I was not really surprised at what the guests had to say. Although, I was somewhat surprised to hear that it wasn’t just some applications of forensic science that were flawed. In my Intro to Forensics class, we discussed the NIST report and the recommendation that should be applied to forensic science. It was then that I realized that forensic science was not as infallible as television made it seem. In my Forensic Professional Practice class, we were given an assignment in which we had to create a presentation about unethical or flawed evidence analysis practices. During my research, I realized that the problems were more widespread than I thought and they occurred much more recently than I would have initially assumed. For example, my presentation was on the falsifying of hair evidence by the FBI that the podcast mentioned. I was shocked that it happened so recently.
From what I have learned in my forensics classes, I would like to believe that the evidence would be analyzed scientifically (or rather, without bias), however, humans do make mistakes, whether accidental or not. Which is why I agree with the guests of the podcast that there needs to be quality assurance measures in place to catch these mistakes. However, even if the evidence is properly analyzed, the interpretation of that evidence is what is important. How the evidence is presented, rather than what the evidence actually is, could determine the difference between a conviction or an acquittal. So, while I believe that proper scientific evaluation of evidence is important, it is also crucial that expert witnesses do not misrepresent the evidence in such a way that it favors one side over the other.
Based on their commentary, I believe that DNA evidence, to a point, holds up under scrutiny. Like one of the guests said, DNA analysis has a scientific background that was later applied to forensic science. Other types of evidence, like fingerprints, bite marks, etc., have law enforcement backgrounds, meaning these types of evidence analysis methods were created in response to a law enforcement problem, rather than a strictly scientific one.
I believe that the criminal justice system has been moving towards “guilty until proven innocent”. Like the guests were saying, defendants, specifically indigent defendants, seemingly have no right to scientific review, meaning they do not have the right, basically, to review the evidence. Another point the guests made was that defendants “need an expert to explain why you need an expert”. This, I believe, ties into the “guilty until proven innocent” idea. It is almost as if the criminal justice system is telling a defendant that their expert is infallible and they should trust their analysis. This is the same justice system that is trying to convict them. Not only are the courts restricting the defense access to the evidence, but also a defense attorney’s budget restricts them as well. Defense attorneys have substantially less resources than the government funded prosecution. It is incredibly difficult for the defense to be able to afford an expert of their own.