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May 18, 2008
Improving Forensic Evidence
Don Boudreaux
My friend and former classmate at both NYU and Auburn, Roger Koppl, has this excellent essay in Forbes. In it, Roger explodes some myths about the reliability of forensic evidence -- and proposes useful reforms to improve the reliability of such evidence. Here are the final few paragraphs:
How can we preserve the usefulness of forensic evidence while protecting the public when it breaks down? The core problem with the forensic system is monopoly. Once evidence goes to one lab, it is rarely examined by any other. That needs to change. Each jurisdiction should include several competing labs. Occasionally the same DNA evidence, for instance, could be sent to three different labs for analysis.
This procedure may seem like a waste. But such checks would save taxpayer money. Extra tests are inexpensive compared to the cost of error, including the cost of incarcerating the wrongfully convicted. A forthcoming study I wrote for the Independent Institute (a government-reform think tank) shows that independent triplicate fingerprint examinations in felony cases would not only eliminate most false convictions that result from fingerprint errors but also would reduce the cost of criminal justice if the false-positive error rate is more than 0.115%, or about one in a thousand.
Other reforms should include making labs independent of law enforcement and a requirement for blind testing. When crime labs are part of the police department, some forensic experts make mistakes out of an unconscious desire to help their "clients," the police and prosecution. Independence and blind testing prevent that. Creating the right to a forensic expert for the defense would help restore the imbalance in scientific firepower that too often exists between prosecution and defense. Private labs are subject to civil liability claims and administrative fines, giving them financial incentives to get it right.
Sounds right to me.
Posted by Don Boudreaux in Crime, Law, Myths and Fallacies | Permalink
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Comments
Bryan Caplan will dislike the proposal about separating forensics from the police department because it will undermine most of the premise of Dexter.
Posted by: BoscoH | May 18, 2008 2:29:41 PM
I can jsut see it now... the lab that produces the "right " results will get the nod for more busines...
Posted by: em butler | May 18, 2008 2:55:11 PM
There is no "right" result in a blind test. The lab that is most infreqently impeached will get the nod.
Posted by: SheetWise | May 18, 2008 2:59:37 PM
Sounds right to me also, especially since juries tend to believe the police crime lab is infallible.
Posted by: Flash Gordon | May 18, 2008 7:30:30 PM
While I agree whole-heartedly with the idea of using multiple examiners of forensic evidence, I can't say I believe that three labs are less easy to intimidate than one or less likely to lick the hand that feeds them.
Below is a URL to a Reason Article "CSI Mississippi" which some may judge as proof that only Mississippi has a problem. Couple the info in that article with what has happened here in the Houston Crime over the last ten years and you have the tip of the iceberg that comes in Vidyohs' "Theory of Social Observation".
http://www.reason.com/news/show/122458.html
The abuse of power in our so-called criminal justice system extends from the cop on the street right through the Judge that instructs the jury and finally to the adminstraters of the prison system.
Anytime laws are written with enough ambiguity to be open to interpretation then you must expect interpretation favorable to the one with the power, i.e. the man with the gun on his hip, badge on his chest, and belief of the public. The unfortunate part is that the man that gains the gun, the badge, and the belief of the public is generally no more capable of being impartial with the public than any of us are with our neighbors.
Like politics, our so-called criminal justice system from top to bottom is rotten with people who let their defective personalities rule over their restraints and mission.
The problem exposed by the Reason article is much more widespread than your belief can conceive. I'd bet my next month's income that honest audit of each of PD, Sheriff's dept., state Troopers, FBI, et. al. methods of gathering, reviewing, assessment, use/presentation, and safe guarding evidence would be found to be consistently heavily slanted towards prosecution, across the nation.
Posted by: vidyohs | May 19, 2008 9:35:15 AM
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