Testing a hamburger for DNA? Seems that it would be hard to get any saliva out of the thing intact.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
People can define themselves as to intelligence. Definitely those that can't separate fiction from reality have no business being on juries.
Not in any case I'm involved with.
The biggest problem with shows like CSI is not that time is telescoped by a factor of 100, sometimes. It's that certain things that seem to take a few minutes to resolve, find, whatever, are not possible at all... yet.
Of course, that reality has no effect whatsoever on the shallow end of the gene pool.
Well, I agree with the hamburger acquittal. They just assume the hamburger in the house is his? Not exactly compelling or even reasonable evidence. The others I am not sure about; there could be other reasons no DNA was found etc.
http://www.fija.org
Yeah, and if I were on the jury I'd wanna know how come it took the LEOs more than an hour to arrest the bad guy. Must be because not all the CSI folks have a Hummer to drive around in.
If the prospect of being tried by a jury of your peers isn't enough to keep one on the straight and narrow....
No more convicted "ham sandwiches".
Michele Nethercott, a public defender in Baltimore: "While undoubtedly there's this 'CSI' effect, there might also be more awareness because of the many recent DNA exonerations and the problems with eyewitness testimony," she said. "Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when DNA came on the scene, you really needed a hearty sample, like a quarter-size. Now we're talking nanograms. ... You can swab a drinking glass and get saliva cells, and so these days, it's inexcusable if those things aren't tested."
Of course she would think this way. And she would expect it even if the crime were committed on the 50 yard line at the Super Bowl in front of a million witnesses
ping