiling would appear to have a high degree of certainty, but is far from the truth. There have been circumstances such as Low Copy Number DNA profiling has wrongly typed suspects such as Sean Hoey & Wayne O’Donoguhue because of a lack of thorough interpretation of these results. Furthermore, false positive results of individual DNA testing laboratories are not readily available, so it is difficult to assess quality control procedures of these establishments. False positives rates of other diagnostic laboratories are more readily available. Thus DNA forensic analysis should also be criticized in the report.

By: Bill Kurtis

Bill Kurtis — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 18:34:00 +0000

Forensic science is not the only area of our justice system that is suspect, but this being the topic at hand let me say this; yes, justice is blind,but it need not be deaf, dumb,and stupid as well. One of the great misuses of the forensic information is to presure people that have not been proven guilty of anything into accepting a plea agreement.They thereby must assume guilt, simply because trying to mount a defense against squewd forensic evidence and a jury base so overwhelmed with televisions insistance upon the perfection of these forensic proceedures and techniques, that any attempt seems futile. The justice community and the forensics community see this as a great leap forward, when in fact if they would listen to the evidence and discuss its true wieght in proving the guilt or innocence of an individual, they may not be as quick to to jump to conclusions as they are. At one time the inteligent people of the world insisted it was flat and wouldn’t hear otherwise; things are not always as they first appear.

By: nick

nick — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 18:47:55 +0000

And this goes right along with what this criminal justice professor (and former public defender) and police detective have to say about the criminal justice system. The upshot is: never talk to the police. Notice how the Miranda rights read to you say “everything you say can and will be used AGAINST you in a court of law.”

If forensic evidence was so great, there’s no reason DNA evidence would be getting innocent men taken off of death row.

Justice, as they say, is blind.

By: YouRang

YouRang — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 15:50:57 +0000

The annoying part of reports like NAS’s is that fingerprints e.g. might not be good evidence if it was derived to support an accusation (in the same way that a photo identification is not good if presented to a witness by itself rather than in a lineup of very similar others); but it should suggest a possible perp who no one had thought of and other corroboration verified the guilt. IOW they shouldn’t be comparing fingerprints to known suspects–they should be comparing fingerprints to a database (or a reasonable subset).

By: Charles Schmidt

Charles Schmidt — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 22:23:26 +0000

The fact that Forensic science is presented as being able to give all answers with out error is aided by television. But the fact remains that being part of an agency they may look for things or directed too that could be called evidence to support a preconceived idea or suspect and therefore not be objective. How qualified are those that do the job, is there a standardized test to see what they know and can do? We may have came a long way in that line of evidence but we do not have all the answers that some and that includes those in the job think there is.