WH panel raises questions about forensics used in criminal trials

A White House panel is calling into question the validity of the forensic science commonly used in criminal trials.

{mosads}A draft of a report that the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology is to expected publish later this month questions the use of firearm, bite-mark, hair, footwear and tool-mark analysis — all commonly employed in criminal trials.

“It has become increasingly clear in recent years that lack of rigor in the assessment of the scientific validity of forensic evidence is not just a hypothetical problem but a real and significant weakness in the judicial system,” reads the draft.

President Obama asked for the review last year.

“No final version of the report has been produced,” a spokeswoman for the panel, which plans to discuss the report Thursday and release it “in the coming weeks,” told the Wall Street Journal.

The draft said that many of the common analyses were not scientifically valid or had not received the proper scrutiny required to determine “whether evidence is based on reliable principles and methods.”

The council recommended that science-based federal agencies evaluate the forensic analysis in order to determine if the methods are “foundationally valid.”