Question 1: Does what the guests on the show say surprise you? Why or why not? If you’ve taken courses in forensics, do you agree with their assessments? Summarize your position briefly.
In my opinion, what the guests say doesn’t surprise me because it’s true that there are tests and procedures that lack reliability and have different heritage. Law enforcement is a big help but the techniques that they had come up with needs more testing and analysis to show its worth and reliability. For example, bite marks used to be thought of as unique when it’s a subjective method and has been disproven in the uniqueness people have come to believe is true.
I agree with the assessments that are made through the podcast. That as a forensic scientist your job is to work through each case while unbiased and bring the criminal to justice. Forensic science is there to get the right person incriminated with having as little as possible in human error and to provide evidence to convict them without just going by human word of mouth.
Question 2: If you were being tried for a crime, would you have faith that the evidence would be weighed fairly and honestly? Explain that belief. Based on their commentary, what forms of evidence do you think hold up to scrutiny, and which do not? Justify your responses.
Yes and no, I believe that the evidence would be all tested and processed fairly but how each piece of evidence is considered through the case is all on human probability. Meaning that one person might take a piece of evidence and thing it is the most crucial piece in the whole case and go based on that and only that. While another might think that it’s a minor piece look at everything together or they might even just pass it completely when it should be a bigger piece than what they are treating it as.
Question 3: Do you think the criminal justice system is living up to the idea of “innocent until proven guilty”? Support your opinion with ideas or quotes from the podcast.
No, in my opinion the criminal justice system is lacking the idea of “innocent until proven guilty”. The criminal justice system has influences within it. As Suzzane said there needs to be someone who can explain what everything means and without someone there it is hard to go to court for a lot of cases because there mostly tried with plea bargains. When they should go to court to give everyone a fair chance. As Betty Layne said there should be a federal level agency that isn’t on the prosecution or the defendant side only and just works on the evidence brought in. This would help lessen the amount of biases being done during the testing and processing.