Prosecutors are whining because juries are more skeptical and demand higher-qaulity evidence to convict:
http://www.wtop.com/index.php?nid=25&sid=234532
Baltimore Feeling the 'CSI Effect'
Updated: Sunday, Jul. 25, 2004 - 1:48 PM
BALTIMORE (AP) - In Hollywood, the crime, investigation and trial are all handled in an hour. Complete with DNA, fingerprints and other irrefutable scientific evidence of guilt - voila - cases are handled from start to finish, even with commercial interruptions.
In Baltimore, jurors are expecting that, prosecutors say, and they're not getting it.
Prosecutors call it: "the CSI effect".
It's named after CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, the No. 1 rated show in the country, reaching nearly 30 million viewers weekly, according to Nielsen Media research
On the basis of my experience as a former Baltimore juror, I think this whining is something of a whiff of desperation by prosecutors who want to blame their failures on things other than their incompetence or the lousy case they were assigned. But I gues it shouldn't surprise mt that the SCLM is running this story.
Maybe this "CSI effect" happens sometime, but it sure wasn't the reason why our lury voted to acquit.
Full Disclosure: I don't watch "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," as I don't even own a functional TV set. However, a couple of decades ago, I was a mild fan of "Quincy," the show about the medical examiner who would wrap up the most difficult crime investigations within the time constraints of TV drama.
Just to remind readers who missed my diary on the subject, in the case I tried, the essential evidence the prosecutor presented us was a single eyewitness testimony (the victim), whose critical testimony was not even corroborated in the Police records, which included the victim/witness's statement. Add to that that the defendant had a reasonable alibi, corrobroated by two credible witnesses, and, let's face it, you don't need the lack of CSI-style wizardry as a reason to acquit.
However, forensics were mentioned, and the prosecutor did make an attempt to pooh-pooh the value of solid forensic data, in this case fingerprints. And though I'm willing to accept the prosecutor's point that it's not always possible to get good prints, in this case, testimony revealed that the Crime Lab was called to make prints, yet no report of the Crime Lab's findings was in the detective's case file. Conclusion: either the detective is very disorganized and keeps lousy files (not a good trait for a detective), or the Crime Lab is disorganized, and can't get reports out to the field. An alternative tinfoil-hat conspiracy theory is that the Crime Lab did get prints, but that they didn't match those of the defendant, but I think that's unlikely.
Instead of whining and complaining about clueless jurors (who are, after all, approved by the prosecuting attorney), perhaps prosecutors should be more discriminating about they cases the decide to try. And the cops need to get themselves better organized in the way they deal with evidence. I can assure you that when our State's attorney is up for re-election, the performance of her deputy that I witnessed will be a factor in my vote.
