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Forensics Roundup

By Steve Hall

"US judge urges skepticism on forensic evidence," is the title of a report in today's Boston Globe written by Jonathan Saltzman.?CSI?? may make for gripping television, but US District Court Judge Nancy Gertner says forensic evidence isn?t everything it?s cracked up to be.In a move that some legal scholars said may be the first by a federal judge, Gertner has ordered defense lawyers and prosecutors not to assume that evidence routinely accepted in the courts for decades is reliable. Defense lawyers, she wrote, should vigorously challenge fingerprints, bullet identification, handwriting, and other trace evidence, and prosecutors should be prepared to show it is valid.?In the past, the admissibility of this kind of evidence was effectively presumed, largely because of its pedigree ? the fact that it had been admitted for decades,?? Gertner wrote in a March 8 order...continue to full post

Full post as published by StandDown Texas Project on March 29, 2010 (boomark / email).