Corrupted courtroom science is the ninth crack in the liberty bell. Bad courtroom science is the tenth crack in the liberty bell.
From www.patrickcrusade.org: “An investigation initiated by the FBI into a former Oklahoma County forensic chemist continues. She has been repeatedly accused of false testimony and shoddy results in her work during the past 15 years. She has been involved in approximately 3,000 cases, including at least 23 cases where defendants were eventually sentenced to death and have either been executed or remain on death row. 11 of those people were executed during the past two years, including Marilyn Plantz. A lawsuit has been filed to re-examine the case of Malcolm Rent Johnson, who was executed in January 2000. On September 25, 2001, the Oklahoma forensic “expert” was fired due to “laboratory mismanagement, criticism from court challenges and flawed casework analysis”, according to Police Chief M.T. Berry. “
Think about it for a moment. One person has the power to ruin the lives of 3000 individuals! One person who doesn’t care about ruining lives can ruin 3000! How much time is that over 15 years? 200 a year! That’s one working day per life wrecked. Eight hours of slip-shod work can ruin a life.
Perverting science simply to get a person in jail defeats the purpose of science. The purpose of science is to discover the truth, not to deceive jurists and judges into grotesquely immoral acts of disproportionate punishment on not only the falsely convicted, but his family, friends, lawyers and the entirety of society that puts so much misplaced trust in the “judicial” system.
The tenth crack in the liberty bell is simply bad courtroom science. Matching hairs, fibers, and the metallic composition of bullets, has been proved to be suspect science. Yet the statistical reliability of evidence is not required by a court as far as I know (this needs to be verified). Without statistics and statisticians, courtroom evidence, presented as science, is fraud – especially when presented to a jury of non-scientists (our peers).