June 29, 2017
Science organizations renew call for independent U.S. committee on forensics
Washington Post
The commission was created after critical reports from the National Academy of Sciences about a dearth of standards and funding for crime labs, examiners and researchers, problems it traced partly to law enforcement control over the system.June 7, 2017
Jeff Sessions’ Rejection of Science Leaves Local Prosecutors in the Dark
Slate
An independent commission established by Barack Obama in 2013, the NCFS was meant to bring together scientists, judges, crime lab experts, prosecutors, and defense attorneys to analyze and improve the field of forensic science, which encompasses the many ways science is deployed in criminal justice. The group was established partially in response to a scathing report from the National Academy of Sciences that highlighted the lack of standards for crime labs nationwide and was attempting to review and improve this and other forensic science shortcomings.May 8, 2017
We Must Strengthen the "Science" in Forensic Science
Scientific American (Blog)
In 2009, the National Academy of Sciences evaluated the state of forensic science and, shockingly, concluded that many of the techniques used in court actually have no scientific validity.April 26, 2017
Judge denies motion to toss out gun evidence in murder trial
Columbia Daily Tribune
In the motion, Wallis cited a 2009 National Academy of Sciences report that criticizes many forensic methods that law enforcement uses to examine evidence. Wallis wrote that the report concluded that “forensic individualization has not been proven” and the only reliable form of forensic analysis is DNA comparisons.April 26, 2017
Richland’s Watts Makes the Case for Elected Coroners
Columbia Free Times
Some don’t agree with Watts’ assessment. The National Academy of Sciences gave the complete inverse of Watts’ view in a 2009 report, coming out against coroner elections and supporting appointed medical examiners. April 25, 2017
Science takes a back seat in Trump’s first 100 days
McClatchy News
This month, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced he was eliminating the National Commission on Forensic Science, an advisory panel of scientists, judges, crime lab leaders, prosecutors and defense lawyers. The panel was formed after a 2009 National Academy of Sciences report found serious flaws in how forensic evidence was being used in criminal cases.April 24, 2017
Jeff Sessions Wants Courts to Rely Less on Science and More on "Science"
Mother Jones
In 2009, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) issued a landmark study that shook the field of forensics. Only nuclear DNA analysis, the report found, could "consistently, and with a high degree of certainty," link an individual to a crime.April 21, 2017
21,000 Reasons Scalia Was Right
Bloomberg View
Despite the perfection with which TV technicians match bullets to particular guns, a landmark 2009 study of criminal forensics by the National Academy of Sciences found that ballistics tests had little demonstrated scientific accuracy -- or, in the polite language of the report, “the validity of the fundamental assumptions of uniqueness and reproducibility of firearms-related toolmarks has not yet been fully demonstrated.” April 20, 2017
Sessions's Assault on Forensic Science Will Lead to More Unsafe Convictions
Newsweek (Opinion)
The NCFS was itself a response to a separate report—released in 2009—by the National Academy of Sciences which concluded that “no forensic method has been rigorously shown to have the capacity to consistently, and with a high degree of certainty, demonstrate a connection between evidence and a specific individual or source.”April 18, 2017
Is Crime Forensics Flawed?
Big Think
Even so, it hasn’t even been established that everyone’s fingerprints are unique, according to the National Academies of Sciences. Because of this, no reliable experts will testify that fingerprint evidence has an error rate of zero. April 15, 2017
AG Sessions: Forensic Science Panel That Helps Keep Innocent People Out of Prison Is Unnecessary
Atlanta Black Star
In addition, in 2009, the National Academy of Sciences reported that the forensic science system is unreliable and has ”serious problems” requiring a national commitment to overhauling it.April 14, 2017
Q&A: The U.S. Department of Justice scrapped independent forensics panel, but the scientific questions ‘are not going away’
Science Magazine
For most of his career, the microbiologist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, paid the discipline little attention, but he did notice the field-shaking 2009 report from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), which found that many forensic techniques, from fingerprint comparisons to bloodstain pattern analysis, lacked a firm scientific footing.April 14, 2017
One year after release, Keith Harward travels country to point out failures of forensic science, help the wrongly convicted
Richmond Times-Dispatch
He also will continue to campaign against bite-mark evidence, which is what brought him to Washington this week for the National Commission on Forensic Science, created in 2013 after a 2009 National Academy of Sciences report that raised questions about the validity of bike-mark comparison and other pattern evidence, such as tool marks.April 14, 2017
Critics worry 'junk science' to reign as forensic panel ends
Associated Press
The creation of the commission stemmed from a series of crime lab failures and a 2009 report by the National Academy of Sciences revealing forensic evidence like bite marks and hair samples that often helped convict defendants was based on shoddy science. It called for far-ranging improvements. A wave of exonerations followed and ultimately the formation of the commission.April 13, 2017
Crime-Solving Isn't a Science (But It Could Be)
Bloomberg
A more insidious problem came to light following an investigation led by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) back in 2009, and later a White-House-commissioned report headed by some of the country’s most respected scientists.April 13, 2017
Jeff Sessions Is Keeping Junk Science in America's Courts
Rolling Stone
Sessions also rejected the findings of a 2009 report of the National Academy of Sciences that Congress had commissioned in light of DNA exonerations showing hundreds of people had been wrongly convicted in cases involving inaccurate forensic testimony; Sessions said he worried that examining validity of evidence used in courts would "leave prosecutors having to fend off challenges on the most basic issues in a trial."April 13, 2017
Most criminal forensic science isn’t real science. Jeff Sessions just shut down efforts to change that
Washington Post (Blog)
Your book, however argues that the “bottom line” is that “most of forensic science lacks a basis in science,” a finding that has a National Academy of Sciences report to back it up. April 13, 2017
Do judges contribute to injustices? A conversation with Judge Jed Rakoff
ABA Journal
For example, a great deal of forensic science has now come under scrutiny from the scientific community. In 2009, the National Academy of Sciences published a report that was highly critical of most forensic science other than DNA. And this included things well-regarded by many people—fingerprinting, hair analysis, bite-mark analysis, arson analysis and so forth.April 11, 2017
Another Reprieve for Expert Testimony That Is Anything But
New York Times
Those nonscientific qualities had been surveyed by the National Academy of Sciences in a 2009 report, and in another study issued in September by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. April 11, 2017Sessions Is Wrong to Take Science Out of Forensic Science
New York Times (Op-Ed)
A blue-ribbon panel of the National Academy of Sciences raised the same concern in a 2009 report that found nearly every familiar staple of forensic science scientifically unsound. Prompted in part by that report, the Justice Department initiated a review of thousands of cases involving microscopic matching of hair samples. In 2015, the F.B.I. announced its shocking initial findings: In 96 percent of cases, analysts gave erroneous testimony.April 11, 2017
Broadcast Transcript
WNYC-FM (Radio) - New York, NY
The Obama administration created the panel about four years ago after the National Academy of Sciences uncovered faulty techniques and resource problems. Scholars point out that many crime labs operate under the direct or indirect control of prosecutors and police, raising questions about their independence.April 10, 2017
Sessions orders Justice Dept. to end forensic science commission, suspend review policy
Washington Post
The commission was created after critical reports by the National Academy of Sciences about a dearth of standards and funding for crime labs, examiners and researchers, problems it partly traced to law enforcement control over the system.April 10, 2017
Trump’s Justice Department won’t use outside experts to improve forensics
Quartz
In 2009 the National Academy of Sciences said forensic science needed a complete overhaul, questioning the reliability of widely used types of evidence such as bite marks, hair analysis, and fingerprints. April 10, 2017
Salk professor criticizes disbanding of federal forensics committee that included scientists
The San Diego Union-Tribune
In 2014, Albright co-led a report from the National Research Council that outlined precautions to avoid biasing the testimony of eyewitnesses. For example, during interviews of eyewitnesses, neither the witness nor the questioner should know the suspect’s identity. This “double blind” method is considered the gold standard in biomedical research.April 4, 2017
Label the limits of forensic science
Nature
But, generally, problems persist. In 2009, the National Academy of Sciences documented reams of faulty forensic practices.March 30, 2017Playing it safe: Proactive steps from DA on forensic evidence
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Editorial)
Science doesn’t lie. That’s why forensic evidence has become a staple of criminal cases. However, in a 2009 report, the National Academy of Sciences warned about the danger of flawed testing procedures and analysts’ improprieties — scenarios that rob science of its vaunted impartiality and lead to wrongful convictions. March 24, 2017
Washington Post
The review of the D.C. lab results comes months after a White House scientific advisory panel renewed scientists’ challenge to whether firearms testing and other forensic techniques should be admitted as scientific evidence, reinforcing criticism by the National Research Council that matched bullets, hair or tire treads to a single source are overstated.March 16, 2017
Washington Post (Op-Ed)
So far, the discipline has been found to be scientifically unreliable by the National Academy of Sciences, the Texas Forensic Science Commission, and the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.March 14, 2017
Louisville Courier-Journal
While some mid-sized police departments are hiring firearms examiners and many larger departments have their own crime labs, a 2009 report by the National Academy of Sciences called for crime labs to be independent of law enforcement and offer more training to reduce bias and the risks for misinterpretation of evidence.February 29, 2017
Buffalo News (Opinion)
The National Academy of Sciences study was “not able to find a body of evidence indicating whether fingerprinting added to safety one way or another,” and the state of Maryland recently came to the same conclusion.January 30, 2017
Washington Post
Bite mark evidence has been strongly criticized by several scientific bodies, including the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and, most recently, by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST).January 10, 2017
The Washington Post (Opinion)
Over the past several years, several scientific bodies have released reports that have been highly critical of the way forensic science is used in U.S. courts, including the National Academy of Sciences and the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.January 5, 2017
The Washington Post
The reports from PCAST, NIST and the National Academy of Sciences all gave us a clearer, well-documented view of the crisis in forensics.January 4, 2017
The Washington Post (Opinion)
The aim of the PCAST report, as well as the 2009 National Academy of Sciences report and the National Institute of Standards and Technology working groups, was to bring science to forensics — or rather to see if there’s any science behind the claims of forensic analysts. December 28, 2016
Springfield News-Leader
Hatley said cases all over the country that link bullets to guns are being re-examined after a 2009 report from the National Academy of Sciences "completely lambasted" the practice.December 3, 2016
Altoona Mirror
The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology has become the latest organization to identify bite mark evidence as profoundly unreliable, joining the National Academy of Sciences, the Texas Forensic Science Commission and other academic researchers and scientists, Delger said.December 2, 2016
The Austin Chronicle
He referenced the 2009 National Academy of Sciences report, "Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward," which recommends crime labs operate as independent entities.October 12, 2016
Slate
In 2009, the National Research Council published a report stating that “much forensic evidence—including, for example bite marks and firearm and tool mark identifications—is introduced in criminal trials without any meaningful scientific validation, determination of error rates, or reliability testing to explain the limits of the discipline.”October 11, 2016
The News & Observer
He explained how a 2009 report by the National Academy of Sciences, titled “Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward,” shaped his 2010 SBI coverage with Locke.September 28, 2016
The Hill (Blog)
The failure to implement critical forensic science evidence reforms (recommended by the country’s top experts) dates back at least to 2009, when the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) issued its groundbreaking report called, “Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward.”September 20, 2016
The Washington Post
University of Virginia law professor Brandon L. Garrett, who has written a book on flawed forensics and wrongful convictions, titled, “Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong,” argues that the council’s report is well-founded and supports a 2009 National Academy of Sciences report that much of forensic evidence used in criminal trials is “without any meaningful scientific validation.”September 20, 2016
The Washington Post
The White House report adds to a critical 2009 report by a congressionally charted National Academy of Sciences panel that traced weak standards for crime labs, examiners, testimony and research in part to crime labs being under the control of law enforcement.September 16, 2016
Attn:
Forensic dentists have pushed back against critiques of their research and practices over the years, including a damning 2009 report published by the National Academy of Sciences, The Intercept reported. September 9, 2016
Press Mentor (Opinion)
President Barack Obama formed PCAST in 2009 following the National Academy of Sciences report that concluded, aside from DNA, there was little, if any, meaningful scientific underpinning to many of the forensic disciplines.September 8, 2016
The Christian Science Monitor
But not all crime scenes have clear DNA markers, so in 2009 the US National Research Council issued a call for new research and reforms to repair deficiencies in forensic science methods.September 7, 2016
The Washington Post (Opinion)
Seven years ago, the National Academy of Sciences came out with a similar report, though it was somewhat more diplomatic than PCAST’s. September 7,2016
The Intercept
Although the practice of presidents naming scientific advisers dates back to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration, the timing of the creation of Obama’s council was particularly notable, coming just roughly two months after the release of a groundbreaking report from the National Academy of Sciences National Research Council, which cast a long shadow over a host of pattern-matching forensic disciplines that have been used for decades in criminal cases. September 1, 2016
The Wall Street Journal
One report done by the National Research Council and released in 2009 said “much forensic evidence—including, for example bite marks and firearm and tool mark identifications—is introduced in criminal trials without any meaningful scientific validation, determination of error rates, or reliability testing to explain the limits of the discipline.”August 18, 2016
McClatchy Washington Bureau
Indeed, according to a 2009 report released by the National Academy of Sciences, researchers have found that DNA is the only type of evidence that can consistently and confidently connect specific individuals to crimes or prove innocence.August 3, 2016
Gizmodo
Forensic laboratories have conducted many experiments over the years to help law enforcement and lab technicians make better interpretations of that data, but there’s still a degree of subjectivity that comes into play—a key finding of a 2009 report on forensic sciences by the National Academy of Sciences.July 2016
Imperial Valley News (Opinion)
In 2009, a report by the National Academy of Sciences questioned, among other things, the lack of objective methods for evaluating and identifying tool marks. July 1, 2016
Democrat & Chronicle
The committed current Monroe County chief medical examiner Dr. Nadia Granger clearly wants to address the issue but it also needs the support of the medical schools to steer more medical students into the profession that as recently as 2009 was described by the National Academy of Sciences as “fragmented”, “deficient” and “hodgepodge”.July 2016
National Geographic Magazine
It’s been seven years since the National Academy of Sciences report called for a complete overhaul of forensic science. . . . June 3, 2016
The Washington Post
A National Academy of Sciences panel in 2009 reported that although examiners had long claimed to be able to match pattern evidence to a source with “absolute” or “scientific certainty,” only DNA analysis had been validated through statistical research.May 11, 2016
New York Times (blog)
Bite-mark matching was discredited by the National Academy of Sciences.May 11, 2016
Huffington Post
The well-known 2009 National Academy of Sciences report was scathing in its criticism of bite mark matching, and found no scientific evidence that evidence from a bite mark could identify a particular individual to the exclusion of all others.May 5, 2016
Associated Press
Pretty referenced a 2009 report by the National Academy of Sciences, which found that bite marks could not be used to reliably identify an individual.April 8, 2016
The New York Times
In 2009, the National Academy of Sciences said bite-mark analysis and other forensic tools, including comparisons of writing samples, tool marks, tire tracks, footprints and hair specimens, had never been validated.April 5, 2016
Richmond Times-Dispatch
In 2009, a National Academy of Sciences committee found that there has not been adequate research on the accuracy of bite-mark comparisons and that, while such comparisons might be useful in excluding suspects, “the committee received no evidence of an existing scientific basis for identifying an individual to the exclusion of all others.”March 25, 2016
The Intercept
The National Commission on Forensic Science itself was the product of a landmark report released by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in 2009, which urged the U.S. government to establish an “independent federal entity” to address deep and widespread problems with the state of forensics. March 21, 2016
Washington Post
Yates’s proposal is among the broadest responses to a National Academy of Sciences panel report in February 2009 that questioned subjective comparisons of evidence by experts. The Genetic Panopticon
Boston Review
The exciting news is that, to some extent, this is now happening, and not just in Houston. Many observers, including the National Academy of Sciences in a prominent 2009 report, have called for a “research culture” in forensics.
March 7, 2016
Forensics gone wrong: When DNA snares the innocent
Science
A landmark report published by the National Research Council in 2009 dismissed most forensics as unproven folk-wisdom but singled out DNA as the one forensic science worthy of the name.
February 20, 2016
Justice Scalia's unexamined death points to a problem
CNN (Opinion)
Back in 2009, the National Academy of Sciences reported that the practice of allowing lay coroners and justices of the peace to sign death certificates, and the lack of certification and training of death investigative personnel, puts our legal system at risk.
Should We Trust Forensic Science?
Boston Review
In 2009, the National Academy of Sciences produced a report criticizing the state of forensic science.