WEBVTT - The Failings of Forensic Science, Part II 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:06.199 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuffwork 0:00:06.280 --> 0:00:15.760 dot Com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:19.079 My name is Joe McCormick, and I'm Christian Sager, and 0:00:19.120 --> 0:00:21.720 our regular host Robert Lamb is out on vacation. So 0:00:21.840 --> 0:00:24.880 Christian and I are returning to finish our discussion about 0:00:24.880 --> 0:00:28.640 science and pseudoscience and criminal investigation and the justice system. 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:31.520 So if you haven't heard part one yet, you should 0:00:31.520 --> 0:00:33.879 go back and listen to that first so you can 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:36.919 understand what we're going to be talking about in this episode. So, 0:00:37.040 --> 0:00:40.760 without further ado, here is the second half of our conversation. 0:00:41.240 --> 0:00:46.080 So Christian, yeah, tell me about fingerprint analysis and ballistics matching. Okay, 0:00:46.159 --> 0:00:49.279 So fingerprint analysis is one of those ones that, like, 0:00:49.760 --> 0:00:51.720 you know, especially based on the C S I effect, 0:00:51.760 --> 0:00:53.880 like a lot of us just assume, like, yeah, well 0:00:54.040 --> 0:00:57.400 that's that's accurate, right, Like your your fingerprint is your fingerprint. 0:00:57.480 --> 0:01:02.160 Everybody's got a unique snowflake, and uh like how hard 0:01:02.320 --> 0:01:06.800 that's got to be bulletproof? Right, No pun intended. There's 0:01:06.840 --> 0:01:08.680 a little bit of wiggle room there, right, So legal 0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:13.000 experts are concerned. Actually there's inaccuracies in something that's called 0:01:13.040 --> 0:01:18.000 the friction ridge analysis that's used in fingerprint identification. So 0:01:18.080 --> 0:01:22.440 fingerprints are believed to be unique. The process of matching them, however, 0:01:22.760 --> 0:01:26.240 isn't statistically valid, mainly because prints on an ink pad 0:01:26.680 --> 0:01:30.000 are compared to smudged or partials, which you always hear 0:01:30.040 --> 0:01:32.520 that on shows right, we only got a partial, right 0:01:33.000 --> 0:01:35.679 that that's the stuff that's often found at crime scenes. 0:01:36.160 --> 0:01:41.480 Fingerprint examiners often testify, however, with absolute certainty. This isn't 0:01:41.520 --> 0:01:43.360 like like when you watch I don't know, like a 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:45.280 like a Batman movie or something like that, and he 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:46.920 finds a fingerprint and he runs it through the bat 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:51.360 computer and it's like finds all those points of agreement 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:54.360 and it's a perfect match. But in those examples, it's 0:01:54.400 --> 0:01:57.560 usually like a very clear fingerprint matched against a very 0:01:57.560 --> 0:02:00.760 clear fingerprint. What if it's a kind of smudge fingerprint 0:02:00.800 --> 0:02:04.080 match against a partial, kind of smudged fingerpot exactly, it's 0:02:04.120 --> 0:02:08.560 it's much harder to tell, and it's not with absolute certainty. 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:11.600 A two thousand six study by the University of Southampton 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:16.840 in England asked six veteran fingerprint examiners to study prints 0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:20.040 taken from their own cases without even telling them where 0:02:20.040 --> 0:02:24.800 these came from their results were totally inconsistent. Only two 0:02:24.919 --> 0:02:27.520 of the six reached the same conclusion that they had 0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:32.280 come to on the second examination. On the first a 0:02:32.360 --> 0:02:37.040 pattern recognition expert at Sunny Buffalo is actually developing software 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:41.840 to quantify the certain the certainty of fingerprint matches. So 0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:44.080 it's kind of the back computer metaphor that we were 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:47.520 just using. Right, So if you had an automated method, uh, 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:50.079 and it was scientifically valid at the beginning, that would 0:02:50.080 --> 0:02:53.120 take sort of the subjectiveness out of it. Well, and 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:55.880 that but also I mean think about it, like it 0:02:55.960 --> 0:03:01.320 could also easily tell you how what thecentage of accuracy 0:03:01.560 --> 0:03:04.960 was versus rather than like, I don't know, it was 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:08.400 sort of the same, you know, like the well, that's 0:03:08.400 --> 0:03:10.360 what I talked about earlier, how it's important to have 0:03:10.880 --> 0:03:14.320 numerical quantities to deal with rather than just letting people 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:16.760 go with their gut feeling. Right. So if this program 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:19.040 works the way it's supposed to work, right, it could say, well, 0:03:19.040 --> 0:03:21.079 it's got twenty six percent match or it's got a 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:24.480 nine percent match. You know, you just you can't do 0:03:24.520 --> 0:03:26.600 that as a human being with your eyes. And that's 0:03:26.720 --> 0:03:29.560 essentially what we've been relying on. Right, is like, well 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:31.320 I looked at that one. That I looked at that one, 0:03:31.320 --> 0:03:33.119 and I've been doing this for twenty years. They looked 0:03:33.160 --> 0:03:35.760 the same to me. So boom, absolute certainty, you know. 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:38.960 And that's a little bit like more complicated than it's 0:03:39.040 --> 0:03:43.080 portrayed to be. Ye, same thing happens with ballistics matching again. 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:45.120 Another Yeah, Batman's coming up all over the place in 0:03:45.160 --> 0:03:47.040 this one, right, Like was it the Dark Knight where 0:03:47.040 --> 0:03:49.120 they were like doing the ballistic right, get that brick 0:03:49.200 --> 0:03:51.160 and he finds the bullet and then he matches it 0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:55.280 to It's ridiculous. Um. Ballistics matching is often done the 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:57.440 same way, based on the theory that when a bullet 0:03:57.520 --> 0:04:00.120 is fired from a gun, it leaves unique marks on 0:04:00.160 --> 0:04:03.839 the slug by the guns barrel, but there's no standards 0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:08.240 to constitute what operates as a match between bullets. The 0:04:08.320 --> 0:04:12.680 National Research Council has actually called ballistics testing into question 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:16.440 and that they say, look, it's neither unique nor is 0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:19.280 it reproducible, so why should we be using this in 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:22.640 the court. A lab in Saint Paul, Minnesota, this is 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:24.719 one of the ones I mentioned earlier was found with 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:29.440 major errors that impacted their fingerprint and other evidence processing. 0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:33.560 This included sloppy documentation, dirty equipment, as well as a 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:38.120 lack of basic scientific procedure. They actually used Wikipedia as 0:04:38.200 --> 0:04:43.040 technical reference. In one case, there was no clean area 0:04:43.120 --> 0:04:48.040 designated for Roobe for review even for their DNA evidence. So, 0:04:48.120 --> 0:04:50.320 for instance, like we've been saying, you know, we'll talk 0:04:50.320 --> 0:04:51.760 about it later at the end of the episode, but 0:04:51.800 --> 0:04:54.520 we've been saying DNA evidence is is pretty good, right, 0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:56.960 But when you've got like a pig style of a 0:04:57.000 --> 0:04:59.560 work environment and there's no clean area to review the 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:02.400 d N a, yeah, it could be tainted. Yeah, And 0:05:02.680 --> 0:05:05.560 so these are basic problems with the just like the 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:08.919 environment and procedure of analysis. They might not even be 0:05:09.000 --> 0:05:13.280 problems necessarily with the underlying theory that they're using to 0:05:13.839 --> 0:05:16.560 uh to determine the outcomes, though there might be problems 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:18.919 there to be, yeah, exactly, So when you combine the 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:22.880 two it gets even worse. Right, So, like ballistics matching 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:25.880 or fingerprint matching, it's not always a d percent certain 0:05:25.920 --> 0:05:28.600 there's it's not absolute. And then you throw in the 0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:32.839 idea that well, like maybe this fingerprint technician is also 0:05:33.000 --> 0:05:36.039 like spilling. I don't know, like a HOGI on his fingerprint. 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:40.760 Uh slides you know everything goes out the window. Yeah, 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:44.520 let us committed this crime, right. Uh So I want 0:05:44.560 --> 0:05:47.320 to talk about fire analysis. Yeah, I don't know. It 0:05:47.400 --> 0:05:51.080 doesn't want to look at fire. It's it's a glowing 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:53.400 god that draws all of us to it. But so, 0:05:54.120 --> 0:05:57.480 getting a joking aside for a minute, this is pretty serious. Actually. 0:05:57.800 --> 0:06:01.240 In February two four, a man named you may have 0:06:01.279 --> 0:06:04.479 heard about this, A man named Cameron Todd Willingham was 0:06:04.560 --> 0:06:07.880 put to death in Texas after being convicted of murdering 0:06:08.000 --> 0:06:12.080 his three children by arson. I have not heard of this, Okay. 0:06:12.080 --> 0:06:15.040 According to the charges, Williams set fire to his own 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:18.640 house with his children trapped inside in order to kill them. 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:21.839 And Uh, if you've heard about this case before, it 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:25.080 was probably likely from one of the many articles and reports, 0:06:25.120 --> 0:06:27.239 maybe the most famous among them being this two thousand 0:06:27.320 --> 0:06:29.960 nine article in The New Yorker called Trial by Fire 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:33.640 by David Grant. Uh. And they're all making the case 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:37.000 that the state of Texas had very likely in this case, 0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:42.240 executed an innocent man. So why were people saying this? Well, 0:06:42.720 --> 0:06:46.960 the main thrust of the cases against the case against 0:06:47.279 --> 0:06:51.159 william were the only solid pieces of evidence against him 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:53.880 were Number one, the testimony of a jail house informant 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:57.400 of the criminal informants are sort of notoriously those are 0:06:57.400 --> 0:07:00.560 the cis that we were really talking about yeah, unreliable, 0:07:00.680 --> 0:07:04.320 yeah uh, and that that's that testimony itself has been 0:07:04.360 --> 0:07:07.960 subsequently called into question in this case, and a fire 0:07:08.080 --> 0:07:12.520 investigation concluding that the fire showed signs of deliberate arson 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:15.880 pointing to the defendant, how do you come up with that? Well, 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:18.080 I'm gonna get into it. So this fire analysis has 0:07:18.120 --> 0:07:21.680 been roundly criticized by experts as being pretty much without 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:25.320 any scientific marriage. So I'm about to quote from David 0:07:25.360 --> 0:07:28.240 Grand's New Yorker article in a section where he describes 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:32.920 this scientist and fire investigator named Dr. Gerald Hurst's reaction 0:07:33.560 --> 0:07:38.840 to what was happening in the field during fire investigations. Okay, quote. 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:42.600 By the nineties, Hurst had begun devoting significant time to 0:07:42.640 --> 0:07:45.480 criminal arson cases, and as he was exposed to the 0:07:45.560 --> 0:07:49.640 methods of local and state fire investigators, he was shocked 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:53.440 by what he saw. Many arson investigators, it turned out, 0:07:53.640 --> 0:07:57.040 had only a high school education. In most states, in 0:07:57.120 --> 0:07:59.880 order to be certified, investigators had to take a four 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:03.920 our course on fire investigation, and pass a written exam. 0:08:04.040 --> 0:08:07.679 Often the bulk of an investigator's training came on the job, 0:08:07.840 --> 0:08:11.520 learning from Quote old timers in the field who passed 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:14.760 down a body of wisdom about the telltale signs of arson, 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:17.920 even though a study in nineteen seventy seven warned that 0:08:17.960 --> 0:08:22.640 there was nothing in the scientific literature to substantiate their validity, 0:08:23.560 --> 0:08:25.960 and then later in the piece Grand Rights quote in 0:08:26.040 --> 0:08:30.040 nineteen seven, the International Association of Arson Investigators filed a 0:08:30.120 --> 0:08:34.000 legal brief arguing that arson sleuths should not be bound 0:08:34.120 --> 0:08:37.880 by a nineteen nine Supreme Court decision that's probably referring 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:42.160 to Daubert there Um, requiring experts who testified at trials 0:08:42.200 --> 0:08:46.360 to adhere to the scientific method. What arson sleuths did, 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:51.400 the brief claimed, was quote less scientific. By two thousand, 0:08:52.240 --> 0:08:56.360 after the courts had rejected such claims, arson investigators increasingly 0:08:56.400 --> 0:09:00.280 recognized the scientific method, but there remained a great verys 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:03.520 in the field, with many practitioners still relying on the 0:09:03.640 --> 0:09:07.960 unverified techniques that have been used for generations. Quote. People 0:09:08.000 --> 0:09:11.480 investigated fire largely with a flat earth approach. Hurst told 0:09:11.480 --> 0:09:13.920 me that this means the common sense thing that we 0:09:13.920 --> 0:09:17.400 were talking about earlier. Yes, exactly, the quote continues, it 0:09:17.440 --> 0:09:21.240 looks like arson, therefore it's arson, he went on. My 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:24.040 view is you have to have a scientific basis otherwise 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:26.800 it's no different than witch hunting. I know arson when 0:09:26.800 --> 0:09:29.760 I see it right now. I don't claim to know 0:09:29.840 --> 0:09:32.679 one way or another about willing him personally, whether he 0:09:32.800 --> 0:09:36.160 was guilty or innocent. But this does make a close 0:09:36.240 --> 0:09:39.679 look at the field of fire analysis very worthwhile. Uh And, 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:41.839 and I want to point out that, like pretty much 0:09:41.880 --> 0:09:44.360 all of these others in theory, fire analysis is a 0:09:44.480 --> 0:09:47.800 perfectly legitimate field of study. It's not for anology. It's 0:09:47.840 --> 0:09:51.480 not just wrong from the ground up. So what might 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:55.760 a fire investigation look like? Often it involves searching through 0:09:55.760 --> 0:09:58.760 the remains of a burned building for indications of how 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:01.520 a fire was started, what course it took once it 0:10:01.559 --> 0:10:06.439 was ignited. Um And in forensic investigation, for fairly obvious reasons, 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:09.760 this often involves looking for indications of arson. You're trying 0:10:09.760 --> 0:10:12.439 to figure out, did somebody set this fire or did 0:10:12.440 --> 0:10:16.720 it happen accidentally? Uh And if you can find evidence 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:20.160 that accelerants such as gasoline or lighter fluid, where used 0:10:20.200 --> 0:10:22.360 to start the fire. That's one of the most common 0:10:22.400 --> 0:10:28.200 indications of varson, of deliberate intention in the fire. But unfortunately, 0:10:28.240 --> 0:10:31.440 in practice, some fire investigators have been known to use 0:10:31.480 --> 0:10:35.400 these highly faulty techniques that are not established to have 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:38.280 any scientific validity. It's just like we're saying earlier, kind 0:10:38.280 --> 0:10:41.320 of like folk knowledge. The investigators pass it down, but 0:10:41.400 --> 0:10:44.920 there's never been a study dedicated to figuring out whether 0:10:45.040 --> 0:10:50.240 these rules of analysis are true or not. So in 0:10:50.320 --> 0:10:54.000 a short article in September, the skeptic writer Michael Schermer 0:10:54.600 --> 0:10:57.240 reported a conversation he had with a guy named John 0:10:57.320 --> 0:11:00.680 Jay Lntini, who is a fire analysis expert and the 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:04.880 author of this this criminal this forensics textbook called Scientific 0:11:04.920 --> 0:11:08.120 Protocols for Fire Investigation. So this is a guy who's 0:11:08.160 --> 0:11:11.680 taking the scientific approach, and Lean Teeny tells him that 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:17.320 lots of fire investigators follow scientifically baseless folk wisdom, such 0:11:17.320 --> 0:11:20.360 as that so called alligator ing can indicate whether a 0:11:20.400 --> 0:11:24.400 fire burned fast or slow. And this alligator ing, this 0:11:24.400 --> 0:11:27.000 this idea is that it's it's like looking at an 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:29.800 alligator's hide. So you look at wood that burned during 0:11:29.800 --> 0:11:31.880 a fire, and if you look at it and you 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:35.360 see small flat blisters, that means that the fire burned 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:39.480 quote slow. And if you see large shiny blisters, that 0:11:39.520 --> 0:11:45.240 means that it burned quote fast. Lntini his analysis of 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:50.440 this rule is quote nonsense. Yeah. Ok, that nobody's actually 0:11:50.440 --> 0:11:53.800 measured that essentially, and then we quantified it and published 0:11:53.800 --> 0:11:57.280 papers that we can refer back to. Right. Also, according 0:11:57.320 --> 0:12:00.240 to len Tina, it used to be fire investing gator 0:12:00.280 --> 0:12:02.800 wisdom that when you see crazing and window glass, you 0:12:02.840 --> 0:12:05.840 know what crazing is. It's like when you see these, uh, 0:12:05.920 --> 0:12:09.679 these sort of crazy spiderweb patterns virgin not exactly, not 0:12:09.760 --> 0:12:13.320 like the circular spiderwebs, but just cracks all through the glass, 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:18.920 crazy all over the place. Right, This glass is now 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:23.240 legally insane. Yeah, So they uh, they used to say 0:12:23.320 --> 0:12:25.640 that this was an indicator that the glass had been 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:28.959 heated very rapidly, which would indicate the use of an accelerant. 0:12:28.960 --> 0:12:32.240 It heated rapidly because somebody squirted gasoline or lighter fluid 0:12:32.280 --> 0:12:36.240 all over the place. In fact, that's not true, and 0:12:36.320 --> 0:12:39.959 it turns out after scientific investigation that window crazing is 0:12:40.000 --> 0:12:42.960 caused by the opposite. It's caused by rapid cooling, like 0:12:43.040 --> 0:12:46.960 what would happen when firefighters douse the area with water. Okay, 0:12:46.960 --> 0:12:50.440 I can picture this, yeah yeah. Um. Also another thing 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:53.959 that's common puddle shaped burns on the floor that can 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:56.640 make it look certainly like there was an ignited pool 0:12:56.720 --> 0:12:58.840 of liquid on the floor, like somebody emptied a gas 0:12:58.880 --> 0:13:02.160 can all over the place set it on fire. According 0:13:02.200 --> 0:13:05.160 to Lenten E wrong again, even though fire and heat 0:13:05.240 --> 0:13:09.000 do tend rise when an entire room burns, the floor 0:13:09.080 --> 0:13:11.720 burns along with it, and these marks can appear without 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:15.440 the presence of an accelerant. Um. So, fire analysis is 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:18.680 one of the forensic fields addressed in this two thousand 0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:21.360 nine in our C report, and they conclude that while 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:25.000 there is a fairly solid basis for explosion analysis like 0:13:25.000 --> 0:13:29.199 when a bomb goes off, fire analysis is much shakier 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:33.559 than explosion analysis is as practice today. Um. They say, 0:13:33.640 --> 0:13:36.040 quote many of the rules of thumb that are typically 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:38.839 assumed to indicate that an accelerant was used e g. 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:43.120 Alligatoring of wood specific char patterns have been shown not 0:13:43.280 --> 0:13:46.640 to be true. Experiments should be designed to put arson 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:51.320 investigations on a more solid scientific footing. Uh. And again 0:13:51.360 --> 0:13:53.040 this is just crazy. I mean, this is yet another 0:13:53.120 --> 0:13:55.120 one of these that has been used to convict people, 0:13:55.160 --> 0:13:58.000 like in the case of William So we don't know, 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:00.320 I guess whether he was guilty or innocent, But if 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:03.079 this was the main evidence to show he was guilty, 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:07.800 that's that makes it look pretty bad. Yeah, that's kind 0:14:07.800 --> 0:14:10.200 of stuff is depressing, especially like when you I don't 0:14:10.200 --> 0:14:12.200 know if you watched Making a Murderer, right, when you 0:14:12.200 --> 0:14:15.320 watch these like long form documentaries about the justice system 0:14:15.320 --> 0:14:18.000 and just how flawed it is. Not saying that in 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:20.920 that particular case, I know whether anybody is guilty or 0:14:20.920 --> 0:14:23.560 innocent or anything, but it's you think about how often 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:26.000 this stuff goes on and then you've got examples like this. 0:14:26.120 --> 0:14:30.080 It's heartbreaking. Uh. This section though, highlights one thing I 0:14:30.080 --> 0:14:32.040 do want to emphasize again where we don't want to 0:14:32.080 --> 0:14:35.720 paint all forensic science professionals and experts in these fields 0:14:35.720 --> 0:14:38.040 with a with a you know, tainted brush, I mean, 0:14:38.200 --> 0:14:40.240 and also saying here like most of them are doing 0:14:40.240 --> 0:14:42.000 the best they can with what they have available to 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:45.280 him exactly, and in this case, the bad forensic science 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:48.560 and fire investigation is being exposed by good scientists and 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:52.400 fire investigation so it's not like everyone in this field 0:14:52.520 --> 0:14:54.880 is doing a bad job of it, but many people 0:14:54.920 --> 0:14:59.320 who are practicing it are. Yeah, this is truly a 0:14:59.320 --> 0:15:02.240 wicked problem. I wish we had more money to divide 0:15:02.360 --> 0:15:06.120 to divert into research and resources for stuff like this. Yeah. Well, 0:15:06.160 --> 0:15:09.280 hair analysis is one of the ones we brought up 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:11.040 at the top because that was actually one of the 0:15:11.400 --> 0:15:13.560 hair and fiber was one of the things we're talking about, 0:15:13.600 --> 0:15:16.400 Josh about. Yeah, we're and we were also like, maybe 0:15:16.400 --> 0:15:18.840 we'll do something like that in our little like video series, 0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:20.400 and then the more we start to look into it, 0:15:20.440 --> 0:15:22.600 we're like, I don't know about this, this is a 0:15:22.640 --> 0:15:25.320 little hokey. Well okay, so one thing I can say is, 0:15:25.360 --> 0:15:28.680 if you find a perpetrator's hair at the crime, couldn't 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:31.480 you use that to do some DNA analysis? That would 0:15:31.480 --> 0:15:35.280 be pretty conclusive. I don't know, I would think so. 0:15:35.520 --> 0:15:38.560 But again, remember the statistics on how often they use 0:15:38.720 --> 0:15:42.680 DNA and say versus something like this, probably because of 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:47.120 the timing and the money involved. Yeah, um, whereas like 0:15:47.520 --> 0:15:50.320 to just look at two fibers and have somebody come 0:15:50.360 --> 0:15:52.360 in as an expert and say, yep, it's a match. 0:15:52.480 --> 0:15:55.200 Seems easier to a lot of people, I would guess 0:15:55.200 --> 0:15:58.040 are cheaper. Okay, what happens when there is hair matching 0:15:58.120 --> 0:16:01.600 or hair fiber analysis. Well, I want to back up, 0:16:01.640 --> 0:16:05.600 because there was just last year the Justice Department and 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:10.640 the FBI formally acknowledged that nearly every examiner in the 0:16:10.720 --> 0:16:16.920 FBI's laboratory on microscopic hair comparison gave flawed testimony in 0:16:16.960 --> 0:16:20.120 the trials that they offered evidence. And this is over 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:22.760 the course of two decades. This is huge. It's like 0:16:22.880 --> 0:16:27.960 the biggest UH scandal in forensic science to date as 0:16:27.960 --> 0:16:31.479 far as I can tell. Um. They were giving statements 0:16:31.520 --> 0:16:35.320 that were quote, beyond the bounds of proper science. What 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:38.960 they were basically doing was saying there's a hundred percent 0:16:39.120 --> 0:16:42.440 match between two hair fibers or a hair fiber found 0:16:42.440 --> 0:16:45.840 on the scene the hair from you know, a defendant, uh, 0:16:46.080 --> 0:16:49.640 when there's just a similarity. So they're totally misleading. The 0:16:49.720 --> 0:16:53.760 jury's twenty six out of the twenty eight overstated forensic 0:16:53.880 --> 0:16:58.520 mass matches favor the prosecutors, of course, because they're working together. 0:16:59.000 --> 0:17:02.880 This equated to nine of the two hundred sixty trials. 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:06.919 According to the National Association of Criminal Defense lawyers and 0:17:07.000 --> 0:17:11.720 the Innocence Project. This is the nation's largest post conviction 0:17:11.800 --> 0:17:16.880 review of question forensic evidence. It's crazy. Of these cases, 0:17:17.359 --> 0:17:21.479 thirty two defendants were sentenced to death. Fourteen have already 0:17:21.480 --> 0:17:26.760 been executed or died in prison. So that's I mean, 0:17:26.920 --> 0:17:30.800 whether they were innocent or guilty, we don't know, but 0:17:30.920 --> 0:17:34.160 they don't yeah, and we'll never have a chance. Now 0:17:34.200 --> 0:17:37.399 the cases against them have been undermined. And keep in 0:17:37.440 --> 0:17:40.880 mind that just because the FBI made these errors, there 0:17:40.960 --> 0:17:44.280 was other evidence used to convict these defendants of guilt. Okay, 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:47.160 so it wasn't the only thing. But still each case 0:17:47.280 --> 0:17:49.439 has to be reviewed to see if there are grounds 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:53.720 for an appeal. Four were previously exonerated, So this is 0:17:53.760 --> 0:17:58.000 a landmark revelation that pattern based forensic techniques, things like 0:17:58.240 --> 0:18:05.160 hair bite mark analysis, ballistics largely subjective, and these contributed 0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:08.040 to more than twenty five of the three hundred and 0:18:08.040 --> 0:18:11.560 twenty nine cases where a defendant has been exonerated with 0:18:11.720 --> 0:18:15.680 DNA analysis post conviction. So that's how DNA analysis has 0:18:15.680 --> 0:18:18.240 been used very much in the last like ten to 0:18:18.280 --> 0:18:21.320 twenty years. Well, we talked about the exclusionary principle earlier, 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:23.600 you know, a lot of what DNA evidence is actually 0:18:23.680 --> 0:18:26.640 brought to the field is uh, not just matching and 0:18:26.680 --> 0:18:29.639 saying here, you know this criminal, definitely, that's that's his 0:18:29.760 --> 0:18:32.760 or her blood there, but excluding people saying, look, this 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:36.000 is not their day genetic material. Yeah, this is not 0:18:36.080 --> 0:18:39.000 a match. So a lot of politicians weighed in on this. 0:18:39.080 --> 0:18:41.320 Of course, they asked the FBI to do a systematic 0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:45.080 analysis to breakdown their system, and the FBI says that 0:18:45.080 --> 0:18:49.640 their hair examiners lacked written standards that defined what were 0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:52.800 the appropriate ways to explain their results in court. That 0:18:52.880 --> 0:18:55.680 was until two thousand and twelve. This all came to 0:18:55.800 --> 0:18:59.600 light after the Washington Post reported on flawed forensic hair 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:03.960 match is. Federal authorities investigated this and they found it 0:19:04.000 --> 0:19:06.800 to be true. They found that the experts quote unquote 0:19:06.800 --> 0:19:09.560 that we're testifying to near certainty of matches in a 0:19:09.600 --> 0:19:14.359 crime scene, they were citing incomplete and misleading statistics drawn 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:17.440 from their own work. So I want to make this clear, 0:19:17.520 --> 0:19:21.040 there is no accepted research on how hair from different 0:19:21.119 --> 0:19:24.959 people can appear the same. So, I mean, like you 0:19:25.000 --> 0:19:26.639 asked at the topic, well, how does that work? I 0:19:26.640 --> 0:19:28.560 mean I think it's literally like you look under a 0:19:28.600 --> 0:19:30.840 microscope at the two pieces of hair, and that looks 0:19:30.840 --> 0:19:33.879 similar to me. Yeah, And I mean I'm sure that 0:19:33.960 --> 0:19:36.800 there's some more to it than that, right, in the 0:19:36.840 --> 0:19:39.879 same way as like there's some old timey wisdom passed 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:43.879 down about how fires look the same, right, but there's 0:19:44.040 --> 0:19:47.679 no accepted research that one one thing leads to another. 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:53.280 Even before this, the FBI reported it's examiners were reporting 0:19:53.320 --> 0:19:56.240 false hair matches more than eleven percent of the time, 0:19:56.440 --> 0:19:58.840 and at the time of this report, five defendants were 0:19:58.840 --> 0:20:01.800 exonerated through d in a testing, all of whom had 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:05.560 served between twenty and thirty years in prison for either 0:20:05.720 --> 0:20:09.240 rape or murder. Jeez, I mean, this is just, again, 0:20:09.280 --> 0:20:13.520 like I said, heartbreaking. Of twenty one thousand federal or 0:20:13.600 --> 0:20:17.080 state requests for hair comparison evidence from nineteen seventy two 0:20:17.080 --> 0:20:20.760 to nineteen ninety nine, the FBI found that two thousand, 0:20:20.880 --> 0:20:25.800 five hundred of those cases had examiners declare hair matches. 0:20:26.440 --> 0:20:29.560 They're reviewing every single one of those cases now, like 0:20:29.600 --> 0:20:32.159 they have to go back and just review everything. The 0:20:32.240 --> 0:20:36.359 same examiners who are now under review also taught five 0:20:36.440 --> 0:20:40.760 hundred to a thousand state and local crime analysis labs 0:20:41.040 --> 0:20:43.159 how to testify in the same way. So this is 0:20:43.200 --> 0:20:45.760 like the old timers passing down the wisdom, and so 0:20:45.800 --> 0:20:48.520 it's an endemic problem. It's not just the FBI, it's 0:20:48.560 --> 0:20:52.520 everywhere now. So these same testimonies were likely flawed at 0:20:52.560 --> 0:20:56.120 the same level. It's just it's it's insane. In one 0:20:56.200 --> 0:20:59.240 shocking example, this is just one example of how it 0:20:59.280 --> 0:21:04.040 affected a person, a lot person's life. Sante Tribble served 0:21:04.080 --> 0:21:08.399 twenty eight years for murder based on FBI hair testimony. 0:21:08.520 --> 0:21:10.720 It later turned out that one of the hairs that 0:21:10.840 --> 0:21:16.200 was used to prosecute him came from a dog. Oh 0:21:16.240 --> 0:21:22.960 my god, he was exonerated in Wow, So hair analysis 0:21:23.000 --> 0:21:27.400 not so much bite mark analysis. Okay, here's another example. 0:21:28.960 --> 0:21:32.840 Expert in forensic odeontology, we mentioned that earlier testified that 0:21:32.960 --> 0:21:35.760 multiple bite marks found on a murder victim were entirely 0:21:35.800 --> 0:21:38.440 consistent with the dental impressions taken from a guy named 0:21:38.520 --> 0:21:42.040 Roy Brown. This was the only physical evidence in this case. 0:21:42.520 --> 0:21:45.640 Brown was sentenced to twenty five years to life in prison. 0:21:46.119 --> 0:21:50.719 DNA tests later confirmed that a second suspect was actually guilty, 0:21:50.920 --> 0:21:54.840 but Brown. He spent fifteen years in prison. So bite 0:21:54.840 --> 0:21:58.600 mark analysis is now also widely considered unreliable. Yeah, it 0:21:58.680 --> 0:22:00.760 was explored in the two is a nine in RC 0:22:00.960 --> 0:22:05.240 document and that they outlined several problems with current use 0:22:05.240 --> 0:22:08.840 of bite mark evidence. Uh, they say, quote, uniqueness of 0:22:08.920 --> 0:22:12.720 human dentition has not been scientifically established. I mean you'd 0:22:12.720 --> 0:22:15.560 think that that's pretty basic. You'd have to start with 0:22:15.600 --> 0:22:20.440 the study making it statistically clear that humans have unique 0:22:20.520 --> 0:22:23.959 bite marks. But I mean, what if they don't usually 0:22:23.960 --> 0:22:26.440 have unique bite marks. I mean, I don't know what 0:22:26.480 --> 0:22:29.000 you would expect bite marks to look like. Maybe lots 0:22:29.000 --> 0:22:31.440 of people have very similar looking bite marks. And I 0:22:31.480 --> 0:22:34.920 would also think that again, like this is I haven't 0:22:34.960 --> 0:22:36.800 done research on this, but I would imagine that the 0:22:37.119 --> 0:22:39.480 force of the bite would contribute to what the bite 0:22:39.480 --> 0:22:42.440 marks look like. Well, that's another thing. So they say, 0:22:42.480 --> 0:22:45.879 even if dentition is unique, even if everybody has a 0:22:46.000 --> 0:22:48.360 unique bite mark in the same way that it's commonly 0:22:48.400 --> 0:22:55.159 assumed people have unique fingerprints. Uh, the ability of the 0:22:55.200 --> 0:22:59.520 person to transfer a unique pattern to human skin, and 0:22:59.520 --> 0:23:02.840 then the ability of the skin to maintain the uniqueness 0:23:02.840 --> 0:23:07.240 of that pattern has not been scientifically established. So, so 0:23:07.280 --> 0:23:10.440 imagine just what happens when people are trying to analyze 0:23:10.440 --> 0:23:13.159 a bite mark on skin that maybe sagging or distorting 0:23:13.200 --> 0:23:17.359