Criminals Learn Forensic Science
Criminals are adapting to advances in forensic science:
There is an increasing trend for criminals to use plastic gloves during break-ins and condoms during rapes to avoid leaving their DNA at the scene. Dostie describes a murder case in which the assailant tried to wash away his DNA using shampoo. Police in Manchester in the UK say that car thieves there have started to dump cigarette butts from bins in stolen cars before they abandon them. “Suddenly the police have 20 potential people in the car,” says Rutty.
The article also talks about forensic-science television shows changing the expectations of jurors.
“Jurors who watch CSI believe that those scenarios, where forensic scientists are always right, are what really happens,” says Peter Bull, a forensic sedimentologist at the University of Oxford. It means that in court, juries are not impressed with evidence presented in cautious scientific terms.
Detective sergeant Paul Dostie, of Mammoth Lakes Police Department, California, found the same thing when he conducted a straw poll of forensic investigators and prosecutors. “They all agree that jurors expect more because of CSI shows,” he says. And the “CSI effect” goes beyond juries, says Jim Fraser, director of the Centre for Forensic Science at the University of Strathclyde, UK. “Oversimplification of interpretations on CSI has led to false expectations, especially about the speed of delivery of forensic evidence,” he says.
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Unixronin • September 9, 2005 7:44 AM
I believe the Law of Unintended Consequences applies in spades. Portray forensic investigators on TV as detective geniuses of the caliber of Sherlock Holmes, and it was only a matter of time before the uneducated, easily-influenced TV-watching masses that lawyers prefer as jurors started throwing out cases because the forensic investigators weren’t Sherlock Holmes.
I suspect this would be much less of a problem if lawyers weren’t so eager to dismiss every potential juror whom they think might be capable of objectively examining the evidence and making up their own mind. Several friends of mine who have been repeatedly called for jury duty, but rarely actually served on a jury, tell me that if you want to avoid being selected for any given case, just admit to having an engineering degree; the defense and prosecution attorneys will practically fall over themselves to drop you from the jury pool.