Failed Evidence: Public Talk Today at the University of Houston Law Center

Today I’ll be giving a talk on Failed Evidence at the University of Houston Law Center, 4800 Calhoun Road, Houston, 77004, at noon in room BLB 240.  The talk is free and open to the public.  I’ll be discussing the book and my thoughts about how we can move toward a future in which the existing scientific work on eyewitness identification, interrogation of suspects, and basic (i.e., non-DNA) forensics will make for better, more accurate investigation and prosecution of crime.  I’ll be speaking to law students, faculty, members of the university community, attorneys, and interested members of the public.

Details on the event are here.

Houston is a particularly interesting place to have this discussion.  Over the past ten years, the crime lab in Houston has had repeated problems.  After all of this, the authorities decided to try something they had not done before: they are removing the crime lab from the jurisdiction of law enforcement and putting it under the control of an independent body, the Houston Forensic Science Local Government Corporation.  I wrote about this in an op-ed for the Houston Chronicle on Saturday, which you can see here.  This move puts Houston’s efforts to deal with forensic reform ahead of the  curve, and implements one of the main recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences 2009 report, Strengthening Forensic Science in the U.S.: A Path Forward.

 

 

 

Science Magazine’s Review of Failed Evidence

The current issue of Science magazine contains a review of Failed Evidence: Why Law Enforcement Resists Science (NYU Press, 2012).  Here is a brief excerpt from the review:

Although science has long been recognized as our most reliable pathway to truth, people are sometimes reluctant to accept scientific evidence, particularly when it challenges established practices or cherished beliefs. In Failed Evidence: Why Law Enforcement Resists Science, David A. Harris accuses police and prosecutors of unwarranted skepticism toward science and tries to explain their perspective. His provocative book will interest those concerned broadly with rejection of science as well as those interested in the U.S. criminal justice system.

Science is published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Oregon Supreme Court: On Eyewitness IDs, Law Enforcement Must Follow the Science

A decision by Oregon’s Supreme Court on eyewitness identification procedures has re-set the way that juries and courts in that state will think about eyewitness identification.

According to the New York Times editorial on the case, the ruling shifts the burden of proof to prosecutors to prove that eyewitness identifications are reliable before they can be admitted in court.  Before last week’s decision, the rule had been that identifications were generally admitted; it was up to the defense in individual cases to prove that an identification was not reliable.

But at least as important as the new rule itself was the reason that the Oregon court abandoned its old precedent:  the court had concluded that the old rule was based on assumptions about eyewitness testimony no longer supported by the science.  Thus the new case represents a textbook case of a court forcing law enforcement away from the failed evidence of discredited methods, and toward methods that accord with what science teaches us now.

Under the old rule, Oregon judges looked at five factors when evaluating an eyewitness identification: opportunity to view the alleged perpetrator, attention to identifying features, timing and completeness of description given after the event, certainty of description and identification by witness, and lapse of time between original observation and the subsequent identification.  Looking at these factors from the vantage point of the present day, the Oregon court found them “incomplete and, at times, inconsistent with modern scientific findings.”  Given the science on eyewitness identification that is by now well established, the court prescribed a new approach, including the change in the burden of proof.

That’s what the Oregon Supreme Court did, but here is why they did it:

…[W]e believe that it is imperative that law enforcement, the bench, and the bar be informed of the existence of current scientific research and literature regarding the reliability of eyewitness identification because, as an evidentiary matter, the reliability of eyewitness identification is central to a criminal justice system dedicated to the dual principles of accountability and fairness.

It’s hard to imagine a better summing up of the ideas behind Failed Evidence, and why the fight to overcome law enforcement’s general resistance to science is so important.

Failed Evidence Is Featured on Jurist

This week, Jurist, a national and international legal reporting website, is featuring my commentary on Failed Evidence.   Here’s a quick sample:

[The] image of a deep alliance between police work and modern science is misleading at best. With the exception of DNA work and certain kinds of classic chemical analysis, law enforcement generally does not embrace existing scientific work. In fact, police and prosecutors in the US resist science. The scientific work I am referring to involves the testing of the more traditional techniques of law enforcement investigation and prosecution: not the high-tech sheen of the DNA lab, but scientific testing of eyewitness identification, the interrogation of suspects and the more traditional forensic methods such as fingerprint identification. This is the daily bread and butter of law enforcement, and scientists have found it wanting. The science on these basic police investigation methods has existed for years — some of it for decades. It is rigorous, and has undergone peer review, publication and replication. It tells us what the problems with traditional police work are, and also gives us some straightforward ways of solving these problems. Yet, most — not all, to be sure, but most — of American law enforcement continues to resist this science and refuses to change its basic tactics to reflect the best of what science has to offer.

Jurist mixes straight reporting and commentary from the U.S. and around the world; it’s a great source for anyone interested in issues of justice and how it plays out in domestic and international situations around the world.  (Full disclosure: Jurist is supported by my own institution, the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, and has been guided and run since the beginning by my esteemed colleague, Professor Bernard Hibbitts.)  Check it out.

Law Enforcement Embracing Science in the Jane Doe Case: Why?

Yesterday, I wrote about the November 13 article in the New York Times that described how police had turned to sophisticated science involving isotope analysis to determine the geographic origin of corpses.  The article focused on the case of a Jane Doe in a 41-year-old murder case in Florida.  The science is fascinating; it allows the authorities to pinpoint where the victim came from with startling precision.  The Jane Doe in Florida, who had been thought to be a white or Native American woman from North America, grew up in Greece and had probably been in the U.S. for less than a year.

Why, I asked, had law enforcement so heartily embraced the science that could do this work,  even as most of law enforcement continues to ignore or resist more basic science on traditional methods of investigation, like eyewitness identification, interrogation of suspects, and old-school forensics?  Here are a few possible reasons:

1) In the Jane Doe case and the others discussed, there was no real alternative.  The cases were old, and most ways of investigating that could be tried had been tried, with no results.

2) The colder a serious case gets,the more likely that police will be open to trying new or untested approaches.

3) The type of science used — hard science, chemical analysis, very traditional sorts of science work — is appealing, in a way that the sorter science challenging eyewitness identification, for instance, is not.

4) The science described in the article does not challenge what police already do and believe in.  Therefore, it does not disrupt the status quo or challenge existing ideas about police expertise, while science about eyewitness identification, interrogation and traditional forensics challenges those things very directly.

My gut is that answers 1) and 4) probably do the most to explain what we see here.  What do you think?

An Embrace of Science by Law Enforcement

The main point of my book Failed Evidence is to explain the real reasons that law enforcement resists science, and with that understanding to enable us to break through that resistance in order tohave better police work that reflects the best scientific  knowledge that we have.

So what a relief to find an example of law enforcement embracing science in a big way.

In the November 13 New York Times, “Jane Doe Gets a Back Story” tells how police have been aided by science in some very cold cases.  They have turned to isotope analysis to pinpoint the geographic origin of some unidentified human remains, and scientists have been able to do this with almost uncanny precision.  In other words, the scientists have not been able to identify the corpses, but they have pinned down where they came from, which might then lead to an identification.  The case featured in the article involved the frozen body of a woman found floating in a lake under a highway overpass northeast of Tampa, Florida, forty-one years ago.  The best guess was that the woman was white or Native American, and 17 to 24 years old.  Police got nowhere with this scant information.

Fast forward to this year, when scientists used shavings of tooth enamel and bones to come up with some “startling” findings:

The best evidence suggested that she grew up in Greece and came to the United States less than a year before she was killed. (Tarpon Springs, north of Tampa, has a large Greek-American population.) The research, according to Detective [Darren] “turned the case upside down.” Based on the findings, he provided information for an article that was published Oct. 11 in The National Herald, an international Greek-language newspaper. It was accompanied by the new reconstructed image of the victim and her clothing.

The case is still not closed. The woman’s identity has not been determined, and Detective Norris acknowledges that it is still a long shot. But he is confident that he is on the right track. “The best lead that has ever come in this case came because of the science,” he said…

What’s fascinating to me is the strong embrace of this scientific work by the police.  Because as readers of Failed Evidence know, that is not a given.  So what accounts for that embrace, while science on far more basic and common law enforcement methods like eyewitness testimony, interrogation of suspects, and basic forensics gets rejected?

Eyewitness identification and Other Failed Evidence Issues on Minnesota Public Radio

In connection with my talk today, Nov. 8, on Failed Evidence at the University of Minnesota Law School, I’ve been interviewed by Minnesota Public Radio.  The interview is posted today as part of The Daily Circuit program. You can get to it here.

Where is Minnesota on Failed Evidence? Part 2 — Today’s Star Tribune

In connection with my talk on Failed Evidence at U. Minnesota Law School Thursday, Nov. 8, take a look at my Commentary piece in today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune, “In Some Areas, Law Enforcement Still Resists Science.”  Here’s a sample:

Everywhere you look, law enforcement and science seem to have formed a partnership. Look at the headlines on any given day, and there’s something like “DNA convicts killer in 1992 cold case.” Turn on the television, and there are the police in “CSI” and its innumerable clones solving cases with high-tech gadgets and test tubes and computers. The message is clear: The bad guys don’t stand a chance against the police officer and the scientists working together.

There is some truth to this: DNA has become an identification tool of unequaled power. But look beyond DNA, and you’ll see something different: When the science concerns eyewitness identification, suspect interrogations, or more traditional, non-DNA forensic testing, law enforcement doesn’t embrace science. Most police agencies and prosecutor’s offices in the United States actively resist the scientific findings on these common types of police investigation.

Failed Evidence: Chapter 1 Posted by Utne Reader

For those who would like a chance to read a bit of Failed Evidence: Why Law Enforcement Resists Science, the Utne Reader has posted an online version of the first chapter of the book.  You can get to it by clicking here.

“Failed Evidence” Discussed in D.C. (Wed., Oct. 3) and Baltimore (Thur., Oct. 4)

Failed Evidence: Why Law Enforcement Resists Science will be the subject of two public forums this week, one in Washington, D.C., and the other in Baltimore.  Both events are free and open to the public.

On Wednesday, October 3, I’ll discuss the book at noon at American University’s Washington College of Law, 4801 Massachusetts Avenue N.W. (6th floor).  My talk will be followed by a panel discussion featuring former Assistant U.S. Attorney Dan Zachem and Professor Paul Butler of Georgetown University.  Full details are here.

On Thursday, October 4, I’ll lead a discussion of the book at 5:30 p.m. at the University of Baltimore School of Law, 1401 Charles Street.  The panel to follow will include Gregg Bernstein, the elected State’s Attorney for Baltimore.  Full details are here.