Bad CSI

What's Wrong With Forensic Science - Sharon Begley - Newsweek.com: "...If this had been a TV show in which forensic science solves murders through bite marks, footprints, even sand grains (a match between the grit on a suspect's shoe and the beach where the victim was killed!), that would have been the end of it. In real life, the convicted man was innocent, as DNA analysis revealed (he was freed in 2008). It was no aberration. According to the Innocence Project, of the 252 DNA exonerations since 1989, half the convictions were based at least partly on 'unvalidated or improper forensic science.' The surprise is that the rate isn't higher: a 2009 report by the National Academy of Sciences found that, in contrast to DNA matching, 'for many other forensic disciplines—such as fingerprint and toolmark analysis—no studies have been conducted' to determine how many shoes, teeth, fibers, sand grains, or anything else 'share the same or similar features' and so might be linked to the wrong person. As a result, invalid forensic science 'may have' helped convict innocent people..."