Prelude to the NAS Report: Let’s Get Some Things Straight

Starting on June 15 I’m going to go through each of the recommendations of the report “Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward”, but I wanted to make sure we are all on the same page first.

I am a forensic scientist.  I love forensic science and my chosen field, firearms examination.  If you have read my “About” page you know that I do a few other things, too, but what I really enjoy doing is firearms examination and crime scene reconstruction.  And I’m good at it.  I’m telling you this because I want you to understand that I don’t intend to do any harm to the field of forensic science.  But you do need to understand that there are about to be some big changes in forensic science whether you like it or not and you need to get ready for them.  You can hear it from me or you can hear it from someone who believes that forensic science is “junk science.”

The NAS Committee

The NAS Committee which issued the report was not on a witch hunt and, I believe did an admirable job in gaining as much of an understanding as they could into the world of forensic science in the relatively short time they had.  I have heard others fault the Committee for not endeavoring to learn the intricacies of every field of forensic science, which I think is a bit much to ask.

The report is remarkably honest, even in admitting that it did not try to understand every detail of every field of forensic science, and it gives the field of forensic science and its practitioners the benefit of the doubt at every turn when it could have been much more harsh.  The Committee repeatedly refers to forensic scientists as hard-working and well-meaning where it could have called them deeply flawed and malicious or incompetent in light of those forensic scientists who have unapologetically sent innocent people to prison like Fred Zain, Joyce Gilchrist, certain members of the Houston crime lab in years past, James Ribe, and others whose high-profile bad work reflects so negatively upon the rest of us and who are the reason that this Committee was called for by Congress in the first place.

There are some parts of the report that perhaps miss the mark, and I’ll discuss those, but the intent of the report is clear.  The Committee clearly wanted to make recommendations that would have a positive impact on the field of forensic science for the sake of forensic science, for the sake of forensic scientists, and, most importantly, for the sake of the American public whose lives and liberties are impacted by our work in a very fundamental way every day.

The “Draft Legislation”

There is a document floating around that is being called Draft Legislation from Senator Patrick Leahy’s office.  This document did come from Senator Leahy’s office, but I think that if you have read the NAS report and if you watch the webcasts of the Senate Judiciary hearings on the topic, which Senator Leahy chairs, I think you would agree that the staffer who prepared this document may have misinterpreted Judiciary Committee’s sentiment on the subject.  I will stress that Senator Leahy did not prepare this draft legislation himself and it is unlikely that he is aware of what is in it.

This draft legislation completely ignores the recommendations of the NAS Committee and the anger that I assure you is felt by the Senate Judiciary Committee toward the failings of the field of forensic science.  If you don’t have two and a half hours to sit through the webcast of the September 2009 Judiciary Committee hearing on the topic, here are some highlights:

• The hearing opens with Senator Leahy expressing his dismay that, since the last hearing on the report in March 2009, there has been more bad news from the world of forensic science, including an article in The New Yorker that “in 2004 the unthinkable may have happened: An innocent man may have been executed for a crime he did not commit, based in large part on forensic testimony and evidence.” He is talking about Cameron Todd Willingham.
• Senator Al Franken calls the NAS report a “damning conclusion” for most of forensic science except DNA analysis. Senator Franken then goes on to call for a moratorium on the death penalty in light of the same New Yorker article cited by Senator Leahy.
• Dr. Eric Buel and Paul Gianelli, both forensic scientists (although Gianelli is an also an attorney who specializes in scientific evidence), do not back away from the recommendations of the NAS report at all. Dr. Buel encourages cooperation with members of the forensic science community in implementing change and gives a particularly well thought-out response to the report.  Gianelli is especially interested in the creation of NIFS. Dr. Buel’s testimony begins at about the 42:08 minute mark.  Gianelli’s testimony begins at the 62:25 minute mark.

This draft legislation reads like a pipe dream for forensic scientists who want this to all go away. It proposes to create a commission of Presidential appointees who will then turn over the decision making to all the professional societies whose current position statements are “We know what we’re doing. Go away.” So we’re going to have a revolving door of political appointees every 4 or 8 years? For forensic science? That should help stabilize things.

Ask yourself this question: How likely is it that the Senate would spend several years, many millions of dollars, several committee hearings, thousands of hours of time of hundreds of very, very important people, and many levels of outrage to find out the dirty little secrets of the world of forensic science only to cave to the angry letters of a few professional societies who are the target of their investigations? This is The United States Senate. They are not afraid of you.

And while dropping the ball is also what they do on occasion, this draft legislation is either the most tepid first response of a very powerful man to a very big problem that a staffer could muster or it is something that the same staffer thought the forensic community might like to hear because the forensic community is not as savvy as television and the movies would have you believe.

So, we all need to step away from the warm, fuzzy draft legislation and prepare for the cold, hard NAS report. My basic message is this: if we start working toward the recommendations, which is entirely possible, we won’t get shut out of the process. That’s what we’ll start talking about next week.

See all NAS posts.