this can't possibly turn out badly

[dhex]

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/tracking_crooks_is_shoe_in_bUtY0DNgpZ5caltDgwLeqL

[FortNinety]

Jesus Christ that's fucking stupid. I mean, seriously.

[dmauro]

"Hell, we'll just settle for 'if it walks like a duck.'"

[Fitz]

Jesus Christ that's fucking stupid. I mean, seriously.

From a crime scene reconstruction perspective, no, not at all.

[isfet]

if shoes are outlawed only outlaws will have shoes

[dhex]

in the future people on the lam will go to underground cobblers to have their tread patterns altered.

edit: i wonder if this will fuel the trend of CSI fans getting dropped from juries? (because real-life forensics is far less of an exact science than it's sold as; the discrediting of bite mark recognition is just a more dramatic recent change.)

[Fitz]

Are you thinking about the fellow who was faking bite mark material?

[dhex]

no, i was thinking of the national academy of sciences report on forensics that came out earlier this year and which is conveniently not available online unless you want to drop 50 bucks on a pdf file. the takeaway was that bite mark material is useful for investigations but not sure enough to actually admit as evidence, despite it having been done so for a while now.

this is probably true of a lot of forensics - or more accurately, of forensic practitioners. particularly in states where they have a cozy relationship with prosecutors or are understaffed/overburdened with autopsies/cases. (deliberately or unintentionally)

though that guy should burn in hell for sure:
http://www.theagitator.com/2009/02/19/video-shows-mississippis-bite-mark-expert-michael-west-using-a-dental-mold-to-create-bite-marks-on-a-corpse-implicates-steven-hayne-for-perjury/

manufacturing evidence is a whole 'nother thing, of course.

[Fitz]

It's an annoying interface but the full doc is readable at

http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12589#toc

The biggest gripe I have seeing the issues treated in fiction is the idea that individuation is possible. With hard tissue (bone) damages, like saw marks, the closest you can get to is general class of what was used to create an effect. With soft tissue marks it is a much bigger crap-shoot as the shape of injuries are effects by a lot more than just the implement used to make them, from bite marks to stab wounds. Things just aren't that fool proof.

Nation wide there is a general lack of rigorous qualifications for doing Forensic work.  The most obvious thing to have well regulated at to a high standard, autopsy, varies between Medical Examiners who have MDs and Coroner systems where pretty much anyone can have the gig (it's a hold over from Barber-Surgeon days). The more specialized stuff is almost completely unregulated. This leaves local "experts" with web-search level knowledge of how to do something collecting evidence and doing analysis.

Some of the court room issues, especially the attempt to absolutize equivocal data, comes back to my gripe about scientific illiteracy. Trying to explain that non-absolute certainly doesn't necessarily qualify as reasonable doubt is tough to do if your Jury is full of people who consider say Geology to be subject to reasonable doubt.

[FortNinety]

BTW, I am a BIG fan of technology being used in such an instance, but the major problem, as it's been explained to me by a forensic dude I once knew, is how much of what's out there is far from exact, as already noted. And that it's going to take years for a lot of tech that's being proposed... even some of the tools and methods being used today... still need R&D time (and that if something that's not totally perfect blows up in people faces, it just sets everything back, perhaps permanently).

... Though it could be argued that deploying methods in the wild is the very best kind of testing one can asked for, which is fine if its used within reason and with sufficient restrictions. But we all know such stuff never happens. Hence my gut reaction; as much as I don't have a raging hard-on against the NYPD, I can easily see it going awry. Then again, they did catch that rapist near my neck of the woods with DNA, so what do I know.

[dhex]

the coroner system was really meant and created as a branch of the county executive system, rather than as an independent or objective third party. a problematic origin, i think.

speaking of scientific illiteracy:
http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/09-09-23#feature

[Fitz]

Come on we all know those guys are just a front for Big Science, which itself is a front group for Big Reality.

And Big Reality is exactly what we need to abolish.

[dhex]

the flu shot stuff is really scary if you have absolutely no idea how inoculation is supposed to work, i guess. humans have only really been doing it for 300+ years, after all.