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Jurors want CSI-quality forensic evidence Prosecutors forced to explain lack of DNA, fingerprints
SFGate ^ | 5/29/05 | Jamie Stockwell, Washington Post

Posted on 05/30/2005 11:26:48 AM PDT by wagglebee

Washington -- A Prince George's County, Md., jury would not convict a man accused of stabbing his girlfriend to death because a half-eaten hamburger, recovered from the crime scene and assumed to have been his, was not tested for DNA.

In Washington, a jury deadlocked recently in the trial of a woman accused of stabbing another woman because fingerprints on the weapon did not belong to the suspect. An Alexandria, Va., jury acquitted a man on drug-possession charges in part because a box containing 60 rocks of crack cocaine that he was accused of tossing from his car during a traffic stop was not tested for fingerprints.

Prosecutors say jurors are telling them they expect forensic evidence in criminal cases, just like on their favorite television shows, including "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation." In real life, forensic evidence is not collected at every crime scene, either because criminals clean up after themselves or because of a shortage in resources. Yet, increasingly, jurors are reluctant to convict someone without it, a phenomenon the criminal justice community is calling the "CSI effect."

(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Extended News; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: crimewatch; csi; csieffect; dna; donutwatch; forensicevidence; hollywood; juries; wodlist
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So without even trying, Hollywood is successful in keeping criminals on the street.
1 posted on 05/30/2005 11:26:49 AM PDT by wagglebee
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To: wagglebee

Testing a hamburger for DNA? Seems that it would be hard to get any saliva out of the thing intact.


2 posted on 05/30/2005 11:30:54 AM PDT by Sofa King (MY rights are not subject to YOUR approval.)
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To: wagglebee

After reading this article I'm left with the distinct impression that a great number of Americans have far too much time on their hands, especially when they expect fantasy to become reality. These people should not be allowed to sit on any jury, period.

-Regards, T.


3 posted on 05/30/2005 11:35:06 AM PDT by T Lady (G.W. Bush to Kerry & the MSM: "I've come to settle the Family Business.")
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To: wagglebee

Well, if the cops are too lazy to fingerprint an item when possesion of same is an issue, I sure wouldn't blame Hollywood when the perp walks.


4 posted on 05/30/2005 11:35:27 AM PDT by Squawk 8888 (End dependence on foreign oil- put a Slowpoke in your basement)
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To: Squawk 8888
Well, if the cops are too lazy to fingerprint an item when possesion of same is an issue, I sure wouldn't blame Hollywood when the perp walks.

It's kinda basic, really...in order to prove your case, you've got to prove that item A, be it weapon or contraband, belongs to the defendant. You'd think somebody'd take the time to dust for prints, rather than just expect the jury to take the prosecutor's say-so.

5 posted on 05/30/2005 11:37:56 AM PDT by Oberon (What does it take to make government shrink?)
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To: wagglebee

First, most jurors are not the sharpest knives out of the drawer. Especially in California.

SEcond, as former Law Enforcement, there are a lot of things that you can not do for forensics. For one thing, you never get near as much time to work a case as the TV CSI gang does


6 posted on 05/30/2005 11:39:20 AM PDT by Ramonan (Honor does not go out of style.)
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To: wagglebee

Perhaps you have forgotten the presumption of innocence, and the standard of 'beyond a reasonable doubt', which are enshrined in our law as a way of preventing abuse of state power.

It's easy for a cop to plant a bag of crack at a crime scene, but not so easy to plant one bearing the fingerprints of the supposed owner.

No one is a criminal until convicted as such by a jury of their peers.

If Hollywood is helping to keep prosecutors honest--prosecutors who as agents of the state are far more dangerous to our liberty than a handful of folk given their liberty because the state was not diligent enough in their prosecution--then for once Hollywood is providing a net good to America.


7 posted on 05/30/2005 11:43:01 AM PDT by The_Reader_David (Christ is Risen! Christos Anesti! Khristos Voskrese! Al-Masih Qam! Hristos a Inviat!)
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To: Ramonan
most jurors are not the sharpest knives out of the drawer.

Which is why it's the job of the police to collect as much evidence as reasonably possible, and more importantly, it's the prosecutor's job to explain the the jury why the evidence is sufficient and what expectations are reasonable.

8 posted on 05/30/2005 11:43:04 AM PDT by Squawk 8888 (End dependence on foreign oil- put a Slowpoke in your basement)
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To: wagglebee
In Washington, a jury deadlocked recently in the trial of a woman accused of stabbing another woman because fingerprints on the weapon did not belong to the suspect.

That should have been a straight up acquittal then not a deadlock.If the fingerprints on the murder weapon dont belong to the suspect its a pretty good bet that the suspect is innocent.

9 posted on 05/30/2005 11:44:30 AM PDT by freepatriot32 (www.lp.org)
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To: Squawk 8888
I think the entire jury system should be overhauled.

I think we should have professional jurors who are elected by the people to serve on jury's.
10 posted on 05/30/2005 11:46:48 AM PDT by Nyboe ( if rich democrats really want the rich to be taxed more ... then by all means TAX RICH DEMOCRATS)
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To: Nyboe
I think we should have professional jurors who are elected by the people to serve on jury's.

Because professional politicians have done such a good damn job for us, right?

And it's "juries", not "jury's" - plural, not possessive. Don't make me get the Angry Flower cartoon out.

11 posted on 05/30/2005 11:49:44 AM PDT by Hank Rearden (Never allow anyone who could only get a government job attempt to tell you how to run your life.)
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To: Nyboe

The downside of that is the same as for politicians- anybody who would want such a job probably doesn't deserve it.


12 posted on 05/30/2005 11:52:20 AM PDT by Squawk 8888 (End dependence on foreign oil- put a Slowpoke in your basement)
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To: The_Reader_David
I agree with everything you are saying about the rule of law and the presumption of innocence. However, by your logic, any criminal who is savvy enough to wear gloves goes free. If you talk to prosecutors, they will tell you there is almost never the type of absolute evidence that TV and the movies suggest, thus the term is "reasonable doubt" rather than any shred of doubt.

No one is a criminal until convicted as such by a jury of their peers.

You might want to rethink this. Crimes are committed by criminals, yet many criminals are never caught, the absense of a conviction does not mean the crime did not occur. Additionally, some criminals are neither charged nor convicted, we had one in the Oval Office a few years back.

13 posted on 05/30/2005 11:54:00 AM PDT by wagglebee ("We are ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom." -- President Bush, 1/20/05)
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To: freepatriot32
Good catch!

Now, without being affected in the least by the CSI Penumbra I'd ask next what happened to the person whose prints WERE on the knife? Did the prosecutor bring in any evidence that this was irrelevant?

14 posted on 05/30/2005 12:04:02 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: wagglebee

Here's a related article from Scientific American on the CSI Effect and its role in jury trials.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0008FDFF-100E-1264-8F9683414B7FFE9F&sc=I100322

Crime Scene Instigation
TV superscientists affect real courts, campuses and criminals
By Steve Mirsky


Television's troika of CSI shows--CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CSI: Miami and CSI: NY--arguably presents popular culture's most positive view of scientists since the Professor was engaged in his unfunded better-living-through-coconut-chemistry project on Gilligan's Island. In February, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C., a group of real forensic scientists put the CSIs under the microscope.
The fictional series have inadvertently put pressure on real-life prosecutors. "'The CSI effect' is a term that came into use around 2003, when the show really started to become popular," says trace evidence analyst Max Houck, director of West Virginia University's Forensic Science Initiative. "It represents the impossibly high expectations jurors may have for physical evidence." Prosecutors worry that without having the ironclad physical evidence jurors see on TV, the reasonable-doubt line may be shifting.

Houck pointed to a case in Los Angeles last year featuring a bloody coat. "Jurors were alarmed," Houck says, "because no DNA testing had been done on the coat. Well, the wearer of the coat admitted to being at the murder scene trying to help the victim, so the lab had said there was no reason to test it--he said he was there." According to Houck, the judge made a statement along the lines that "TV has taught jurors about DNA tests but not about when to use them."
Indeed, many people still don't know the ABCs of DNA. A lab may request a sample of a missing person's clothing in order to compare DNA on that clothing to unidentified remains. Dress shirts are particularly good at grabbing skin cells at the tight collar. "We asked for the family to send in dress shirts," recalls Demris Lee of the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory about one case. "And the family sent in his new shirts that were still in packaging. They couldn't believe we wanted his dirty clothes."

Criminals may be feeling CSI's heat--and taking notes. "What I've heard is that it's closely watched in prisons," remarks Richard Ernest, a forensic firearms expert in Fort Worth, Tex. "And prisons become almost like a crime school for certain individuals. They'll look at a particular segment and say, 'So that's how they caught me. Well, I won't make those mistakes again.' "

Instead they'll probably make new ones. "When they try to escape detection from what they see on CSI, they're actually leaving more evidence," Houck contends. "A good example of that is instead of licking an envelope [for fear of providing DNA in their saliva] they'll use adhesive tape. Well, they'll probably leave fingerprints on the tape, and it'll pick up hairs and fibers from the surroundings. So the more effort you put into trying to evade detection, honestly, the more evidence you leave behind."
Another CSI effect is that college kids think it's cool. In 1999 Houck's institution graduated four students with a concentration in forensics. "We're now the largest major on campus," he declares. "If you add all four years together, we have over 400 students." Perhaps their most important lesson is that real life doesn't look like a TV show. Houck tells his students that "it's less about wearing leather pants and driving Hummers than it is about wearing Tyvek jumpsuits and crawling under people's front porches looking for body parts. Honest. I've never worn leather pants in my life."

Houck also has a tough time watching his TV counterparts use analytical tools that don't quite really exist. "We joke that we need to get one of those--that's a damn fine instrument," he says. (The amazing databases employed on some episodes prompted a friend of mine to ask, "Why don't they just ask the computer who did it?") Another show convention that annoys Houck is investigators wandering around dark indoor crime scenes. "They always use flashlights," Houck notes. "I don't know why. I usually just turn the lights on."


15 posted on 05/30/2005 12:05:45 PM PDT by doc30 (Democrats are to morals what and Etch-A-Sketch is to Art.)
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To: Sofa King
Testing a hamburger for DNA? Seems that it would be hard to get any saliva out of the thing intact.

Not if he bought it at the local McDonald's! < rimshot > ;^)

16 posted on 05/30/2005 12:10:26 PM PDT by DCPatriot
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To: Squawk 8888

In one case I had, a 24 year old man was stopped for reckless driving. He acted strangely and smelled of alcohol. He was hyperactive with a flushed face, pupils about 12 mm, and pulse of 120. (Cocaine or Meth).
The County Lab expert testified that the man had a gazillion nanograms of Cocaine in his blood, and a .07
Blood Alcohol content.
The Defendant TESTIFIED-under oath- that he snorted Cocaine three times that day. He had about half a thimble full just before he started driving, and he had put that between his lower lip and his gums.

Two old bluehaired ladies hung the jury. They insisted that the prosecution had not shown that the Defendant "was under the influece of alcohol and/or drugs while driving"


17 posted on 05/30/2005 12:14:46 PM PDT by Ramonan (Honor does not go out of style.)
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To: wagglebee

I was talking with a former prosecutor a couple of weeks ago about the effect of CSI type shows on public expectations. I think there will be growing pressure on state and big city gov't to upgrade crime lab quality. The public thinks CSI is the standard where in most places it's more like high school science class.


18 posted on 05/30/2005 12:35:58 PM PDT by Paine in the Neck
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To: Ramonan
"Most jurors are not the sharpest knives out of the drawer."

I wouldn't make generalizations. We all see the celebrated cases reported on the evening news and listen to the jurors who decide to talk to the media, but are they representative? You need to ask yourselves how the jury pools are selected. Are they from voter registration lists, tax records, driver's license lists, or what? Also, the jurors who talk to the media are going against the advice, but not official restriction, to not talk about what goes on in the jury room among the jurors.

I just finished a period of jury service including service on a jury that I would characterize as well educated, analytical, and quite methodical. The jury pool was pulled from voter registration lists which I suspect leads to a somewhat higher quality because everyone there had to at least take a little extra effort to register.

Also, the area covered by the court affects the jury pool. A high income, professional concentration of potential jurors vs a low income, slum area affects the composition of the jury pool as well. I can't comment on the widely reported techniques of shaping the jury through peremptory challenges by both sides other than to say that I didn't see the resulting jury skewed away from the general characteristics of the large pool called as potential jurors.

19 posted on 05/30/2005 12:43:27 PM PDT by Truth29
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To: wagglebee

If I were a prosecutor sceening a jury, I would ask potential jurors if they watched CSI.

If they answered yes, they would be excused from jury duty, since I wouldn't want anyone that stupid serving on a jury.


20 posted on 05/30/2005 12:46:12 PM PDT by flashbunny
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