Forensics Under Fire : Are Bad Science and Dueling Experts Corrupting Criminal Justice? / Jim Fisher.
2008
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Details
Title
Forensics Under Fire : Are Bad Science and Dueling Experts Corrupting Criminal Justice? / Jim Fisher.
Imprint
New Brunswick, NJ : Rutgers University Press, [2008]
Copyright
©2008
Description
1 online resource (344 p.)
Formatted Contents Note
Frontmatter
CONTENTS
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
PART ONE. Diagnosing Death: Problems in the Science and Practice of Forensic Pathology
Introduction
1. Forensic Pathologists from Hell: Bungled Autopsies, Bad Calls, and Blown Cases
2. A Question of Credibility: Bad Reputations and the Politics of Death
3. The Sudden Infant Death Debate: Dr. Roy Meadow, Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, and Meadow's Law
4. Infants Who Can't Breathe: Illness or Suffocation?
5. Swollen Brains and Broken Bones: Disease or Infanticide?
PART TWO. Crime-Scene Impression Identification: Forensic Science or Subjective Analysis?
6. Fingerprint Identification: Trouble in Paradise
7. Fingerprints Never Lie: Except in Scotland
8. Shoe-Print Identification and Foot Morphology: The Lay Witness and the Cinderella Analysis
9. Bite-Mark Identification: Do Teeth Leave Prints?
10. Ear-Mark Identification: Emerging Science or Bad Evidence?
PART THREE. Hired Guns, Smoke Blowers, and Phonies: The Expert Witness Problem
Introduction
11. Expert versus Expert: The Handwriting Wars in the Ramsey Case
12. John Mark Karr: DNA Trumps the Graphologists in the Ramsey Case
13. Hair and Fiber Identification: An Inexact Science
14. DNA Analysis: Backlogs, Sloppy Work, and Unqualified People
15. Bullet Identification, FBI Style: Overselling the Science
16. The Celebrity Expert: Dr. Henry Lee
Conclusion
Notes
Sources
Index
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CONTENTS
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
PART ONE. Diagnosing Death: Problems in the Science and Practice of Forensic Pathology
Introduction
1. Forensic Pathologists from Hell: Bungled Autopsies, Bad Calls, and Blown Cases
2. A Question of Credibility: Bad Reputations and the Politics of Death
3. The Sudden Infant Death Debate: Dr. Roy Meadow, Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, and Meadow's Law
4. Infants Who Can't Breathe: Illness or Suffocation?
5. Swollen Brains and Broken Bones: Disease or Infanticide?
PART TWO. Crime-Scene Impression Identification: Forensic Science or Subjective Analysis?
6. Fingerprint Identification: Trouble in Paradise
7. Fingerprints Never Lie: Except in Scotland
8. Shoe-Print Identification and Foot Morphology: The Lay Witness and the Cinderella Analysis
9. Bite-Mark Identification: Do Teeth Leave Prints?
10. Ear-Mark Identification: Emerging Science or Bad Evidence?
PART THREE. Hired Guns, Smoke Blowers, and Phonies: The Expert Witness Problem
Introduction
11. Expert versus Expert: The Handwriting Wars in the Ramsey Case
12. John Mark Karr: DNA Trumps the Graphologists in the Ramsey Case
13. Hair and Fiber Identification: An Inexact Science
14. DNA Analysis: Backlogs, Sloppy Work, and Unqualified People
15. Bullet Identification, FBI Style: Overselling the Science
16. The Celebrity Expert: Dr. Henry Lee
Conclusion
Notes
Sources
Index
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Summary
Television shows like CSI, Forensic Files, and The New Detectives make it look so easy. A crime-scene photographer snaps photographs, a fingerprint technician examines a gun, uniformed officers seal off a house while detectives gather hair and blood samples, placing them carefully into separate evidence containers. In a crime laboratory, a suspect's hands are meticulously examined for gunshot residue. An autopsy is performed in order to determine range and angle of the gunshot and time-of-death evidence. Dozens of tests and analyses are performed and cross-referenced. A conviction is made. Another crime is solved. The credits roll. The American public has become captivated by success stories like this one with their satisfyingly definitive conclusions, all made possible because of the wonders of forensic science. Unfortunately, however, popular television dramas do not represent the way most homicide cases in the United States are actually handled. Crime scenes are not always protected from contamination; physical evidence is often packaged improperly, lost, or left unaccounted for; forensic experts are not always consulted; and mistakes and omissions on the autopsy table frequently cut investigations short or send detectives down the wrong investigative path. In Forensics Under Fire, Jim Fisher makes a compelling case that these and other problems in the practice of forensic science allow offenders to escape justice and can also lead to the imprisonment of innocent people. Bringing together examples from a host of high-profile criminal cases and familiar figures, such as the JonBenet Ramsey case and Dr. Henry Lee who presented physical evidence in the O. J. Simpson trial, along with many lesser known but fascinating stories, Fisher presents daunting evidence that forensic science has a long way to go before it lives up to its potential and the public's expectations.
Language Note
In English.
System Details Note
Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
Source of Description
Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 21. Dez 2019)
Location
www
In
Title is part of eBook package: RUP Backlist eBook-Package 2000-2013 De Gruyter
Title is part of eBook package: RUP Backlist eBook-Package 2000-2015 De Gruyter
Title is part of eBook package: RUP Backlist eBook-Package 2000-2015 De Gruyter
Access Note
restricted access (http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec) online access with authorization
Linked Resources
Alternate Title
DeGruyter online
Language
English
ISBN
9780813544243
Record Appears in