Item — HN Reader

The tone of this thread is leaning to "forensics evil, government lackeys out to get the little guy".

In the USA, all sides can call and rely on their own forensics. There is no government mandated & approved single-source-of-truth (with some minor exceptions).

> Forensic labs and companies are expert witnesses with black box processes and the incentive to protect the authority of their profession.

This statement is at minimum an extreme generalization. Forensic field is a very large field, with many government and private "forensicators".

There are no "black box processes". The very word "forensic" is based on presenting in full view, front of the fact finders (jury & judges usually).

How deep this gets dug into depends on the fact finders and attorneys.

In all court cases the forensic examiner can be called to demonstrate with extreme nuance how they performed the procedures. Any tools used are can be requested to be examined, including software. Vendors that I have worked with all have experts on staff specifically to appear in court and detail the inner workings of their tools.

Not only tools, processes, and environments, but the examiner can be drilled on their experience, education, degrees, previous cases, failures, etc. They do call it "voir dire" for a reason.

This does not negate the fact that there are some bad apples, bad prosecutors, and bad judges.

8 comments

> There are no "black box processes". The very word "forensic" is based on presenting in full view, front of the fact finders (jury & judges usually).

You're wrong.

When the defendant can't afford an expert witness then the defendant is literally shut out from being able to understand the technology involved.

Good luck proving to a jury made up of non-technical people how thread timing problems cause math problems in DNA analysis without an expert witness.

Good luck getting an expert witness to testify to that when the source code is hidden behind a black box "company trade secret".

> In the USA, all sides can call and rely on their own forensics

Ah, not quite.

More accurately: "all sides can call and rely on their own forensics _if they can afford it_"

In this country we _say_ that everyone has the right to an attorney, but that doesn't extend to expert witnesses.

This means forensic evidence becomes a _phenomenal_ tool for targeting the little guy, or the lower classes, while conveniently providing hooks for the more wealthy defendants to escape the system.

Sorry but forensic ”expertise” in the court room has always been laughable. In ”full view of the judge and jury” means absolutely nothing when these people are completely scientifically illiterate and defer to the so called expert who has a financial incentive to help the prosecutor. There’s an entire industry of people who make their livings by reliably testifying to the guilt of defendants and then being compensated for their “expertise.” They just need to be paraded as experts and how would a layperson be expected to know any better? The quality of defense in the American justice system has everything to do with who can afford to pay for it. I could cite a hundred sources but here’s a small sample...

[0] https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/03/reversing-legacy-jun...

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30447642/

[2] https://theconversation.com/how-corruption-in-forensic-scien...

[3] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/09/07/trial-by-fire

> There are no "black box processes".

Do you know how much of the fingerprint match process is left up to the judgement of the examiner? You can't get much more "black box" than another person's brain. Last time I checked (several years ago), tool mark analysis was still without objective foundation. Also... bitemark analysis - that was a thing.

> In the USA, all sides can call and rely on their own forensics.

... to the extent their financial resources allow.

...which can be extremely different between parties leading to EXTREMELY biased outcomes.

Exactly.

I think your way of writing it is the the best expressed.

My experience is the following testimony: "i put the following parameters to the following program and this was the result.".

Potentially explainig why the given pareters were chosen.

> Any tools used are can be requested to be examined, including software.

Out of curiosity, if this is a common occurrence that is willfully obeyed by all vendors and parties involved. Could you shed some light on why this vendor is resisting?

No, it is not common but does happen. There are several cases on drug testing, DNA, bite mark, and software that comes to mind. Scientifically well established processes, tools, etc. are rarely called up.

Bite mark was a big deal in the industry because it turns out, it is not so unique and the methodologies developed were weak.

My personal opinion why the are resisting? They are resisting because they are bottom dwellers. Forensicators whom I associate with, tool vendors, and I understand that we have to share knowledge. I dare say, we are the most open source scientific knowledge industry.

This is not because of some altruistic reason, but because tomorrow they can be called on to explain.

There are several comments regarding that if one cannot pay for an opposing forensic investigation, then forensics is a black box.

Either you are moving the goal post, or I am to donnish.

Let's agree that it is scientifically not a black box, but some may not be able to pay for such service.

There were suggestions of nationalizing, centralizing or governing forensics and just have one, unbiased working for the courts.

This diametrically opposed to the problem pointed out by many where prosecutors will use specific labs because they return more positives. If the prosecution and the forensicator work for the same employers, how is that prevent further erosion of this problem?