The NAS Report: The Dreaded “CSI Effect”

Lately I’ve been talking a lot about legislation which means I’ve also been spending some time wandering the halls of Congress and listening to and reading transcripts of Senate and House Judiciary Committee hearings. I’ve done this before with other legislation so I knew that there would be a catch phrase or two that would be hammered upon mercilessly to make sure that everyone knows how wonderful or horrible anyone speaking on the topic thinks this particular subject is for America. For the National Academy of Sciences Report (NAS) from the National Research Council titled “Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward” that catch phrase is “CSI Effect.”

Anyone who works in forensic science has an idea of what the “CSI Effect” is: the general public thinks that all forensic scientists work in state-of-the-art labs with the newest equipment and unlimited resources. Thanks to television and movies, many people think that any forensic scientist can look at a bullet from a distance of 10 feet, in the dark, and tell you not only the make, model, and caliber of the firearm the bullet came from but also what kind of daddy issues the suspect has who fired the gun.

In Congress and in the NAS report the “CSI Effect” has a much more dangerous connotation. They point out, and correctly so, that the “CSI Effect” also means that the general public and, most importantly, juries think that forensic science is infallible. This should not be comforting to forensic scientists. This should make you understand why it is important to make sure that your science is up to the highest standards. The reports we write and the testimony we give put people in prison and on death row. By the end of this month I will probably have helped put one more person on death row. The gravity of that does not leave my mind for one moment and it should not for any other forensic scientist.

“Forensic science” sounds slick and sexy and intriguing. In reality, forensic science is (or should be) math and hard science applied to evidence, sprinkled with some police procedure for the sake of knowing where everything is at and where it’s been. That’s the only way it’s legitimate. The laboratory walls are not made out of clear plexiglass and the lights are almost always on. But Luminol is real.

Forensic science and forensic scientists are under attack right now and it’s not going away. Attorneys and their lobbyists know how to work this system. Forensic scientists and their professional societies typically do not. We need to start having these conversations now, not when the legislation has already been drafted and is about to be passed.  There are a couple of possibilities of what’s going to happen as a result of the NAS report.  There’s the Draft Legislation that’s floating around from Senator Leahy’s office which I would call very, very, very preliminary.  There’s also the National Criminal Justice Commission Act (S. 306) that seeks to overhaul the entire criminal justice system and will allow the commission created by that legislation to consider the work of “Prior Commissions.”  Everybody needs to start paying attention and getting their ideas together about what they want to see from this.  We’ll be going through all of that here.

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