Evidence Is Not Always Evident

 

Thumbster, our stalwart mascot, is getting a little nervous. First, CBS Sunday Morning has a story on "Weighing Fingerprints as Forensic Evidence," in which that most basic of crime scene evidence, first used in an American court to convict a killer in 1911, has been coming under fire lately, with some legal experts trying to get it barred from the courts. Last fall, in a decision that shocked lawyers across the country and which could jeopardize thousands of criminal investigations nationwide, a Maryland judge threw out the fingerprint evidence tying the defendant to murder, calling it "a subjective, untested, unverifiable identification procedure." The precedent for that decision may have been the notorious Brandon Mayfield case in which he was wrongfully charged with participation in the Madrid terrorist bombings based on the misidentification of a partial, distorted print.

As if that wasn't enough, DNA isn't exactly on firm ground, either. The LA Times published an article, "DNA Matches Aren't Always a Lock," which posited the idea that "prosecutors and crime labs across the country routinely use numbers that exaggerate the significance of DNA matches in 'cold hit' cases, in which a suspect is identified through a database search." Jurors are often told that the odds of a coincidental match are vastly more remote than they actually are, which led two national scientific committees (including the FBI's DNA advisory board) to recommend portraying the odds more conservatively. However, few DNA analysts have adopted that approach, leading some experts to fear the technology best known for freeing the innocent could be causing its own miscarriages of justice.

Want more tidbits about the miscarriage of justice? Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins said he's considering a campaign to mandate disbarment of any prosecutor who doesn't reveal evidence that could help a defendant. Since 2001, Texas has paid compensation in 45 wrongful conviction cases, at least 22 of which involved prosecutors withholding evidence from the defense. The Innocence Project is going to push for a new law in Texas calling not just for disbarment, but criminal charges for prosecutors who intentionally withhold evidence.

It's enough to give Thumbster a swirl-ache.