Week 1 Blog Post:
The first thing about this podcast that stood out to me that I liked was how it directly addressed the “forensic science” that occurs in TV shows and movies and how it’s really not like that in the real world in many ways. Because of the widespread popularity of these types of shows and movies, people get the wrong idea of what forensic science is and the accuracy of it all. But I like that this podcast discusses that to aim to make people more aware of these misconceptions.
When the guests at the beginning of the podcast talked about how forensic science really isn’t as fast as is seen in TV shows, I wasn’t surprised at all. I understand the science in TV shows have to move fast in order to keep the show interesting, but it’s not really like that in real life, that it takes a lot of time to even get test results back. Something that did surprise me was when they said that tests of the reliability of the forensic testing we rely on or know best haven’t really been conducted on a large scale. You would think that something that could make (prove innocence) or break (prove guilt) someone’s life would aim to be almost 100% reliable, valid, and accurate.
After listening to the podcast, I don’t think the evidence would be completely weighed fairly and honestly if I were being tried for a crime. When one of the guests talked about the case with the multiple kidnappings and murders and the fiber samples involved, I think the jury would just look at the basic evidence involved or found in the crime and not understand that you actually can and should question the science, rather than just accept it as it has been presented to you. From what the guests describe, evidence such as bite marks and hair samples and fiber evidence, among others, aren’t as reliable as we think they are, but latent fingerprint analysis holds up to scrutiny because it has been used in forensic evidence for a long, long time and has been established as quite reliable, according to the podcast guests.
I don’t think the criminal justice system is completely living up to the idea of “innocent until proven guilty” because, as I described in the previous paragraph and as further described in the podcast, the jury sees evidence that may or may not be accurate but it appears to be incriminating so they assume guilt as well, rather than looking for further scientific evidence to actually prove guilt. One of the guests pointed out that although we have rights to an attorney, etc, we don’t have the same rights to scientific review. We could ask for further testing on crime scene evidence, but that may require one’s own money to go towards this testing, money that many people may not have.