WEBVTT - The Failings of Forensic Science, Part I 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:05.840 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stop 0:00:05.920 --> 0:00:16.320 Work dot com. Hey, so, I just wanted to let 0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:19.000 you know that Christian and I ended up talking about 0:00:19.000 --> 0:00:22.439 this topic for a really long time. So we decided 0:00:22.480 --> 0:00:24.959 to split the episode in two, and this is going 0:00:25.000 --> 0:00:27.360 to be the first half of our discussion. You can 0:00:27.400 --> 0:00:29.720 tune in again next time to hear the second half. 0:00:30.120 --> 0:00:32.080 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name is 0:00:32.159 --> 0:00:36.040 Joe McCormick and I'm Christian Sager. So our co host 0:00:36.159 --> 0:00:38.760 Robert is away this week. He's on vacation, and the 0:00:38.760 --> 0:00:40.240 two of us thought that this would be a good 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:43.200 opportunity to talk about a little side project that we've 0:00:43.240 --> 0:00:46.239 been working on for like six months now, longer than that. 0:00:46.280 --> 0:00:49.120 Are you talking about that breeder reactor we've been working on? 0:00:49.320 --> 0:00:52.080 That's our side side project. This one is is a 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:54.080 little bit more on the books. This is the one 0:00:54.360 --> 0:00:57.120 where we've been looking into d I Y for forensics. 0:00:57.280 --> 0:01:00.560 Oh yeah, so Christian and I, well may Christian, I 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:02.440 want to give you all the credit because it's true 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:05.160 that you've had this idea of wanting to produce a 0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:08.560 video series for How Stuff Works showing how you can 0:01:08.640 --> 0:01:12.000 do your own forensic science investigations just like you'd see 0:01:12.600 --> 0:01:14.120 Uh well, I don't want to say just like you'd 0:01:14.120 --> 0:01:16.119 see on c s I, because it turns out all 0:01:16.160 --> 0:01:19.440 all that stuff you see is mostly Faye garbage. Um, 0:01:19.520 --> 0:01:22.560 but like a forensic investigator would do it a crime scene, 0:01:22.640 --> 0:01:25.600 So so how you can use tools available to you 0:01:26.040 --> 0:01:29.240 to figure out what happened if say there's blood spatter 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:32.600 all over a wall, or if there is a fingerprint 0:01:32.760 --> 0:01:35.160 left on a surface. And so the first one that 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:37.280 we did was like a demo because we wanted to 0:01:37.360 --> 0:01:39.520 like kind of test it as a proof of concept, right, 0:01:39.640 --> 0:01:41.600 And we took one of our studios here at how 0:01:41.600 --> 0:01:44.360 Stuff works and we covered the walls with paper. Yeah, 0:01:44.400 --> 0:01:46.839 we got a mannequin head and put some fake blood 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:50.880 packets on it. Yeah. And then um, we've basically had 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:55.080 Lauren Vogel Baumb from Forward Thinking come in with Thor's 0:01:55.120 --> 0:01:58.080 hammer mulenir, which we just have laying around and just 0:01:58.400 --> 0:02:01.880 pound on this mannequin's head so that the blood would 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:04.600 splatter as if it was a person being hit with 0:02:04.600 --> 0:02:07.640 a real hammer. It's to see how the blood was splatter. 0:02:07.680 --> 0:02:10.800 And we were testing basically the premise that you of 0:02:10.840 --> 0:02:14.079 how blood splatter analysis works and there's some math to it. 0:02:14.480 --> 0:02:17.480 So then we subsequently did the stringing, which they've probably 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:19.840 seen on these forensic TV shows like C S I, 0:02:19.919 --> 0:02:23.040 where they string crime scenes and there you're trying to 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:26.200 identify the trajectory of the blood that hit to leave 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:29.280 the stained pattern that you find. Yeah, exactly, so you 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:33.880 can sort of figure out both where the crime happened 0:02:34.280 --> 0:02:37.880 and what the like height. And I guess like three 0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:40.160 dimensionally is the best way to explain it, right, you 0:02:40.160 --> 0:02:43.240 can explain where it happened in the room, but also 0:02:43.360 --> 0:02:46.160 the height of the blow. Uh. And so we did 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:50.000 it and it it worked, um sort of. Yeah, it 0:02:50.080 --> 0:02:53.000 was a mess with all of the complications we have. Ye. Yeah, 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:56.600 I mean we definitely weren't as prepared for how difficult 0:02:56.639 --> 0:02:58.880 it was as I thought. And then we posted some 0:02:59.000 --> 0:03:01.639 photos to the stuff to blow your mind social media accounts, 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:04.760 and at least one, maybe two people popped up if 0:03:04.760 --> 0:03:08.680 you're listening, thank you. Um they were blood spat spatter 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:12.080 analysis experts, and they gave us some advice. Uh. And 0:03:12.120 --> 0:03:15.040 we still we've just been so busy with everything else 0:03:15.040 --> 0:03:16.840 that we do here, we just haven't been able to 0:03:16.840 --> 0:03:19.040 get to the rest of it. But the idea was 0:03:19.120 --> 0:03:22.000 we were going to take this and we're gonna extrapolate 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:24.560 it out into like a four maybe five part series 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:26.960 that was going to be a locked room murder mystery 0:03:27.040 --> 0:03:29.960 where each episode Joe and I tried to solve a 0:03:30.000 --> 0:03:33.799 crime by doing d I Y forensics in the room. 0:03:34.000 --> 0:03:35.760 And we were going to do the blood spatter one, 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:39.440 We're going to do paper chromatography. We were talking about 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:42.600 dusting for fingerprints with super glue, which is really interesting. 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:45.840 We were going to talk about decomposition of bodies and 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:48.280 how do you figure out the time of death. Then 0:03:48.320 --> 0:03:50.560 we got into looking at some other stuff. We had 0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:53.720 to bite marks, hair and fiber analysis, stuff like that, 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:57.400 and we were like, how valid actually is this? I 0:03:57.440 --> 0:04:00.280 mean not not just beyond like us doing the I 0:04:00.480 --> 0:04:03.400 Y version of it with like ziplock, Baggies and tweezers 0:04:03.400 --> 0:04:06.960 here in our studios, but like, how actually valid is this? 0:04:07.120 --> 0:04:10.280 And Josh Clark from Stuff you Should Know started talking 0:04:10.280 --> 0:04:12.280 to us about it, and he was like, you know, 0:04:12.360 --> 0:04:15.720 there's a lot of really bad pseudo science in this, 0:04:15.840 --> 0:04:18.000 and he sent us a great article. This is something 0:04:18.040 --> 0:04:20.200 that Josh and I had talked about several times before. 0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:22.800 Actually it's sort of a running conversation we have about 0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:28.039 problems that keep emerging in forensic science. Absolutely. Yeah, So 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:30.760 he pointed this out to us, and we thought, you 0:04:30.800 --> 0:04:33.080 know what, uh, why don't we do an episode of 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:35.279 stuff to blow your mind about this was so we 0:04:35.320 --> 0:04:37.680 can sort of get our thoughts clear, really do a 0:04:37.720 --> 0:04:39.840 deep dive on the research, and then maybe one day 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:42.800 we'll return to this video series and we'll make sure 0:04:43.400 --> 0:04:45.880 that the stuff that we're doing, first of all, is valid. 0:04:46.200 --> 0:04:48.800 But that second of all that we can what I'm 0:04:48.800 --> 0:04:51.560 hoping to do with it is also somehow within this 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:55.240 locked room narrative that we're going to construct also tell 0:04:55.279 --> 0:04:58.960 the audience like you can't rely on hair evidence, for instance, 0:04:59.080 --> 0:05:02.839 right or bite marks because there's a lot of subjectivity 0:05:02.880 --> 0:05:05.960 to how that's done. Right now, So that's what we're 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:08.760 here to talk to you about today, is the pseudoscience 0:05:08.880 --> 0:05:11.880 and the sort of false interpretations and there's there's just 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:14.200 a lot of problems with forensic science, and I think 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:17.400 people within the field that would acknowledge that as well. Yeah, 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:21.120 and it certainly has been openly acknowledged. So one resource 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:23.600 that we're gonna be referencing throughout this episode is this 0:05:23.880 --> 0:05:28.400 massive compilation research document put together by the National Research 0:05:28.480 --> 0:05:32.920 Council and published in two thousand nine called Strengthening Forensic 0:05:33.000 --> 0:05:35.760 Science in the United States. And this was put together 0:05:36.160 --> 0:05:39.080 out of a out of a commission I think funded 0:05:39.080 --> 0:05:41.919 by Congress to look at the state of forensic science 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:45.840 in the United States and and take a scientific, analytical, 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:48.520 critical approach to it to say how well are we 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:52.160 using forensic science in our courts, Like how well how 0:05:52.200 --> 0:05:55.400 scientifically established are the methods that are being used, how 0:05:55.440 --> 0:05:57.880 often do they get the right answer as far as 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:00.640 we can tell, Because it has become more and more 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:06.719 clear that lots of traditional methods used in forensic science analysis, 0:06:06.760 --> 0:06:09.479 the kind of science we would use to analyze a 0:06:09.520 --> 0:06:13.360 crime scene, to identify a suspect, to demonstrate the guilt 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:17.599 of a suspect, etcetera. Uh, these things are in many 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:22.279 cases full of flaws. And I've seen it alleged that 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:28.799 really nuclear DNA analysis is about the only forensic science 0:06:28.960 --> 0:06:34.880 discipline used in US courts that isn't thoroughly riddled with problems. Actually, 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:37.320 and we'll talk about it in this episode two. There 0:06:37.320 --> 0:06:40.240 are even it can be vulnerable, but I think it's 0:06:40.279 --> 0:06:42.880 generally considered the best. It is considered the best, Yeah, 0:06:42.880 --> 0:06:46.000 but there are issues with it as well. UM So 0:06:46.160 --> 0:06:47.799 I got a question for you. Have you ever served 0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:50.240 on a jury before? No, I haven't. I've I've had 0:06:50.760 --> 0:06:52.920 you know, jury selection days, but I've never I've never 0:06:52.960 --> 0:06:55.000 been picked for a jury. So a couple of years ago, 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:58.360 I was picked for a jury and I don't know 0:06:58.400 --> 0:07:02.440 how this happened, but somehow I ended up foreman and uh, 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:04.680 little do they know what power they put in the 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:07.120 hands of this uh, this doom purveyor. It was a 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:09.120 real weird case and I won't take you all down 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:11.480 the long road of it, but I will say you know, 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:12.840 one of the people that came in it was a 0:07:12.920 --> 0:07:16.520 it was a cocaine uh possession and distribution case, but 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:19.720 also a firearm possession case for felon who was not 0:07:19.720 --> 0:07:23.600 supposed to be carrying firearms. Um. The they had a 0:07:23.640 --> 0:07:28.360 cocaine expert come in from their forensics lab. And you know, 0:07:28.520 --> 0:07:32.240 like with any rhetorical position, especially in the courtroom, I 0:07:32.280 --> 0:07:34.480 mean this is where like a lot of the Greek 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:38.560 terminology for for rhetoric came from. They first started off 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:41.560 by presenting the ethos the quality of the character of 0:07:41.600 --> 0:07:45.560 this woman. She gave us her how many years that 0:07:45.680 --> 0:07:47.800 she had been working in the lab and in the field, 0:07:47.920 --> 0:07:50.040 and what her degrees were, and what her training was, 0:07:50.080 --> 0:07:52.280 and how many cases that she had looked at and 0:07:52.320 --> 0:07:54.840 all that stuff to sort of establish upfront, this is 0:07:54.880 --> 0:07:58.600 a person you should believe, right, And that's pretty much 0:07:58.680 --> 0:08:01.400 standard practice when you're in a courtroom and somebody who's 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:04.520 a science expert comes or a forensics expert comes to 0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:11.160 testify about a case. But what you don't know is, necessarily, 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:15.600 like the actual field itself, how much solidity there is 0:08:16.040 --> 0:08:18.960 to the discipline. Yeah. So imagine you are on a 0:08:19.040 --> 0:08:25.120 jury and it is eighteen thirty five or so, so 0:08:25.600 --> 0:08:28.440 you are not the scientifically literate person you are today. 0:08:28.480 --> 0:08:31.200 You are maybe a farmer who has been called in 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:34.880 for jury duty, and it's a murder trial, and the 0:08:34.960 --> 0:08:38.560 prosecution brings on an expert witness to testify to the 0:08:38.600 --> 0:08:42.360 guilt of the defendant. And the expert witness who comes 0:08:42.400 --> 0:08:45.160 on says, look, here is a map of the different 0:08:45.320 --> 0:08:49.400 organs on the human skull. And as you will see 0:08:49.600 --> 0:08:53.040 in this sketch of the defendant's head, they have an 0:08:53.040 --> 0:08:57.840 extremely pronounced organ of murdering, and that's a bump that's 0:08:57.960 --> 0:09:00.120 right here on this part of the head, and the 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:04.080 principles of phrenology, we can demonstrate that this person is 0:09:04.400 --> 0:09:07.680 by nature a murderer and will kill again if released. 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:11.640 Now we know that that sounds like complete bunk. And 0:09:11.720 --> 0:09:14.520 wouldn't life be super easy if we could just touch 0:09:14.559 --> 0:09:16.880 everybody's heads and figure out if there are murderers? It 0:09:16.920 --> 0:09:18.960 would be much easier. It would also give you more 0:09:19.000 --> 0:09:22.960 excuses when you're touching the heads and people are saying, 0:09:22.960 --> 0:09:26.000 why are you doing? What do checking? Make sure? Make 0:09:26.040 --> 0:09:28.400 sure I'm safe. I don't want to be in the 0:09:28.440 --> 0:09:32.720 presence of somebody with a pronounced organ of destructiveness. Um 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:36.560 but so, yeah, we all know today phrenology is nonsense. 0:09:36.679 --> 0:09:39.840 But back then a lot of people would not have 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:41.920 had the knowledge to do that. And it's not because 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:45.520 they were stupid, they just didn't know. It's probably presented 0:09:45.520 --> 0:09:49.080 in much the same way. This learned gentleman gets up 0:09:49.120 --> 0:09:50.840 in front of you and says, I am an expert, 0:09:50.840 --> 0:09:54.840 and all phrenologists agree. Um. So, in that case, if 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:58.079 if the judge has decided that this is admissible testimony 0:09:58.120 --> 0:09:59.679 and you're on the jury, how would you know to 0:09:59.800 --> 0:10:02.960 quite usenet And then even if you're the judge, the 0:10:03.040 --> 0:10:07.120 judge might know not exactly. It's not a qualification to 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:10.000 be a judge to also have a science degree exactly. 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:12.240 Now we are going to talk, believe it or not, 0:10:12.320 --> 0:10:15.719 about a real case where somebody tried to use phrenology 0:10:15.760 --> 0:10:18.360 in the courtroom in the eighteen hundreds. But we'll get 0:10:18.400 --> 0:10:21.560 to that actual historical example in a bit. First we 0:10:21.559 --> 0:10:23.480 should back up, I think and and look a little 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:26.960 bit more generally at a sort of top down view 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:30.440 of what are some of the problems with forensic science 0:10:30.480 --> 0:10:32.720 as it's used, especially in U. S courts today, but 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:34.600 this is going to apply to a lot of courts 0:10:34.600 --> 0:10:37.000 around the world in the general sense. Yeah, and and 0:10:37.040 --> 0:10:39.680 like as usual, because we're Americans and we're here in 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:41.760 the US, a lot of our research is focused here. 0:10:42.240 --> 0:10:45.320 But the best resource that I was able to find 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:48.520 came from Popular Mechanics, and they had a really good 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:50.920 article on the myths of c s I and they 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:55.160 began by establishing that forensic science as we know it 0:10:55.160 --> 0:10:59.560 it was mostly created by police, not by scientists, and 0:10:59.600 --> 0:11:03.840 it's based more on common sense rather than scientific practice. 0:11:03.960 --> 0:11:06.199 And we all know what common sense is. Common sense 0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:09.280 is the reasoning faculty that tells you that the Earth 0:11:09.360 --> 0:11:11.520 does not move and is flat. Yeah, b O B. 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:14.240 I'm downe with B O B. Well, I mean those 0:11:14.240 --> 0:11:16.840 things are common whitest thing I've ever said on this show. 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:20.520 I'm sorry, Uh yeah, I mean so common sense, as 0:11:20.559 --> 0:11:22.640 we know from all kinds of fields of science, very 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:25.480 often betrays us. Common sense is useful for getting your 0:11:25.520 --> 0:11:28.360 average stuff done day today, but it is not good 0:11:28.400 --> 0:11:33.079 for for deducing truths that are obscure. Yeah. Right, So 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:37.160 this popular mechanics article goes in depth and it says okay, 0:11:37.360 --> 0:11:39.679 and it and it points out DNA testing right off 0:11:39.679 --> 0:11:42.160 the bat, and they said, DNA testing is is really good, 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:45.000 and it's made it possible for us to re examine 0:11:45.040 --> 0:11:48.880 all this other biological evidence that we've taken from past trials, 0:11:48.920 --> 0:11:51.480 so that more than two hundred people this is in 0:11:51.520 --> 0:11:55.080 the US have had their convictions overturned because the DNA 0:11:55.160 --> 0:11:59.040 analysis refutes the other biological evidence that was used in 0:11:59.080 --> 0:12:03.079 the case. Fifty percent of these cases involved bad forensic 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:06.760 analysis contributing to their imprisonment, and they refer to this 0:12:06.880 --> 0:12:10.280 as the c s I affects of this bringing up 0:12:10.320 --> 0:12:12.600 the show. Yeah, the c s I effect, as I've 0:12:12.640 --> 0:12:14.840 kind of come to understand, let me know, if this 0:12:14.920 --> 0:12:17.400 is in line with what they're saying. As I understand it, 0:12:17.400 --> 0:12:23.080 it's where juries tend to expect to encounter scientific style 0:12:23.240 --> 0:12:27.640 evidence presented in the courts, or especially DNA evidence. Yeah. Absolutely, 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:31.360 And so it's a perpetuation of the media versions of 0:12:31.360 --> 0:12:35.640 the forensic examiners solving difficult cases the science and cutting 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:37.520 edge tech. Right, Like, so when you think of c 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:39.559 s I and you think of, like, wow, this this 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:41.800 is how old I am, Like David Caruso throwing on 0:12:41.840 --> 0:12:44.439 his sunglasses and whipping back his red hair, and then 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:47.040 there's like c g I zooming in on a dead body, 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:51.800 and like the explanation exposition about like how forensics works. 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:55.240 That's what they're expecting, right, They're expecting some David Caruso 0:12:55.320 --> 0:12:57.920 slick type to show up and explain this to them. 0:12:57.960 --> 0:13:01.319 There's an argument though, that this is a misconception that 0:13:01.400 --> 0:13:06.240 absolutely sways jurors before they're really even in the courtroom. Yeah. Um, 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:11.400 Like it leads to the misperception that generally the methods 0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:15.319 leading to the prosecution, identification and prosecution of a defendant 0:13:15.600 --> 0:13:19.559 are very scientific in nature. Not only that, but that 0:13:19.559 --> 0:13:23.880 they all cases will have some kind of scientific quote 0:13:23.920 --> 0:13:30.320 unquote scientific evidence, uh engaged or as evidence for them 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:34.040 to review. Yeah. So, but what's actually going on is 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:36.439 a little bit more difficult. Like like all things in 0:13:36.440 --> 0:13:42.040 the world, America's forensics labs are totally overburdened and understaffed, 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:44.800 and a two thousand five studied by the Department of 0:13:44.880 --> 0:13:49.240 Justice found that the average lab has a backlog of 0:13:49.360 --> 0:13:52.400 four hundred and one requests. So that's why, Like, for instance, 0:13:52.400 --> 0:13:53.760 that case that I was the forem and on, I 0:13:53.800 --> 0:13:56.280 think it happened like a year year and a half 0:13:56.280 --> 0:13:58.480 after they actually arrested the guy because they were waiting 0:13:58.480 --> 0:14:00.839 on evidence. It took forever for them to actually get 0:14:00.880 --> 0:14:03.640 to the evidence into Like in this case, they were 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:05.800 looking at the cocaine that was found on his person 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:10.160 to see what percentage of it was pure cocaine. Um. 0:14:10.200 --> 0:14:13.560 So this isn't even getting into all of the state, city, 0:14:13.640 --> 0:14:17.319 and now federal forensic departments that have been scandalized by 0:14:17.400 --> 0:14:21.840 mishandling evidence or just straight up committing fraud. Uh So, 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:24.560 I mean, even outside of the science angle that we're 0:14:24.560 --> 0:14:27.680 talking about. There are the pseudoscience angle we're talking about, 0:14:28.000 --> 0:14:31.280 there's the mishandling of evidence which makes the science bad, 0:14:31.880 --> 0:14:35.680 and then there's just people committing fraud, right, which is well, 0:14:35.800 --> 0:14:39.320 I mean unethical. I guess you could encounter fraud in 0:14:39.360 --> 0:14:42.640 any situation, like even in a even in a field 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:47.240 where all of the established methodology is well vetted, scientifically 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:51.960 valid methodology, you could still have somebody falsified data, somebody 0:14:51.960 --> 0:14:55.160 who has like the quote unquote quality of character to 0:14:55.200 --> 0:14:58.920 testify in a courtroom. But whatever, somebody somebody got to them. 0:14:59.080 --> 0:15:02.320 But or than just telling people not to be liars, 0:15:02.800 --> 0:15:05.440 there's really not as much to do about that. So 0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:07.200 I think we're probably not going to focus as much 0:15:07.200 --> 0:15:09.760 on fraud today, but it's just important to know that 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:12.520 it's out there, right, especially like next time one of 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:15.960 you is in the jury box. You know, just consider 0:15:16.000 --> 0:15:19.280 these things that we're talking about today. Uh So, the 0:15:19.400 --> 0:15:25.040 argument basically goes like this, the forensics science field, it 0:15:25.080 --> 0:15:28.920 has a foundation that's very shaky and very subjective. In fact, 0:15:28.960 --> 0:15:33.680 the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors says, look, there's 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:37.960 no advanced degree that's required to have a career in forensics. 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:40.000 Some people do, but it's not inquired. I think it 0:15:40.080 --> 0:15:42.760 varies field to field because there will be for example, 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:47.320 like maybe like boards or licensing organizations that work in 0:15:47.360 --> 0:15:50.440 different fields and they have different requirements. Sure yeah, especially 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:54.000 probably based state to state all that stuff. Um, And 0:15:54.000 --> 0:15:56.520 one question I have and let's I don't want you. 0:15:56.800 --> 0:15:58.560 I mean, you can answer it right now or we 0:15:58.560 --> 0:15:59.840 can think about it and come back to it the 0:15:59.880 --> 0:16:02.120 end of the episode. But should it be should they 0:16:02.120 --> 0:16:05.280 be required to have an advanced degree? Uh? Well, I 0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:07.840 mean I think that's gonna very case to case again. 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:12.080 I think I think methodology is more important than credential ing. 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:15.080 Yeah yeah, Um, Like you can have somebody with the 0:16:15.160 --> 0:16:18.280 high school education and if they are rigorously forced to 0:16:18.400 --> 0:16:23.080 follow certain methodologies, I would probably be okay, but still 0:16:23.120 --> 0:16:28.600 believe it. Yeah. And or computer automated systems that are 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:32.440 forced to follow those rigorous methodologies too, which is something 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:35.560 that people are talking about. So it's been argued that 0:16:35.600 --> 0:16:38.640 the body of research behind forensic science is just totally incomplete. 0:16:38.840 --> 0:16:42.160 The methodologies aren't precise. Like I said, there's lying in 0:16:42.200 --> 0:16:46.080 fraud today. We're mainly going to concentrate though, on whether 0:16:46.120 --> 0:16:48.440 the science itself adds up so that you can take 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:51.080 valid conclusions from it and use it as evidence in 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:54.640 a courtroom. Right, pseudo science problems in the scientific method. Yeah, 0:16:54.680 --> 0:16:56.800 We've had chemists who have faked results and gone to 0:16:56.840 --> 0:16:59.800 prison for drug convictions. There's been sloppy work that's been 0:16:59.800 --> 0:17:05.160 done than thousands of cases related to Saint Paul, Minnesota, Detroit, Michigan, Philadelphia, 0:17:05.240 --> 0:17:07.840 North Carolina, Houston, and more. I mean, this is like, 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:11.639 this is everywhere, but in two thousand five, this is 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:13.720 this is the what led to the paper that we 0:17:13.720 --> 0:17:16.960 were talking about earlier. Congress commissioned the National Academy of 0:17:17.000 --> 0:17:19.639 Science to examine the state of forensics in the US 0:17:19.720 --> 0:17:22.320 in the U S law enforcement, and they this group 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:24.439 found in two thousand and nine that there were quote 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:29.200 serious deficiencies in the nation's forensics science system, and they 0:17:29.240 --> 0:17:34.120 advocated for extensive reform. And they said, apart from d NA, 0:17:34.560 --> 0:17:37.719 remember we're gonna come back to DNA later, there is 0:17:37.760 --> 0:17:40.399 no single forensic discipline that has been proven with a 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:43.480 degree of certainty to be able to match a piece 0:17:43.520 --> 0:17:47.479 of evidence to a suspect. Now that brings up an 0:17:47.480 --> 0:17:49.320 important thing that I think may come up again. In 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:53.080 this episode, which is that some fields, as practiced, may 0:17:53.080 --> 0:17:58.800 be better able to sometimes exclude the possibility of of 0:17:58.800 --> 0:18:02.160 a defendant being gilt rather than matching. If that makes 0:18:02.160 --> 0:18:05.440 any one example I know we'll talk about later. His 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:08.760 bite marks. Yeah, and that that's something I've seen pointed out, 0:18:08.800 --> 0:18:11.520 is that while it might be hard to say, Okay, 0:18:11.560 --> 0:18:14.800 this bite mark identifies that this truly is the defendant, 0:18:15.119 --> 0:18:17.639 you could more easily say this makes it clear that 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:20.480 this bite mark was not left by the defendants. Yeah. 0:18:20.600 --> 0:18:24.760 It's complicated, right, and it's uh, it brings me back, 0:18:24.960 --> 0:18:28.840 as many of our episodes do episodes do lately, to 0:18:29.640 --> 0:18:32.560 the wicked problems that Robert and I talked about earlier 0:18:32.640 --> 0:18:35.439 this year, that just what's going on with forensics in 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:38.359 the justice system in general is a wicked problem. And 0:18:38.440 --> 0:18:40.800 I don't think it's gonna be solved with one answer, right, 0:18:40.880 --> 0:18:43.800 but but it's worth looking at. Well. I mean, one 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:46.640 thing we can take comfort in is that this big 0:18:46.640 --> 0:18:50.879 two thousand nine report is very extensive, and I hope 0:18:50.920 --> 0:18:53.240 that this already has in some cases led to some 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:57.680 initiated reforms, and it will help lead to continued reforms 0:18:57.680 --> 0:19:00.359 in the future. So it's not like nobody Reckon noises 0:19:00.440 --> 0:19:03.240 this problem and nobody's doing anything about. Yeah, I suspect 0:19:03.240 --> 0:19:04.879 that there are a lot of people who are working 0:19:05.000 --> 0:19:07.560 very hard right now. You may even be listening to 0:19:07.600 --> 0:19:10.360 the show who are like, hey, you know, we're doing 0:19:10.359 --> 0:19:12.840 our best over here. So we get that. But but 0:19:12.920 --> 0:19:15.480 it's also important to sort of walk through the process 0:19:15.480 --> 0:19:18.440 and figure it out. The worst implication of this, though, 0:19:18.520 --> 0:19:20.760 Joe is like, this is and and this is extrapolating 0:19:20.760 --> 0:19:22.600 it out to. One reason why a lot of people 0:19:22.640 --> 0:19:24.280 care about this now is because it's in our pop 0:19:24.320 --> 0:19:28.600 culture right Cereal, the biggest podcast out there, Making a 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:31.480 Murderer on Netflix, all of all of which touch upon 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:34.919 these things. There's an implication that if the forensic science 0:19:34.960 --> 0:19:37.639 is wrong, that there are innocent people who are jailed 0:19:37.680 --> 0:19:40.840 for crimes they didn't commit, and subsequently there are guilty 0:19:40.880 --> 0:19:44.400 criminals out there who are still roaming free to so, 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:46.879 um what we're going to talk about this group a 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:50.800 lot as well. The Innocence Project found that when prisoners 0:19:50.800 --> 0:19:54.200 were exonerated by d n A, the real perpetrators were 0:19:54.200 --> 0:19:58.400 identified in half of those cases, and in all but one, 0:19:58.960 --> 0:20:03.600 the real perpetray Waters continued to commit crimes, serious crimes 0:20:03.640 --> 0:20:05.879 after the innocent person went to jail. Yeah. So the 0:20:05.920 --> 0:20:07.760 Innocence Project, if you haven't heard of it, it's an 0:20:07.760 --> 0:20:11.399 advocacy organization, So it does you might say, probably have 0:20:11.440 --> 0:20:13.640 an ax to grind in this issue, but but it's 0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:17.320 also yeah, it's uh. I think it is abundantly clear 0:20:17.440 --> 0:20:21.119 that that many innocent people have been convicted of crimes 0:20:21.160 --> 0:20:24.040 they didn't commit. Many guilty people have been let go 0:20:24.200 --> 0:20:27.879 on the basis of bad forensic evidence, or or have 0:20:27.960 --> 0:20:30.200 been let go simply because somebody else has made to 0:20:30.240 --> 0:20:33.359 cop for the crime that they committed. Um, and yeah, 0:20:33.400 --> 0:20:36.439 and these people so so somebody who actually did a 0:20:36.520 --> 0:20:39.520 murder is out roaming the streets because somebody else is 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:43.120 in prison for it. Yeah, And that's just one disappointing 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:47.920 but too terrifying, right, uh. And so another part of 0:20:47.960 --> 0:20:49.919 the problem. And I don't think we're gonna have a 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:52.399 lot of time to dive deep into this today. But 0:20:52.520 --> 0:20:55.879 it's also important to remember that the legal sciences don't 0:20:55.920 --> 0:20:59.199 get as much federal funding as other disciplines when it 0:20:59.240 --> 0:21:02.480 comes to research like this, so subsequently, there aren't as 0:21:02.520 --> 0:21:07.880 many examples of statistically defensible research that these forensics. Forensic 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:10.919 examiners can rely upon that they can go back to 0:21:11.600 --> 0:21:14.920 and that they have a depth of research in their field. Right, 0:21:15.440 --> 0:21:18.080 And so one argument is we should fund them more 0:21:18.240 --> 0:21:21.600 and too they should be broken out into their own division. 0:21:21.640 --> 0:21:24.560 They shouldn't be beholden to police and prosecutors because right 0:21:24.560 --> 0:21:29.200 now most forensic scientists work under the police and under 0:21:29.320 --> 0:21:33.720 prosecutors um, which is obviously going to throw bias into 0:21:33.720 --> 0:21:37.440 their work. Yeah, that's another thing that is that is 0:21:37.480 --> 0:21:40.119