Critical Forensic Studies

Roberta Julian, Loene Howes, Rob White

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780429013300
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Jura
• Subtopic: Forensik

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the emerging interdisciplinary field of critical forensic studies. It reviews existing research and scholarship on forensic science from a critical social science perspective, while forging a blueprint for further work in this area. Forensic science has long captured the public imagination, as evidenced by the popularity of many novels, television programmes, and true-crime podcasts. At the same time, its role in the criminal justice system has been the subject of critique from scholars and practitioners in diverse fields. In response, the international forensic science community has become more involved in the scrutiny of its own knowledge and practices in relation to criminal justice objectives.

Moving beyond a discussion of forensic science as a suite of specialised scientific disciplines that aim to provide evidence to the courts, Critical Forensic Studies offers critical insights relevant to a wide range of social actors in the criminal justice system. Core content includes:

• the history and public understandings of forensic science
• the professionalisation of forensic science
• forensic science as a social process
• crime scene examination and forensic intelligence
• experts and evidence in court
• technological advances and human rights
• interdisciplinary knowledge, practice and research

This book is essential reading for forensic and criminal justice practitioners and students across criminology, sociology, forensic science, law, and psychology.

1The theory and practice of critical forensic studies

DOI: 10.4324/9780429505782-1

Introduction

At the intersection of science and law, forensic science is an intriguing field. It has valuable applications as expert evidence in courts, as leads in police investigations, and as forensic intelligence to link a series of crimes. Further, it can be vital in missing persons cases and disaster victim identification. However, assisting the community and contributing to justice using forensic science in these ways is not as straightforward as it may initially seem. This chapter explores some high-profile examples of flawed forensic science, flawed use of forensic science, and consequent cases of wrongful conviction, which raise important questions about the legitimacy of forensic science. These cases and associated questions highlight the need for critical analysis of the ways in which forensic science is used. They provide a rationale for the emergence of forensic studies, a field that takes forensic science as the object of its analysis. This chapter suggests a developing consensus on the need for forensic studies, and argues for a broad, inclusive and multidisciplinary approach to defining its scope. Highlighting contemporary debates about the use of forensic science, the chapter illustrates how forensic studies research aims to contribute to positive social change. It outlines the five key propositions that underpin critical forensic studies and, in so doing, provides the foundation for how we understand what it means to engage in critical forensic studies.

The allure and promise of forensic science

Forensic science, or the application of science to problems of law, is a continuously – and in some instances, rapidly – developing area of enquiry (Peterson, 2015). A multidisciplinary field of applied sciences, forensic science starts with crime scene examination and encompasses a range of traditional pattern-matching techniques (e.g., handwriting, tool mark, and fingerprint examination), complex forensic chemistry and biology (e.g., materials analysis and DNA profiling), and newer technology-related techniques (e.g., recovery of information from mobile phones and computer hard drives, and facial recognition techniques) (Fraser, 2010). Forensic medicine was closely associated with the development of forensic science (Knepper, 2018) and is often considered in tandem with forensic science. In fact, an extensive range of disciplines can fit under the forensic umbrella, with broader conceptualisations of the field extending beyond police and laboratory sciences and forensic medicine to encompass forensic applications of professional expertise such as accountancy and engineering. The term ‘forensic science’, as opposed to ‘forensics’ or ‘forensic sciences’, reflects a unified vision for forensic science, rather than multiple discipline-specific approaches (Roux et al., 2015).

Forensic science can help to associate people, places or substances and can assist in the reconstruction of events. Therefore, it can help to identify victims of disasters, exonerate the innocent and convict the guilty. In recent decades, forensic science has been used increasingly as a decision-making tool in the criminal justice system (Smith et al., 2011). It has most typically been used as evidence in court, where forensic scientists, as experts (unlike lay witnesses), are permitted to give opinions based wholly or substantially on knowledge from their training, study or experience (Odgers, 2012). Forensic science also contributes to police investigations and, relatively recently, it has been recognised that a largely untapped potential exists for forensic science to be used as forensic intelligence within policing, with the aim of identifying repetitions – both in terms of general crime patterns and specific serial crimes – to assist police to target, disrupt and prevent crime more effectively (Casey et al., 2019). In short, forensic science is already firmly entrenched in the criminal justice system and has the potential to become even more prominent as its place in policing is further developed. Accordingly, forensic scientists hold positions of status and responsibility within the criminal justice system.

In a society characterised by the perception of ever-present risks (‘risk society’; Beck, 1992), a tendency exists for members of the public to crave certainty. Forensic science, as portrayed in popular media and fictional accounts (Dioso-Villa, 2015a), offers an element of swiftness and certainty in identifying and convicting offenders and keeping the community safe. However, despite the goal of scientific impartiality, scholars of the sociology of science highlight that there is no ‘value-free’ science (see e.g., Jasanoff, 1993, 2006; Lynch & Jasanoff, 1998). Science is a human endeavour and human decision making is involved at every step of the scientific process – from deciding what to collect at the crime scene, to deciding what to examine in the laboratory, how to analyse and interpret the findings, and how to communicate them to criminal justice practitioners. Moreover, the whole criminal justice process is characterised by human decision making and is therefore subject to human error.

Flawed forensic science?

Case studies of wrongful conviction illustrate the types of errors that can be made in the criminal justice system due to flawed forensic science and flawed use of forensic science within the system. These cases began to emerge in the 1970s and 1980s and certain cases have come to take on national or international significance. Although the cases outlined below are from Australian (state and territory) jurisdictions, they reflect similar issues identified in forensic science internationally (see Case study 1.1).

Case study 1.1 The Splatt case

In December 1977, Rosa Simper, who was 77 years of age, was brutally attacked and murdered in her home in Adelaide, South Australia. Her body was found the next day by her daughter and son-in-law, who lived next door. The offender had apparently removed the wire screen from a window before entering the house. Police found traces of paint and metal at the home and their investigation turned to employees of Wilson’s Engineering Works, a factory that was located diagonally opposite the house. Police collected items of clothing from men who worked at the factory, including a spray painter, Edward Splatt. Three months later, Splatt was arrested and faced a jury trial (Nagy, 1983).

The evidence adduced in the case was entirely circumstantial. The Crown argued that similarities existed between traces of 17 substances that were said to have been found on a bedsheet at the murder scene and Splatt’s clothing. These substances included paint, fibres, foam, sugar and metal spheres. It was argued by the chief forensic officer of Police Technical Services that the mixture of metal and paint on the bedsheet and on Splatt’s clothing was in a ratio of 75:25, whereas the ratio was 25:75 on the clothes of other factory workers. This claim reflected a visual estimation rather than the results of scientific analysis, and its poor logic was refuted by two independent experts. Despite this, Splatt was convicted in 1978 and sentenced to life imprisonment (Nagy, 1983).

From prison, Splatt contacted Stewart Cockburn, a reporter for The Advertiser, who wrote several articles about the case in 1981. The case became a ‘political football’ in the November 1982 state election (Nagy, 1983, p. 16). A Royal Commission was carried out over 192 days, resulting in 19,000 pages of transcript, and costing over $1.5 million – a record at the time. The Royal Commission found that the evidence presented in the original case on traces of paint, fibres and botanical evidence had been substantially inadequate (Davis, 1986). For example, it found that a seed that had initially been associated with an aviary at Splatt’s home was most likely to have come from a biscuit. In short, the forensic investigation had been poor, and evidence of police misconduct emerged in the ways that traces from crime scenes had been collected and selected for laboratory testing (Dioso-Villa, 2015b). Following the Royal Commission, Splatt was found to have been wrongfully convicted and was released from prison. He received financial compensation via an ex gratia (out of grace) payment.

The Splatt case sensitised the Australian public to certain problems and issues in forensic science and its use in the justice system. The Chamberlain case (Case study 1.2) was an even higher profile case of national and international significance.

Case study 1.2 The Chamberlain case

In August 1980, parents Lindy and Michael Chamberlain were on a camping holiday at Uluru (then referred to as Ayer’s Rock) in Australia’s Northern Territory with their two sons and nine-week-old baby daughter, Azaria. While preparing dinner at the nearby barbeque, baby Azaria went missing from the tent, and it appeared that she had been taken by a dingo. Approximately one week later, a tourist found a baby’s jumpsuit, booties and nappy near the base of the rock. An initial coronial inquest in February 1981 concluded that the baby had indeed been taken by a dingo.

However, in November of that year, the Supreme Court quashed the findings of the first inquest. A second inquest began in December 1981 and the coroner committed the Chamberlains to trial – Lindy for murder and Michael as an accessory after the fact. During the ensuing jury trial, flawed forensic evidence was led by the prosecution. For example, a textile expert expressed the opinion that the baby’s jumpsuit had been cut with a pair of scissors rather than by the teeth of a dingo. A British pathologist stated that under ultraviolet light he was able to see traces of a bloody handprint on the jumpsuit. A forensic biologist testified that substantial traces of blood had been found inside the front of the Chamberlains’ car and that these traces contained foetal haemoglobin, present only in infants under the age of six months.

Media coverage of the case was critical of Lindy Chamberlain in particular, compounding suspicion. For example, much was made of the fact that the Chamberlains were members of the Seventh Day Adventist Church and that Lindy Chamberlain did not cry publicly. During the trial, Lindy Chamberlain testified that Azaria had been wearing a matinee jacket on the evening that she went missing; however, it had not been located. The defence called two experts who refuted the presence of foetal haemoglobin. Additionally, the defence called an Indigenous tracker to testify about drag marks that she had seen. However, when the woman’s husband appeared to testify on her behalf – as was culturally appropriate – his testimony was deemed inadmissible because it would be hearsay evidence. Another defence witness, a dingo researcher, was also excluded from giving evidence. In October 1982, Lindy and Michael Chamberlain were found guilty as charged. Lindy Chamberlain was sentenced ...