Edward Humes, no
Los Angeles Times, publicou um interessante artigo sobre os erros das ciências
forenses com sérias consequências para os cidadãos investigados.
A gravidade da
situação levou o Presidente Obama a criar uma comissão para estudar soluções
que pudessem evitar tais erros, comissão entretanto dissolvida na Presidência
de Trump.
“Welcome to the real world of
forensics, where the wizardry lionized by the “CSI” television empire turns out
to have serious flaws. The science of bite-mark comparisons, ballistic
comparisons, fingerprint matching, blood-spatter analysis, arson investigation
and other common forensic techniques has been tainted by systematic error,
cognitive bias (sometimes called “tunnel vision”) and little or no research or
data to support it. There is, in short, very little science behind some of the
forensic “sciences” used in court to imprison and sometimes execute people.
The rigorously researched
and peer-reviewed newcomer to forensics, DNA matching, has thrown into sharp
relief the lack of scientific rigor in many other forensic disciplines.
According to data gathered by the National Registry of Exonerations, of the 2,363
inmates exonerated of murder or other serious felonies since 1989 (most
commonly through DNA), 553 were convicted with flawed or misleading forensic
evidence—nearly one out of four.”
