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June 26, 2024 Message from the Chair

A Call to Call Out Junk Science

Laura Possessky

A Call to Call Out Junk Science

Marvin Anderson spent 15 years in jail, wrongly convicted of crimes he did not commit, until DNA evidence exonerated him. Now serving on the board of the Innocence Project, he offered a troubling perspective at the 2023 Scientific Evidence Conference, hosted by the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, of the devastating costs when the legal system makes poor use of forensic evidence. This past year marked significant anniversaries for both landmark cases addressing forensic evidence standards, Frye v. United States (100 years) and Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (30 years), yet the legal system has come under increasing scrutiny as junk science persists to tip the scales of justice in court proceedings. attorneys must ensure our legal system relies on sound scientific evidence.

This SciTech Lawyer issue strikes at the heart of one of our Section’s essential roles: to ensure responsible use of reliable scientific knowledge in our legal system. Although expert testimony is used to authenticate broadly accepted forensic methods, evidentiary reliability breaks down when the underlying science is, well, junk. Questionable methods may become broadly accepted when fueled by incentives to solve a crime or to win a case. Once acknowledged by courts as relevant and reliable, it can take years, or even decades, to challenge reliance upon these forensic methods by the legal system.

At the inaugural SciTech Spring Meeting in April, Judge Roderick Kennedy, Chair of SciTech’s Scientific Evidence Committee and retired judge of the New Mexico Court of Appeals, united experts working to improve the state of affairs in forensic evidence. JP Jones, from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and Jeff Kukucka, Associate Professor of Psychology at Towson, participated in a panel discussion moderated by Chris Suarez, of Steptoe, discussing the challenges of ensuring forensic methods are reliable and relevant. The panel covered a range of issues and initiatives, including the efforts of the NIST Forensic Science Standards Program since its 2014 formation. A critical takeaway is that there is a significant need to develop and adopt standards to vet existing accepted forensics methods and to test and verify that emerging standards are reliable and effective.

Initiatives to double down on both legal and scientific standards are now more important than ever. On the eve of a Supreme Court decision on the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration, we must carefully weigh the consequences when time-tested frameworks for establishing scientific conclusions may be invalidated by judges and juries.

We are vanguards to ensure our legal system uses science responsibly. Science is a powerful tool that, when used reliably, can promote justice and the public good. As lawyer-scientists, we have an ethical obligation to ensure that evidentiary use of science in legal proceedings is sound and objectively reliable. The SciTech Section represents a range of scientific and technology disciplines that can—and should—offer deep and insightful perspectives on whether scientific methods in forensic evidence make good sense and whether it is good science.

On a separate note, this issue marks my final chair column. I would like to thank all of you for an eventful year (both exciting and full of events!) and your contributions to SciTech’s meaningful impact at the intersection of law and science. See you at the next event!

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Laura Possessky

Corporation for Public Broadcasting Washington, D.C.