A two-part documentary titled "When Forensics Fail" aired on MSNBC at 11PM ET on October 18 and October 25. Each one-hour installment was narrated by Lester Holt, the respected anchor for the NBC Nightly News weekend broadcast.

This special investigative series was billed as a look at how errors in forensic science contribute to miscarriages of justice. MSNBC's promotion of "When Forensics Fail" included warnings that "forensic errors are a leading cause of wrongful convictions. Recent discoveries have undermined forensic procedures once considered foolproof and force those in law enforcement to wonder what happens when forensics fail?"

The argument that forensic science is a significant cause of wrongful convictions emanates primarily from within a relatively small fraternity of public policy advocates and lawyers whose momentum has become more impressive than their accuracy.

Crime Lab Report recently visited the website for the Northwestern University Law School Center on Wrongful Convictions. Forensic errors were not even mentioned on its list of factors attributed to the conviction of innocent persons. Instead, eyewitness errors, bad jailhouse informants, and false confessions were cited as the most serious problems threatening the integrity of our criminal justice system.

So when the announcement for MSNBC's documentary first came across Crime Lab Report's news wire, we expected to tune-in to an unfair public excoriation of forensic scientists. Instead, we were pleasantly surprised. The documentary was well-produced, interesting, and fair. Other than its gratuitous promotional teasers, it's only significant flaw was its name.

Observant and knowledgeable viewers should have noticed that most of the flawed forensic tests that plagued the cases summarized by Lester Holt were not even remotely typical. The examination of a bite-mark, the identification of anti-freeze in a blood sample, and the hunch-based interpretation of a fire-pattern are highly unusual and rarely performed in most forensic testing laboratories. With a bit more legwork and research, MSNBC would have recognized that these kinds of tests deserve additional scientific scrutiny and technical review - especially when they are likely to carry significant weight in a criminal trial.

Additionally, in most of the cases presented by MSNBC, suspicions about the accuracy of scientific tests were made clear prior to trial - even by other forensic experts called by defense attorneys to assist in evaluating the evidence. In other words, the system was trying desperately to employ its own safeguards to prevent grave injustices. But in spite of these warnings, stubborn prosecutors went forward without checking to make sure that the scientific results upon which they were depending weren't bogus.

Crime Lab Report was particularly disturbed by the conviction of Ricky Jackson in a case investigated by the Upper Darby Police Department in Pennsylvania. Jackson, whose ordeal caught the attention of 60 Minutes correspondent Leslie Stahl in 2004, was incriminated during the investigation of a brutal murder when his fingerprints were matched to evidence prints collected at the crime scene.

The match to Jackson's fingerprint was executed by a sergeant with the Upper Darby Police Department, which does not operate an accredited crime laboratory - another critical point that MSNBC failed to mention. The concerns of Ricky Jackson's defense attorney regarding the sergeant's competence were validated before trial when two experienced and credentialed examiners conclusively disagreed with the identification. To Ricky Jackson's amazement, the trial went forward anyway.

MSNBC should have named its documentary "Blind Science / Failed Justice" to underscore the danger of disrespecting the complexities of scientific evidence. Unfortunately for viewers, MSNBC opted to seduce its audience with a more scandalous title that openly contrasts with TV viewers' ongoing love-affair with forensic science.

What is so disappointing, however, is that America's journalists repeatedly miss one golden opportunity after another to expose the more dangerous and pervasive problem that exists in our criminal justice system.

The desire and pressure to win often corrupts the efforts of trial attorneys to seek the truth. Both prosecutors and defense attorneys succumb to this temptation. And when they do, the system is prevented from exposing bad evidence and bad experts.

In the days before forensic science, these kinds of adversarial checks and balances were critical to ensuring that the truth would ultimately emerge from even the most conflicting circumstances. Judges and juries could quietly observe the proceedings before them to see if adequate evidence of incrimination was presented. Eventually, the facts would reveal themselves from within this fog of debate.

But now, we are learning with increasing clarity that science is more likely to be misused or abused in a system where those embroiled in combat are not entirely committed to seeking the truth. The vast majority of forensic scientists routinely demonstrate uncanny professionalism when caught in this legal crossfire. And as the judicial and legal systems have grown more and more dependent upon science, they have also failed to create and nurture an environment that maximizes the impact and reliability of scientific evidence. This has to change.

Crime Lab Report believes that if our adversarial system of justice had a more effective pre-trial mechanism for more fairly and competently evaluating the reliability of scientific evidence, the mistreatment of our fellow citizens as portrayed by MSNBC would happen very infrequently.

Professor Roger Koppl is the director of the Institute for Forensic Science Administration at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, New Jersey. He has openly argued that laboratory test results must be validated with institutionalized redundancies. "Redundancy is common in life," he wrote in December 2007. "But forensic science-a lynchpin of the justice system-has a curious lack of the type of redundancies that would reduce catastrophic error."

The viability and necessity of Professor Koppl's recommendations for across-the-board replication of forensic laboratory tests is debatable. But in the meantime, it could provide a solution that helps mitigate the risks imposed by more unusual or exotic forensic tests.

Ballistics, fingerprint identification, DNA analysis, and drug testing, to name a few, are stable disciplines for which professional standards have been established and refined. Experts in these areas are held reasonably accountable by their peers through accreditation, certification, codes of ethics, and other peer-driven mechanisms. Just an importantly, the natural competition for professional credit and distinction among scientists in such communities provides a compelling disincentive for scientists to employ flawed methods or draw inappropriate conclusions. This self-correcting mechanism was eloquently explained by political economist Brian Loasby in 1989 and revisited by Professor Thomas Leonard at Princeton University in 2002. As Dr. Loasby wrote:

"Just as the market rewards knowledge which enables someone to offer goods and services which customers wish to acquire, so the reputational system rewards those who produce new ideas which others can put to use: and if the goods or ideas are unwanted or defective, they will be ignored or criticized."

Conversely, strange or uncommon practices such as bite-mark and lip-print comparisons are orphan disciplines that have little or no community oversight of their own. Although scientists who occasionally work in these disciplines are capable of producing reliable results, their work must be subjected to the most rigorous scrutiny before being presented to a jury in a criminal trial. To not do so in a case with heavy consequences for the defendant is dangerous. To not do so in a death-penalty case is unforgivable.

One thing is certain. Our justice system's respect for science has not caught up with its reliance on it. Like a sharp knife, forensic science is almost always a valuable and reliable tool. But if it is not treated with an appropriate degree of respect, it can cut to the bone.

The real story was right under its nose, but MSNBC missed it entirely.


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