Looks like Gil Grissom got out at just the right time.
Crime labs nationwide must be overhauled to prevent the types of mistakes that put innocent people in prison and leave criminals out on the street, researchers have concluded.
A 255-page report from the National Academy of Sciences is urging creation of national standards of training, certification and expertise for forensic criminal work, much of which is currently done on a city or state level.
The report’s authors say the lack of consistent standards raises the possibility that the quality of forensic evidence presented in court can vary unpredictably.
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In particular, the report’s authors point out that, with the lone exception of DNA evidence, similar analysis of bite marks, tool marks, or hair samples, cannot provide a conclusive “match” in the common understanding of the term.
Such evidence can show similarities between a suspect and evidence left at a crime scene, but does not provide absolute certainty.
Peter Neufeld, co-founder of The Innocence Project which helps free wrongly convicted prisoners, said the findings marked nothing less than a “seismic shift” in criminal forensic science.
“It’s going to take a national undertaking, a massive national overhaul, to make our forensic science community sufficiently robust,” argued Neufeld.
Peter Marone, the director of Virginia’s forensic lab, acknowledged “there are some issues that need to be addressed” within the profession, but said by and large the report’s recommendations echo what he and other experts have been saying for years.
“We need better education, we need better standardization, and we do need accredited universities,” he said.
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The NAS report recommends Congress create and fund a new, national institute of forensic science to help establish consistent standard for forensic science, certification of experts, and development of new technology. It also recommends that forensic science work be moved out of the offices of law enforcement agencies to foster more unbiased analysis.
Those recommendations were made for the HPD Crime Lab as well, and were an issue in the District Attorney’s race last year. It’s great to issue a report like this, and I agree it’s a huge shift in how we think about these things, but it’ll be little more than interesting bathroom reading unless there’s a federal funding mechanism to make this happen. It’ll also presumably require action in state legislatures as well, to create the replacement labs. So consider this to be the first step on the thousand-mile journey. Grits has more.