Here’s yet more proof (as if we needed it) on just how dangerous Jeff Sessions is to the American justice system and to the rights of almost everyone in this country. In late April, under the Trump administration, the charter for the National Commission on Forensic Science was not renewed. This means that the independent commission group of researchers, lawyers, judges, crime lab technicians, scientists and law enforcement officers who worked on trying to reform the field of forensic science and expert testimony are no longer at work. The message: important things like trying to promote scientific validity and improving federal coordination of forensic science are a waste of time and resources in the Trump era. This administration seems to have an aversion to all things scientific. And just like their denial of climate change and facts, this is not good.
Evidence regularly presented in court rooms—such as bite-mark, hair, and lead bullet analysis—that for decades have been employed by prosecutors to convict and even execute defendants are actually incapable of definitively linking an individual to a crime. Other methods, including fingerprint analysis, are less rigorous and more subjective than experts—and popular culture—let on.
But on the witness stand, experts routinely overstate the certainty of their forensic methods. In 2015, the FBI completed a review of 268 trial transcripts in which the bureau's experts used microscopic hair analysis to incriminate a defendant. The results showed that bureau experts submitted scientifically invalid testimony at least 95 percent of the time. Among those cases with faulty evidence, 33 defendants received the death penalty and 9 had been executed. No court has banned bite-mark evidence despite a consensus among scientists that the discipline is entirely subjective. One study found that forensic dentists couldn't even agree if markings were caused by human teeth. Until this month, the National Commission on Forensic Science was the most important group moving forensics into the modern scientific era.
Just think about it. Juries could be sentencing people to death in cases where bite mark evidence is used and yet some forensic dentists might not even agree if the markings are caused by human teeth. How is that even possible? With these kinds of statistics, you’d think the attorney general would be a staunch supporter of trying to advocate for reform in forensic science. But of course, Jeff can’t seem to make up his mind about anything and this issue isn’t an exception. While he supports the use of forensics, he doesn’t seem to believe in regulating local labs or actual science itself.
During his 20-year career in the US Senate, he pushed to increase DNA testing—a bipartisan issue. But when it comes to regulating local crime labs or subjecting forensics to scientific studies, Sessions has been a skeptic. Questions about the reliability of forensic methods irked him because they hurt prosecutors' ability to win convictions based on forensic evidence; calls for more oversight contradicted his desire to see local law enforcement unencumbered by federal oversight or regulation.
How in the world does this make any sense? Just like Trump gets his information from the cable news he watches daily, Sessions is probably getting his information about forensic science from CSI instead of actual experts. Now that Sessions has ended independent scientific review of forensics, experts say that reform is not likely anytime soon. Less than three months in and he’s already on his way to completely destroying our judicial system.