Science

The essence of any scientific study involves developing an alternative hypothesis,
devising an experiment or series of experiments to test the accuracy of
the hypothesis (question presented), and finally, carrying out the scientific
experiment so as to yield an unbiased result. Science meets the law only to
the extent that the legal system must look to science to help resolve a legal
dispute. Scientists in today’s world no longer maintain the fiction that all
science is equal. This inequality is often played out in courtrooms throughout
the United States.
 The fundamental paradigm of the judicial system in
America is that science is an open process, collegial in nature, unlike the
legal system, which is adversarial in nature and legal strategies are developed
in secret. The overriding objective of the parties in a legal dispute is to win.
With a scientist, the objective of the scientific endeavor is to reach a correct
result that will withstand scrutiny from fellow scientists who can review the
methodology and examine the data. Science is premised upon observable
phenomena, logical deductions, and inferences that are transparent and open
to scrutiny. The inherently conflicting underpinnings between science and
the law frequently make forensic science controversial and the courthouse an
open arena in which forensic scientists are used as pawns in the resolution of
legal disputes. To complicate the legal process, each of the nonscientist parties
has an interest in the outcome, be it significant sums of money, personal
freedom, or even life itself in cases involving the death penalty. At the center
of legal cases there sits a person who wears a long black robe to whom we
refer as a judge. The judge’s job, usually with the help of a jury, is to keep the
adversarial parties at bay long enough to accomplish the orderly resolution
of the factual questions raised by the warring litigants using applicable law.
The logic of the legal system is further complicated for the forensic scientist
because often conflicting forensic scientific evidence that is generated by the
opposing parties is ultimately submitted to the review and decision of twelve
citizens, known as a trial jury. Those jurors are selected on the basis of each
juror not having any knowledge or understanding of forensic or real-world
science other than that occasional episode of CSI or Forensic Files.
The most common question asked by the legal system of a forensic scientist
is a request to provide proof of identity of an item or person, which is a
component of criminalistics. This area of forensic science involves the association
of an evidentiary item that is typically related to a crime. A forensic
identification has two essential steps: The first step is a comparison between
an unknown evidentiary item and a known item and having the forensic
scientist render a judgment as to whether there is a sufficient concordance to
say there is a “match.” Examples of these comparative sciences include latent
prints located at a crime scene thereafter compared to the known prints of a person, and bullet(s) collected from a body at autopsy compared to test
bullets fired from suspected weapons. The second part to the identification
analysis should give some meaning to the concordance (match) by providing
a scientific statement that would allow the trier of fact, a judge or jury, to
weigh the significance of the matching association and answer a simple question
for the benefit of the trier of fact: What does “match” mean?
A forensic investigation requires a skillful blend of science using both
proven techniques and common sense. The ultimate effectiveness of the scientific
investigation depends upon the ability of the forensic scientist to apply the
scientific method to reach a valid, reliable, and supportable conclusion about
a question in controversy. Overall, science and the law must coexist within
the framework of our judicial system, although each discipline may and often
does have conflicting and competing interests. Any expert who is interested
in the practice of a forensic science specialty must have a clear understanding
not only of the fundamental principles of science, and presumably his or her
chosen field, but also of the applicable legal standards relating to that area of
forensic science; they must know quite a lot about that area of the law.