Washington Post on Junk Science and What Obama and Congress Are Trying to Do About it

Full story here.  Excerpt:

In Hollywood, the moment the good guys trace a hair, a bullet fragment or a fingerprint, it’s game over. The bad guy is locked up.

But the glamorized portrait is not so simple in real life.

Far from infallible, expert comparisons of hair, handwriting, marks made by firearms on bullets, and patterns such as bite marks and shoe and tire prints are in some ways unscientific and subject to human bias, a National Academy of Sciences panel chartered by Congress found. Other techniques, such as in bullet-lead analysis and arson investigation, survived for decades despite poorly regulated practices and a lack of scientific method.

Even fingerprint identification is partly a subjective exercise that lacks research into the role of unconscious bias or even its error rate, the panel’s 328-page report said.

“The forensic science system, encompassing both research and practice, has serious problems that can only be addressed by a national commitment to overhaul the current structure,” the panel concluded in 2009.

Now, Congress and the Obama administration are trying to regulate forensic science to help establish standards. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and Commerce, Science and Transportation CommitteeChairman John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) are weighing legislation that could subject techniques to greater scientific scrutiny and help establish their ranges of accuracy.

A Leahy bill would create a new office of forensic science in the Justice Department. Rockefeller is preparing legislation to expand the role of the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Standards and Technology in setting scientific standards and research goals.

The Obama administration is also looking to “strengthen the linkage between cutting-edge science . . . and the forensic tests used by law enforcement,” said Rick Weiss, spokesman for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Police and law enforcement agencies have rebuffed recommendations to remove crime labs from their control.

Full story here.